Germany on Sunday honored a group of Nazi-era officers who tried to kill Adolf Hitler YM”S 70 years ago. The plot – portrayed in films such as the 2008 Hollywood movie “Valkyrie” – helped establish a principle under which German soldiers today are encouraged to defy orders if they would result in a crime or violate human dignity.
In a somber ceremony, President Joachim Gauck called the July 20, 1944, bombing of Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair headquarters in Eastern Prussia a “significant day in German history” for showing the world that there were Germans who opposed the Nazi regime.
“It was from this legacy that the newly founded Federal Republic, once it belatedly recognized the significance of the military resistance, was able to draw legitimacy,” Gauck said.
Hitler survived the bombing and was able to continue his military campaign to conquer Europe and eradicate the continent’s Jewish population for another year.
Four officers including Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg were executed without trial within hours of the failed assassination. Some 200 supporters were killed later or driven to suicide.
While the July 20 conspirators were among the most prominent examples of German resistance against the Nazis, historians have sought in recent years to highlight other, lesser-known men and women who opposed the regime.
“Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg has become a symbol of the resistance. The broader public hardly knows the names of the many others,” said Linda von Keyserlingk, a historian at Germany’s Military History Museum in Dresden, which recently opened a new exhibition about the July 20 plot.
Earlier this month Germany’s Foreign Ministry honored Ilse Stoebe, who worked at the ministry during the war and tried to warn the Soviet Union of Hitler’s plans to attack it. She was executed in 1942.
(AP)
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5 Responses
They didn’t try to kill him out of humanitarian concerns. Rather because his monstrous obsession with destroying the Yidden was diverting resources from THEIR obsession with world domination. There would be plenty of opportunities to destroy the Jews, once that was accomplished.
Trying to analyze the reasons behind the decisions of people long dead without any real information is not right.
ארץ ארץ אל תכסי דמך
Germany, we appreciate that you’re really trying to clean up your name, but it won’t happen. The word Deitchland (Germany) is a word of evil and bad and will stay like that by every Jew till moshiach will come, hopefully soon
@1. Yes. Just because killing Jews wasn’t their #1 priority doesn’t mean it wasn’t a priority at all.
1. The East Germans always honored the people involved in German resistance (Valkerie and White Rose being the best known – meaning they were made into movies). The West Germans finally came around to it after a long time.
2. They all regarded genocide has something Germany shouldn’t be doing, and varied in their perceptions of Germany’s attempts to conquer its neighbors. As World War I illustrated (most Jews in Germany and Austria were enthusiastic supporters of their government’s war efforts), German anti-semitism was independent of desiring to conquer the Europe. It should be noted that back then conquering people was still acceptable behavior in most western countries including the United States and Britain (in all fairness, it was the behavior of the Germans and Japanese in World War II that gave genocide and conquering people a bad name).
3. Had they been successful, it would have immediately ended the holocaust and resulted in the criminal prosecution by German courts martial of the people running holocaust.
The opponent to Hitler were motivated by both morality and patriotism. Even if not pro-Jewish they were anti-genocide. They are worthy of honor and it is good that Germans finally see them as heroes.