ANTI-HITLER PLOT STILL MANY ABLE DEMOCRATS ELIMINATED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP70-00058R000100060050-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 16, 1998
• Sequence Number: 50
• Content Type: NSPR

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41
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CPYRGHT
ble Deinocrats Eliminated
r,;741..5
By Ernest S.(-Pisko
?
Staff Writer of The Christina Science Mon tor
tie
orae
e 1th anniveraar of the unsuccessful
s.;bomb attempt on Hitler, as the result of
oWhich, according to an official tabulation,
fl? 'persons were executeclyt
e will be speeches and, newspaper articles
'nently featuring the..),names of the three
of the bomb plot: ,forkper' Chief q the
ozwt Ref COT.40efinindwig Beck:. Col. Claus
cnt,,Sehenic von Stauffenberg; and former Lord
yor of Leipzig, Dr. Carl Goerdeler, ?
Urthat does pot mean that all, or most, Ger-
s'are aware of the significance of this event
41 years ago. Nor does ,it mean that those who
'Ware of It are all of the same opinion. ,
? ti?tte the contrary. While the majority of Ger-
ans, appear fairly well-informed on th ^ main
? s-of .the `bomb plot, most of them seem in-
_ed tn consider it under the angle of whether
,^.i..-was justified and patriotic or unjustified and
mina/:
'is safe to say that more Germans tend to-
ad the former interpretation than toward the
-latter, But the number of those who condemn
'bomb plot as criminal and liken it to the
egendary stab-in-the-back of the. German front
In -World War I is by no means negligible.
?fter 1918,, German generals alleged that a re-
' *In the "hinterland" had forced them to
ter peace.) Most of them are Armer Nazis
ariatic nationalists: but their 1;an,ks also .in-
. 0?n.on-Nazis of high ethical staridards who
olg. assassination under any circumstances.,
est and Trial Sought
ere was, for instance, that young officer to
MZColonel Stauffenberg spoke of the necessity
ViVinate Hitler and who reacted sharply with:
'0,0at,- you ca:riot solve a deep historical crisis
d411 a bullet."
A
r. Goerdeler himself, who had done more than
else in building up the German anti-
esistancd, in keeping it going and provid-
,with a program, counseled to the last
Hitler's assassination. He wanted him
. and tiled. He felt that such a trial in
' Vat' German people would get a first,
lac'Tiewt.of Nazi criminality and corrup- ?
0 be the most effective means to make
ons of 'deluded Hitler supporters realize
take and, by the same token, to restore
ex?geod name abroad.
lie six months Dr. Goerdeler spent in
er'his arrest in A,p.gust, 1944, he kept ,
g th, question whether ? the failure of
was not a just punishment for violation
ixth Commandment,
aa study of the chief sources on German
resistance shows that a combination of
.Iiicsil, moral, and practical factors deter,
&he extension of Hitler's rule and of the
rfer another 10 months.
-
kt!',Ang
? Stle5',04
,
aoto-
under the excuse that he had to take a tele-
phone call from his Berlin office.
But while he waited outside the bunker for
the explosion, one of the officers inside the
. bunker' shifted the bine/ case so that it wkiS' now
at a point farther removed from Hitler. This ac-
cidental shift, together with the thickness,of the
oaken table top an I the fact that the wooden
walls of the conference bunker were hurled
away tinder the force of the explosion and'Ihus
reduced the blast impact, saved Hitler and' Most
of the others present.
The brief case shifting was only the last' in a
series of moves that contributed to the thwart-
ing of the bomb attempt. Perhaps equally4 not
more, decisive was that the July 20 conference
took place at the lightly built Rastenburg bunker
instead, as originally planned at Hitler's con-
crete bunker at l*chtesgaden, where the- blast
effect . would have, .been enormously greater.
Transfer of theFihrer's headquarters 'ram
Berehtesgaden to tenburg had taken place
unexpectedly a few days before July 20 on ac-
count of the Soviet advance toward East Prussia.
Soviet forces, on July 20, stood only 100 miles
from Rastenburg.
?
'Valkyrie' Orders Delityed
:.Earlier in.July Colonel Stauffenberg had twice
gone ?"..to. Berchtesgaden with the bomb in his
brief case, Both times he had to return with the
bomb. Unused.' On July 11, Himmler had -failed
to attend the conference, and since the inten-
tion, was to kill Hiller, Himmler, and Goring at
the: same ' time, Colonel Stauffenberg; did not
activate the fuse. On July 16, Himinler, and
Goring were present, but Hitler left the' con-?
ference room almost immediately after he had
entered it.
Mere mechanical factors, however, cannot be
held solely.responsible for the failure of the at-
tempt.
