THE STORY OF A PLOT THAT FAILED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP70-00058R000100050088-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 21, 1998
• Sequence Number: 88
• Publication Date: January 15, 1956
• Content Type: NSPR

Nf't1V z -MAppCfg4t bTr U~e19WIA-RDP70-00058ROO;F}
e story of a Plot That Failed
e
- By Consientine taibibbon. I a very ?--
. New York: W. W. Norton pounded of inevitable human Gibbon is able to be fair to all CPYRGHT
eSSe ;navitable political parties and to their difficulties.
hk
n
here His
ne
O
..--_a
n o
-
B H. R. TREVOR-ROPER , quanuariea..
uly'' our were Nazi adventurers, whom it the difficulties of the officers
Com- in the face of their military
diated; on the other
,
nberg repu
Claus von gtauffe Laced a bomb under Adolf rnunist spies, who betrayed it. oath-a real difficulty often
itler's conferefiee `table and But its ;nucleus was a group of overlooked by non-German writ-
early overthrew the Nazi re- brave men with high principles. ers-is admirable. he does
ml some nine months before They had many differences, justice the real genius
was ove'tthrotvri by the Al naturally enough: differences of the opposition, at, once th
es. This in ident which wa of temperament, of politics, of spirit, the brain, and the hap
ollowed by atteli 'ted" riiilitar religion. But they were united of it - Stauffenberg himself
utschs in Berlin, Paris an by a common faith in the dig- whose stature emerges eve
Isewhere, was the clirnax an nity of man which they sought greater as one studies that
he one ai ificanl'"achievemen to reassert against a bestial small but devoted body, th
f the German-. resistance. Un tyranny, even though that tyr- German resistance.
ortunately it failed: Hitle army could exploit convention- "Truth is a paradox," write
ass not killed. His survival- al patriotism and the routine of Mr. FitzGibbon. "In this cep
iracle which eemed to?-justif obedience. tury it is paradoxical, indee
is claims. tq the protection o almost unknown, for a man t
vidence-dissolved the tem THEY were an 8lite. It is not act politically with neither doe
erma an offense in an elite to be few; ctrine nor onscience party
behind buthi only
rary''solidarity of his.0
nemies. 'The putschs petere it is of its nature. Between
mt., And the Nazi leader July, 1944, and April, 1945, Hit- conspirators of July 20 adt
cared, shaken, but still recur ler sought to exterminate the for their nation, for Europe a
power, wreaked upon their elite of Germany. After that, a whole, but they did this a
adversaries a horrible reveng . he thought, the mindless masses men, not as the representative
would be, easy to govern. of some great intellectual theor
berg"The,'' family of ?14immler f saidount, "will e Constantine FitzGibbon's book or inhuman machine. The
wiped out, root and branch." is an account of, this revolt of acted as bedececaca,use Goh- they fearing knew h tha
me
nearly was. So were sever i the German elite against the they had no cod-fe. 'It mu
thousands of other victi s tyranny which Hitler had based ,' said e. Itnmu ,
whom sometimes only name r upon the German masses. It is be done,'
`coitte n ue csa said
a ,, a connected with July 20. an excellent book and includes
resistance? After the wart ruu-=-?-ter -?- ~~-
- . . , _ Allan W Dulles published his failed. Why should we study 1 .
f
t
ti
x
l eut
u
s
`
ce
,
belonged to it. Impatient fle
these claims; we have- som many s Underground" Q in 1947. Ape flash ilithe was pan?
not. Thew a
s
dorsing Hitler's own srateme --~ - ---- ___._.__ _ -- refusing to e
that the plot was the :work nesses. But he never forgets the spirit of man g
"a very small clique of am i the central fact : the positive submerged in a soulless s
tious officers, devoid of c idealism in which superficial tem. For this reason the Go
science differences were sunk. Any ernment of Dr. Adenauer
and the same ti
criminally stupid." Ideali movement of individuals against serves credit for the const t
have overestimated the unity an established system is liable support which it has alw s
the resistance. Cynies h to armchair misconstruction, given to the men ory of e
overemphasized its divisi Those who grapple with evil Men of the 20th July," attac d
and its unpracticality. Its IT ) must take the risk of appear- as It is both by Nazis, old a d
tives have beer} impugned, ing with soiled hands. Those new, who seek to revive e
it achieved nothing until def who refuse to touch It must legend of the "stab in e
was in sight. take the risk of appearing. in. back," and by Communists, o
Its virtue has been magnif effective. The essential thing is denounce them (like the equ 1-
by those who look only at the motive spirit. Above all, the ly heroic leaders of the W x-
utterances, and reduced author wishes to stress the fact saw rising) as "of thona ,"
those who look only at its - , that this was not (as Hitler pre- "feudal" aristocrats. For he
suits. In fact it was of cou tended) a "palace revolution,
carried out by a clique * * * same reason Mr. FitzGibbo 's
Mr. Trevor-Roper is the - interested in preserving the book deserves to be' read. F r-
thor of "The Last Days of it - German Army against the next tunately it is not,oniy schola ly
ler and other studies of war. I hope that I may succeed and sensible: It is also v ry
bl
d
"
a
e.
many in World War 11. that hostr fiction. rea
119LF E
40 IV tv k
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP70-00058R000100050088-9
 Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP70-00058R000100050088-9
Keitel, Goering, Hitler and Bormann shortly after the bomb demolished the may room (right) at Hitler's headquarters, July 20, -1444.
Photograp*ha from "20 Juty.-
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP70-00058R000100050088-9