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.
And I owe you THIS last gem:
Per eestan haameetca
Why yes, I do. Thanks for the support!
By the way, you have a blog?(!)
Agent 47!!
(and just when I was gettin' to enjoy batting him about too..)
Or...Auf Wiedersehen!
Too bad the count didn't succeed.
All Nazi bastards should burn in hell.
Education has nothing to do with the ability to think. I know many PhD's who know a whole lot but have trouble actually applying it to everyday situations.
Members of the RKBA have varying degrees of education but are extremely proficient in application.
Not employers, apparently.
LOL
One of my favorite foreign language songs:
Rammstein - Sonne
Eins, zwei, drei, vier, funf, sechs, sieben, acht, neun, aus
Alle warten auf das Licht
furchtet euch furchtet euch nicht
die Sonne scheint mir aus den Augen
sie wird heut Nacht nicht untergehen
und die Welt zahlt laut bis zehn
Eins
Hier kommt die Sonne
Zwei
Hier kommt die Sonne
Drei
Sie ist der hellste Stern von allen
Vier
Hier kommt die Sonne
Die Sonne scheint mir aus den Handen
kann verbrennen, kann euch blenden
wenn sie aus den Fausten bricht
legt sich heiss auf das Gesicht
sie wird heut Nacht nicht untergehen
und die Welt zahlt laut bis zehn
Eins
Hier kommt die Sonne
Zwei
Hier kommt die Sonne
Drei
Sie ist der hellste Stern von allen
Vier
Hier kommt die Sonne
Funf
Hier kommt die Sonne
Sechs
Hier kommt die Sonne
Sieben
Sie ist der hellste Stern von allen
Acht, neun
Hier kommt die Sonne
Die Sonne scheint mir aus den Handen
kann verbrennen, kann dich blenden
wenn sie aus den Fausten bricht
legt sich heiss auf dein Gesicht
legt sich schmerzend auf die Brust
das Gleichgewicht wird zum Verlust
lasst dich hart zu Boden gehen
und die Welt zahlt laut bis zehn
Eins
Hier kommt die Sonne
Zwei
Hier kommt die Sonne
Drei
Sie ist der hellste Stern von allen
Vier
Und wird nie vom Himmel fallen
Funf
Hier kommt die Sonne
Sechs
Hier kommt die Sonne
Sieben
Sie ist der hellste Stern von allen
Acht , neun
Hier kommt die Sonne
I just read a story in the NYT magazine about adults with A.D.D. and their inability to focus on specific tasks.
One of the people profiled had two master's degrees!
Funniest thing I've read all week.
Maybe we had a celebrity troll then ;-) BTW, one of Hitler's self conscious fixations was his brown hair and brown eyes. He's also a quarter Jewish. No wonder why Hitler is the most studied infamous personality ever.
I only have 2 Associate Degrees, (long story), but I have a ton of common sense. I was always the first to catch on to a new idea and the one who helped others understand it. I was a A student through high school and maintained a 3.8 through an Associate in Engineering and a second in Business while working full-time.
Several times I have started to go back and get my BS but never was willing to give up what free time I have. I have a good life and I like it.
Believe me, if I had been born into wealth, I might have thought about attending graduate school and giving those leftists twits the ol' one-two.
There are even people-mostly lawyers-who've suggested that I go to law school.
Now there's a shocker!
Believe me, if Hitler had hanged the "Desert Fox" he would have had a lot more trouble on his hands than a single conspiracy/murder plot.
Im my former Product Management job with a Large Telecommunications Concern I frequently dealt with our internal, external, and vendor legal staffs. I was frequently told the same thing. To which I replied, "I'm just smart law is dull like accounting with an audience."
If they said, "What do you like?" I said, "I'm sticking with show business."
I would do show biz, but I never liked waiting tables.
My point was that he was giving a bit of a break-relatively speaking-that was denied to the less senior officers, because of his rank and popularity among the German public.
I don't really know how the others were killed exactly, though I'm sure that their fate was just as unpleasant.
I'm sorry, I lost my train of thought... what'd you just say?
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