It also is evident that despite Hitler's escaping
almost unscathed from the attempt, the plot still
; might have stleceeded. Even if unable to over-
the, Nail regime it could have caused so
rii'ffeh internal -.unrest that front-line resistance,
at least on the western front, would have ceased
and the war have ended much earlier and with
much less of Germany destroyed.
Far more decisiVe for the Outcome than the
Mechanical mishaps at Hitler's headquarters was
the strange mental atmosphere in the 4orrner
War Ministry building at Berlin's Bend1erstrasgd3 '
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?sr.' OlotS6 s 11141E11' 4:111.4 l.0,1,1:1UJI,
t
P400 rtart n tost 4 of the, others present. ' ?, . ,
l'OteiCtile n ' ancer phiS' etreit t ' .' The 'brief ease shifting 1,:vas only, the la KIn a
0. r'eloes t Mean, WO 'these wird Sziet of mcgiAltzitig,le3st lAthw ' .70,,
a ZegjakPPA-VVP4Nre, 'gale war tW'Ite July 20 con enceer '
earned on thl mait1 took- place at' the- lightly hullt Rastenburg ,binlokiv.
c a, ,i the anile .of. whether?- crete bunker at es3aden, where the blast%
mit oit of them seem in ,.L ", ,Instead ,:',as origillY Planned at Hitler $ , e
lepjiistifitil 'alici Patr otic or ur4t!stified'andj.i.:1 effect QWould hav :- ' Pdormouily greater. ?
27'st:.a'feltO' -L.; that 'more Germans tpnd to- " ''.'B , 'erchiesgaden to tenhIng had ;taken place
Transfer of the bren51 ' headquarters from '
ifirelo)inter 'interpretation!' than toward ,theex
pectedly a few days hdf ore July 20 on ac-
,But the number',, those who condemn .,,,6,?Oloriun o
t f the Soviet tow
toward East Prnssia.
bornh?PIot, as criminal:and liken it ' to ;the "Soviet forces, on July 20, stood only 100 miles
/Wary,' stab,irit'thel-back -of, .th&German'front - from, Rastenburg, .. ,
odd 'War '1 is by no means negligible. ; - " - '
r ,1918,,German generals alleged that a re- 'Valkyrie-Orders Deliyed
the "hinterland" had forcp4 them:?to ,
.?eace.) Most Of them, are er,Aazis ?' Aarliefit-July, ColonenStauffenberg had twice
c nationalists; but their ;r alscrtinn? ? one,a4?,;B?erclifesgaden With the bond; in his
o -Nazis". of high ethical 4s ards ?-wil
4Saassination under any cirnitmstance4 gJet *eve. Both 4imes he had to return, with the
,?';',.:1 '0 - ' t'''?-'i/.' - lkomh,, tmu d.; On July 11,'Ilimmler had failed
;Trial Sought to attend e. conference, and since the inten-
, . ? , , t1o4was tp:kill Hider, Mr:Miler, and Gdring? at '
re was.'. for instance, that young. officer 'to:: ,,
thel,same?time, Colonel Stauffenberg( did not
Pate Hitler and who reacted sharply with: , Gdring. were present, but Hitler left' the; con-?
,,.
' ' 4'0'"not solve a deep histexicalcrisis I. ference room almost immediately after he had
4)4-let"' ' '? ' '....? -,a '0?'? ,"1\tere nychanical factors, however, cannot he
'' entereeit. ? , .
oerd4is himself, who had done more then
, ' held ' 'lel 'responsible for the failure of the ats
1st ''4,111 keeping it ''' -.14 and proyld- f t .It alsg.is ev dent that 'despite Hitler's escaping
eiseA.huilding up tgriCkerman?anti- , erript t
rogram,;counsele 'to the leap - ost ;unapa ed from the attempt, the plot still
assassination. He wanted: hi Chave' eeeded. Even if unable 'to over,.
ed. ,He felt that ,suth 'a trial, in 4w the;Ri.. 'regime it could havecaused sii
ch internal est that ,front-line resistanc
anIpeople would gef a first, tit least on the, estern front, would'have cease
e 0 most 'effective,means to make much less of Germany destroyed., *,.. ' ''1'
etNaghinkinality and corrtip4A*"afid the war have ended much earlier anyith ?
otde?luded Hitler supporters 'realize Far more decisitie for the- outcome tlf it the
end, by the same token, to restore mechanical mishaps at Hitler's headquarters was
Q0d name abroad.,, , ' ?
le'six -months Dr. Goerdeler spent in the strange mental atmosphere in the former ,,_
er'lds:arrest in Ang.ng,11944?kielstpt
th, frnleition whetherlihejaidurel'of ,
waenot a just punishment?for violation
ixth Commandment.
