Posted on 07/18/2004 4:36:24 AM PDT by Grzegorz 246
BERLIN, (AFP) - Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg made a dramatic turnaround from being an enthusiastic supporter of Adolf Hitler and his regime to carrying the bomb packed in a briefcase that was intended to kill him.
The 60th anniversary of Stauffenberg's failed assassination attempt of July 20, 1944, will be commemorated in Germany on Tuesday.
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and President Horst Koehler will attend a ceremony at the Bendlerblock, the former Nazi war ministry in Berlin, where Stauffenberg and three fellow conspirators were executed by firing squad hours after the bomb went off.
Four years earlier, the young count was full of praise for Hitler after his armies chalked up military successes in Poland and France.
"Such changes in such a short space of time!" he wrote.
It was a description that fitted his own swing of opinion.
By 1942, he was complaining that "not a single officer in the Fuehrer's headquarters has killed that pig with their pistol."
It was the crushing defeat of the German army on the Russian front that same year that prompted Stauffenberg's radical shift of opinion.
By insisting on leading his troops into a battle they did not have a chance of winning, Hitler lost all credibility in the eyes of the brilliant young officer.
Stauffenberg was born on November 15, 1907 into an aristocratic family in southwest Germany.
When Hitler came to power in 1933, the young count had already joined the army. He admired the principle of a strong leader, a Fuehrer, for the shattered country, although he was quietly suspicious of the modest origins of many of the Nazi leaders.
Blue-eyed, with high cheekbones, Stauffenberg was an outstanding student at the military academy in Berlin and he rose rapidly through the ranks before taking part in the offensive on Poland.
He wrote to his wife, Nina, another aristocrat whom he had married in 1933, that Poland contained "many Jews, many people of mixed blood... who are only happy when they are dominated."
In May 1940, Stauffenberg was named to the army's chief of staff where he discovered that Hitler was planning to attack Russia.
He became increasingly vocal in his criticism of Hitler's tactics and in 1942 requested to be sent to the North African front where he was seriously injured, losing an eye, his left hand and two fingers on his right hand in fighting in Tunisia.
Back in Berlin in 1943, he was approached by General Friedrich Olbricht, head of the army's supply units and a central figure in the resistance against Nazism. Stauffenberg accepted immediately to take part in a coup against Hitler.
Stauffenberg was not originally intended to be the man who carried out the attack, but the circle of officers with access to Hitler was highly restricted and few had his courage.
On July 1, 1944, he was appointed Chief of Staff to the Army Reserve in Berlin, putting him in regular contact with Hitler.
He knew he must act. "There is only one solution: kill him," he said.
Having carried the bomb into Hitler's war headquarters in East Prussia, Stauffenberg flew immediately back to Berlin to organise the coup.
Instead, Hitler was only slightly injured in the blast and Stauffenberg was betrayed.
He was executed at the age of 36, crying "Long live holy Germany" as the shots rang out, according to several witnesses.
"Poland contained many Jews, many people of mixed blood... who are only happy when they are dominated."
A real German hero.
But on the bright side he's spit roasting with the rest of those b***ards in hell.R.I.H.(I wonder if any of the coup plotters had a pure motive or were they all Jew-hating scumbags)
Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg |
Foto: GDW |
There was a German Admiral who was a real hero. I'm trying to think of his name. Hitler had him executed after the attempted assassination.
Very interesting person, he helped organize the resistance to hitler. Hitler sent him to spain to convince Franco to join the war, and to access how easy it would be to send German troop there if necessary. He spent his time there doing the exact opposite. He convinced Franco to stay out, and lied to Hitler about how hard it would be to send troops to Spain.
He was the head of the military intelligence for the germans. I watched a tv show, where the announcer expressed amazement that the Allieds were so completely able fool the germans. I remember thinking it's easy to fool them when the head of military intelligence passionately wants Hitler defeated.
Admiral Wilhelm Canaris (1887-1945)
Chief of the Abwehr (1935-1944)
http://www.joric.com/Conspiracy/Canaris.htm
Like Rommel, he only turned on Hitler when Germany started losing the war.
You'll recall Ronald Reagan took Claus' nephew to the Bitberg cemetary (Jewish war heroes, iirc) and caught crap for it.
German FR posters report Claus is revered there, and not because he was a Jew hater, but because he helped end the shame Germany felt because of Hitler.
A hint: "Not that there's anything wrong with it!"
No, theres not, but I have blonde hair and blue eyes, Im Irish/Scot/Welsh.
I've been mistaken as a German before. I was just curious...
It's a joke. Look at Nazi artwork and then figure it out.
Ashamed of Hitler as failed military strategist or genocidal maniac? Like he never read Mein Kampf? Like he did'nt know Jews were being stripped of their buinesses and fortunes? Kristallnacht? None of this was a secret.Maybe I should give Bin Ladin a break for his early indoctrination? The real heroes were gassed and turned into ashes.The real heroes took a stand in Warsaw.
B) or are you talking out of your butt?
answer is b
A)failed military strategist?
B)or talking out your butt?
answer is b
If you want to learn something, trouble yourself with some of the earlier posts re: Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, Chief of the Abwehr. Canaris himself was godfather to a small group of officers in Berlin and Paris known as the Kreisau Circle. One of the leaders of the Circle was a bright young Eastern Front veteran, Col. Klaus Schenck von Stauffenberg. He would be the officer who would deliver the suitcase containing the bomb to Hitler's headquarters in Rastenberg, East Prussia...
The answer is C) Answer the question. Did Stauffenberg try to kill Hitler to sue for peace with the Allies or because of his opposition to mass murder? Hey, if I'm wrong I'll admit it BUT PROVE YOUR POINT FIRST.
Genocide was the stated reason Canaris, Stauffenberg and the rest of the group opposed Hitler. I have seen zero evidence, and know of no evidence that political gain was their motivation. Attached links here confirm, whereas you have provided nothing but your own uneducated theory.
What is this?
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