German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday paid tribute to Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg and other German military figures who tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler 75 years ago.
“Following their conscience, they proved themselves to be true patriots,” Merkel said at a military ceremony in Berlin. “They urge us to be vigilant and to confront racism and nationalism in all its facets,” she added.
Stauffenberg and other senior officers such as Henning von Tresckow and Erwin von Witzleben planned to kill Hitler in his “Wolf’s Lair” headquarters in modern day Poland and then declare peace with the Western allies.
Read more: Remembering the German Resistance
But a bomb that Stauffenberg placed in a suitcase near to the Nazi dictator failed to kill him and the attempt to seize power, dubbed Operation Valkyrie, failed. The colonel and his coconspirators were tracked down and executed in the days and weeks that followed.
After her speech, Merkel laid a wreath at the site where Stauffenberg and several others involved in the plot were shot.
Stauffenberg was shot at Bendlerblock in Berlin a day after the assassination attempt
Germany’s ambivalence
Stauffenberg’s legacy in postwar Germany has been mixed. Some view him as a hero of the anti-Hitler resistance movement and others see him as an opportunist who only turned against the Nazi dictator when Germany’s defeat became certain.
Read more: German army shaped by anti-Nazi legacy
Historian Wolfgang Benz told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper that it was important for Germans to remember the broader resistance movement and not just the military officers involved in the July 20 plot.
“Conservatives have always focused on the military resistance, but it came very late [in the war],” he said.
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Known and unknown heroes: People who resisted Hitler
The assassination attempt of July 20, 1944
75 years ago, a bomb exploded in the Führer’s “Wolf’s Lair” headquarters, which was supposed to kill Adolf Hitler. The assassination attempt failed; Hitler survived. The resistance fighters involved were executed in the days following the attempted coup.
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Known and unknown heroes: People who resisted Hitler
The man behind the 20 July plot
Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg was instrumentally involved in the bomb plot of July 20, 1944. As early as 1942, the officer realized that the Second World War could no longer be won. In order to save Germany from imminent destruction, Stauffenberg and other Wehrmacht officers decided to overthrow the Hitler regime.
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Known and unknown heroes: People who resisted Hitler
The Kreisau Circle
Fundamental political reform in Germany was the goal of the “Kreisauer Circle”. Helmuth James Graf von Moltke and Peter Graf Yorck von Wartenburg (pictured) were the driving forces behind the movement. Some members of the Circle joined the 20 July plot in 1944 and were tried and sentenced to death after the assassination attempt failed.
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Known and unknown heroes: People who resisted Hitler
Hans and Sophie Scholl
Starting from 1942 a group of Munich students, led by siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl, tried to resist the National Socialists. The group, which called itself the “White Rose”, distributed thousands of leaflets denouncing the crimes of the Nazi regime. In February 1943 the Gestapo found the siblings and sentenced them to death.
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Known and unknown heroes: People who resisted Hitler
The attempted Hitler assassination by Georg Elser
In 1939, carpenter Georg Elser fastened explosive devices behind Hitler’s lectern in the Munich Bürgerbräu brewery. The bomb detonated as planned. However, since Hitler’s speech was shorter than expected, he had already left the hall before the explosion. Seven people died and 60 more were injured. Elser was arrested on the same day and taken to Dachau concentration camp, where he died in 1945.
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Known and unknown heroes: People who resisted Hitler
Otto Weidt’s Workshop for the Blind
During the Second World War, Berlin manufacturer Otto Weidt employed mainly blind and deaf Jews. His broom and brush bindery was considered an “important defense business” and could therefore not be closed down by the Nazis. Weidt managed to provide for his Jewish employees throughout the war and protect them from deportation.
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Known and unknown heroes: People who resisted Hitler
Resistance by artists and intellectuals
Numerous artists and intellectuals already turned against the regime when Hitler came to power in 1933. Many who did not want to adapt or openly oppose the system fled into exile. Others, such as the Berlin cabaret group “Katakombe”, openly criticized the regime. In 1935 the theater was closed by the Gestapo and its founder Werner Finck was imprisoned in the Esterwegen concentration camp.
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Known and unknown heroes: People who resisted Hitler
Die Swing Youth
The Swing Jugend or Swing Youth, regarded the American-English way of life, represented by swing music and dance, as a clear opposition to the Nazi regime and the Hitler Youth. In August 1941 there was a wave of arrests, especially in Hamburg, of Swing Youths, many of whom were taken into custody or deported to special youth concentration camps.
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Known and unknown heroes: People who resisted Hitler
The “Red Orchestra” resistance group
The Gestapo used direction finders to track down illegal transmitters used by resistance groups. In the summer of 1942, more than 120 members of the “Rote Kapelle” were arrested. This group, centered around Harro Schulze-Boysen and Arvid Harnack, wanted to help Jews document the crimes of the Nazi regime and distribute leaflets. More than 50 members were sentenced to death and executed.
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Known and unknown heroes: People who resisted Hitler
The German Resistance Memorial Center
On July 19, 1953, the ceremonial unveiling of the Memorial to the German Resistance took place in Berlin in the inner courtyard of the Bendlerblock building, the place where Count Stauffenberg was executed after the failed Hitler assassination. In addition, however, the memorial also commemorates all the other courageous men and women who stood up against the Hitler regime.
amp/jlw (AFP, KNA, epd)
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