study of the chief sources on German
resistance shows that a combination of
ical;? moral, and practical factors deter-,
IMPAKTOtte
'extension of -Hitler's rule and of the
another 10 months.
olonel Stauffenberg spoke of the necessity ,, ?activate the fuse. On July 16, Himmler and
er Shifted Brief Case
,,ievokto
`.`,19%114,, 6. mechanical side there'was the shifting
oftalenel Stauffenberg's brief case in which the
as hidden. Colonel Stauffenberi, attend-
the' Fiihrer Conference, July 20, had placed
r the heavy oaken table, covered with
maps over which Hitler was leaning.
ininutes before the chemical fuse was to
ueir.off the explosion, the colonel left the room
War Ministry building at Berlin's Bendlers ras
'klidetitiMentaitted,Locked ,40t,q.varr
For the conspirators, assembled there around
Colonel General Beck, first believed that Hitler
had been killed. According to their plans they
-should have immediately issued the so-called
"Valkyrie" orders, the prear anged signal for ar-
resting government members, disarming SS
units, and seizing radio stations and other com-
munication centers.
-Yet instead of prompt action there was hesi-
tation. Dispatch of the "Valkyrie" orders was
held up for three hours.
Why did this happen?
Why did the group of determined, brilliant,
and highly traioed Prussian officers fail to act?
-All the documents that had been drawn up for
"the day" remained locked in desk drawers and
safes?Colonel General Beck's' "Appeal to the
German Nation"; the Cabinet list; the program of
the new government to replace the Nazi regime;
the indictment against the Nazi criminals; the
order to open the concentration camps; the bill
for indemnification of the Jews; the pledge for
restoration of justice and civic rights.
At the critical moment courage deserted the
conspixators?not the courage to sacrifice them-
selves but the courage to act boldly.
Prof. Gerhard Ritter, in his recently published
book, "Carl Goerdeler and the German Resist-
ance" (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt),
quotes Col. Gen. Franz Haider, successor to Col-
onel General Beck as chief of staff in 1938; as
remarking once: "The German Army is no Balkan
army; it is not used to indulging in officers'
plots."
Indeed, one has to go back to the Thirty
Years War and Count Wallensteir to-find a Ger-
man Army leader who was killed by his own
subordinates, and to the 'Napoleonic wars and
York von Wartenburg to find a German general
who disobeyed the orders of his chief of state.
Consciously the conspirators had freed them-
selves from the ingrained habit of obedience. But
it is safe to assume that in many of them there
still were voices that whispered and warned?
and slowed them down.
Conspirators in a Vacuum
_Another inhibition must have come from the
oath they had taken.to Hitler after President
Hindenburg's passing in 1934. Again, rationally
they had explained away the validity of the
oath. As Capt. Axel von dem Bussche declared,
the oath was no longer binding since it had been
broken "a thousand times" by Hitler's criminal
actions. Yet it is known from testimonies that
many of the conspirators grappled until the end
. Goerdeler
,(40,103.eLvoli Staiiffenberg
lasooland.Press
their Oath however gravely might
'--Vallirgii"c'enselences about t ?
deceived by the man to whom they had pledged
themselves.
Apart from 'these moral scruples, the con-
spirators were far too intelligent not to sense the
heavy odds against the' success of their under-
taking. There probably was not one among-them,
including fiery Count Stauffenberg, who did not
? at one time or another realize that they were
working almost in a vacuum. Though their 'inner
circle was composed of representatives of the
armed forces as well as of civilian groupsof
Conservatives, Liberals,. and Socialists, as well
as of Protestants and Roman Catholics?the
Germans at large, whether in or out of uniform,
were ignorant of their efforts. And the conspira-
tors must have been painfully aware that the
majority el the people would have opposed them,
had they known of the conspiracy.
People Deluded by Goebbels
This applied in equal; measure to soldiers and
civilians. Though a handful of -marshals and a.
score of generals were resolved to overthrow the
Nazi regime, more marshalaand many-more gen-
erals took a wait-and 'attitude,' ready to
join with the winner, while a considerable num-
ber remained loyal to kllitler, And the -farther
down one went in the ?ranks?to' ,the
majors,
captains, lieutenants more unconditional
supporters of Hitler onetleund.
Among ,of
civilian, population, there was
hardly anyone?outside the concentration damps
?who thought of revolution. The mass of the
German people were ignorant of the precarious
military situation, still 'deeply impressed by the
successes of the first three years of the war, de-
hided by the Goebbels propaganda and unshaken
in their belief in Hitler's "genius."
