[iowamark]

72 years ago today

[AMDG&BVMH]

BUMP

[ScaniaBoy]

Look at Turkey today.

[Lib-Lickers 2]

von Stauffenberg should have set off an instant suicide vest as he was hugging Hitler

[rlmorel]

I just watched the movie “Judgement at Nuremburg” with a huge cast, and very well done.

Many of the concepts of German resistance to the Third Reich, and how many people just did what little things they had to in order to go from day to day, then one day, waking up to realize all those little steps they had taken with all the gradual erosion of values, principles, and morality had resulted in terrible things.

The climax of the movie, when the head Nazi judge had been sentenced to life in prison, said “You have to believe me. We never thought it would ever come to what it did when we began back in the early days.”

And Spencer Tracy’s character, the American judge who was the head of the tribunal, said something like “It didn’t come to that over years. It came to that the first time you sentenced an innocent man to death.”

Yes. I admit I have always found Stauffenberg to be a compelling figure, because it took a lot of guts to do this under the nose of the Gestapo, who were always sniffing around for unorthodoxy.

[NFHale]

My old man was WWII Airborne, twice wounded (Ardennes and Germany). Though he never mentioned it, I wonder if the American troops knew of the 20 July attempt on Hitler...?

[IronJack]

I gotta get me one of those tables!

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

In this respect Stauffenberg was among the more fortunate, because fear of being implicated himself led Stauffenberg’s commanding officer to have him executed by firing squad before the Gestapo could interrogate him.

Yet, General Friedrich Fromm was executed by firing squad in March of 1945 for his role in the plot.

[Bigg Red]

Thanks for posting this.

[ishmac]

An interesting article, but one that is marred by a glaring omission: the instigator of the two assassination attempts mentioned was actually none other than Pope Pius XII. I grant that it is shocking to hear this declaration, but Vatican documents released in recent years prove indisputably that Pope Pius was neither a dispassionate observer of the Nazi regime, nor was he merely a distant well-wisher of the plotters. He was at the very heart of the plots! He was the point man and instigator of at least two assassination plots against Hitler.

Does that assertion sound shocking? I would encourage scoffers to read the recently published book, Church of Spies:The Pope's Secret War Against Hitler. Much like our own intell services here in the U.S., the Vatican keeps stuff secret for decades after the relevant events have played out. It has only recently declassified a trove of documents relating to Pius's activities during WW II. It turns out that not only did Pius run a number of operations to shelter Jews from deportation and aide their escape, but starting in 1940 he actively ran special operations rings within the Vatican and German military intelligence (similar to our DIA) that attempted to kill Hitler.

This isn't pious apologetics or "conspiracy theory" stuff. It's documented history. The Pope secretly recorded many of the plotting sessions he had with his German cardinals and transcripts are now available (There are all sorts of fascinating tidbits in the book, for example: Marconi, the famous scientists and inventor,was personally involved in the installation of the bugging devices that recorded the sessions). Again, before you scoff, read the book. It's as gripping as any James Bond thriller (without the hot babes, of course!).

I'm convinced that Pope Pius XII is among the most unjustly maligned public figures in world history. The defamation of this great and holy man has destroyed his reputation, which is only now slowly being restored.