- Beck, Goerdeler, and :Stauffenberg, the chief ?
figures in the conspiracy, tried to persuade them-'
selves and their friendOhat the power of their
proclamations, coupled With full disclosure of the
Nazi crimes, would swing -the majority of the
Germans over to theft'i 'side: But one wonders
whether they must not pave had second thoughts
about their ability to tear, their compatriots away
from the "Pied Piper" in, the brown shirt.
Another thought mu.have been even more
disturbing to them. Th-was- the- problem how
the Allies would react to an overthrow of the
Hitler regime; whether it would enable the new
German government to liquidate the war under
terms more favorable than "unconditional sur-
render." Both Dr. Goerdeler and Colonel Stauf-
fenberg were optimistic about the outcome. But
all the evidence indicates. that their optimism
was unfounded.
The Missing Echo
Documentary evidence makes this one of the
saddest chapters in the 'history of the German
resistance movement. It is a chapter that ought,
to be headed "The Echo That Was Not There"?
the echo, ihat is from across the Channel and
across the Atlantic.
From the beginning of a serious anti-Hitler
opposition, in the spring of 1938, until July, 1949,
resistance members risked their lives and took
the odium of committing "Landesverrat"
(treason against the country) in order to keep
Britain and later on the United States informed
of their plans, their aims, and their activities.
They made superhuman efforts to show that
"Nazi" and "German" were not identical terms;
that there were no issues outstanding between
Germany and the rest of the world that could
not be settled in a civilized manner once the
Nazis had been eliminated. Time and again,
the leaders of the conspiracy pleaded with Lon-
don and Washington for an encouraging state-
ment?not for their own sake but for what they
firmly believed would be its electrifying effect
or, the German people. The word never came.
Allies Sure of Winning
It can be argued that Washington and London
were justified in their attitude. Neither in Britain
nor in the United States was popular opinion
in favor of negotiating with the "better" Ger-
mans because it was difficult to believe that
"better" Germans existed after what had hap-
pened in Germany (and in Austria, Czechoslo-
vakia, Poland, and so' on) between 1933 and
1943.
Besides, ever since the middle of 1943 the
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man . CPYRGHT
Hitler Shows Mussolini Wreckage Resulting From Bomb Attempt
Allies knew they were to win the war. They
knew they would soon be in a Position to dictate
the peace terms; so, why should they tid their
hands and risk creating a grave crisis in Anglo-
American relations with the Soviet Union? ,
Added to these reserVations Must be the Allied
mistrust, hard to overcome, of the Word of any
German. The Allied war leaders were f
rom
their personal experiences familiar with German
behavior after 1918 and how some of-the clauses
of the Versailles Treaty were circumvented no
sooner than they had been signed. .
A dispassionate study of the documents sug-
.
ere was only one case.'in which
outside reaction?or rather the lack of it?pre-
vented an anti-Hitler putsch from. succeeding.
That was in September, 1938, when Britain's
participation- in the Munich Conference virtually
crushed a conspiracy in which the Army, police,
and the Foreign Office had join d Th. e
only conspiracy that had a reasonable chance of
success and the only one that would have met
with overwhelming support from the German
population.
Subsequent Attempts Doomed
All the attempts and conspiracies that came
later?and there were many o- them between
Munich and July, I944?were doomed from the
outset. Under the fire of the war, 'the 'German.
nation was inextricably Welded to Hitler's
chariot. There was nothing the Becks, Goerdel-
ers, Stauffenbergs, and thousands of other.nobly
thinking Gernians could dl but to sacrifice them-
selves in an inspiring testimonial' to hurhan
honor,
1:4
One:may even say that the testimonial to human
honor was overpaid a hundredfold. For the
nearly 5,900 men and women whom Hitler led-
executed between July 20, 1944, and as late as
April 23, 1945?one week before the c011apse of
the Third Reith-Land the tens of thousands who
perished in concentration camps or were sen-
tenced to capital punishment for individual
of defiance, were in a sense the elite of the Ger-
man nation.
They were not the only anti-Nazis in 'Ger-
many. Actually, several of the conspirators had
originally- been sincere supporters of Hitler?
among them Beck Stauffenber , and Goerdeler.
But as soon as they discovered the true nature
of naziism they turned against it ?and be
gan to
act on their conviction. Others may have been
no less cldar-thinking, but they .remained silent
and passive., Thus, ?Germany, through Hitler's
last revenge campaign, was deprived of
masiy
of e very people who should have become
the architects of its post-Hitler reconstruction.
IleuteTs
Berlin,
Ben,dler Street in Berlin, site of the German
Army supreme headquarters during the war,
? is. to be renamed Stauffenberg Street after the
man who tried to kill Hitler on July 20, 1044,
the West. Berlin City Parliament 'has decided
unanimously. ?
Col. Claus Count Schenk von-Stauffenberg
placed-the brief case bomb which exploded hit
failed to kill Hifi.,
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