[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 95 (Wednesday, July 20, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: July 20, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
TRIBUTE TO BARON VON KLEIST
Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, today is a day for commemorating great
events in history.
As other Senators have already noted, it was 25 years ago today that
human beings, following the path blazed by our colleague from Ohio,
Senator Glenn, first set foot on the Moon. The Apollo program is a
story both of personal courage of the astronauts involved and of the
commitment of an entire nation who supported them.
I would like to call attention to another event that occurred on this
date in history, one which also involved great personal courage of the
individuals involved. In this case, however, the courage was of higher
quality because these individuals acted in opposition to the prevailing
will of their countrymen.
It was 50 years ago today, Mr. President, that a small group of
German military officers carried out an assassination attempt against
Adolf Hitler in an effort to overthrow the Third Reich. Led by Col.
Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, these men saw something that millions of
others did not. As the patriots of their country in the best sense of
this word, they decided that they could not passively watch their
fatherland be led by the Nazis to the point of destruction.
Had it been successful, the assassination attempt could have changed
the course of history, sparing the lives of millions and possibly
precluding the fall of half of Europe into a half century of Communist
incarceration. Hitler, however, was only injured, not killed. And
within hours, Count von Stauffenberg was executed, along with several
of his conspirators. Others involved in the plot were later condemned
by a show trial and hung with piano wires, their agonizing death filmed
for the Fuhrer's viewing pleasure. One of the plotters, the famed Field
Marshal Erwin Rommel, was forced to commit suicide.
While many Americans are familiar with the names of Count von
Stauffenberg and Field Marshal Rommel, the names of the other German
patriots involved in the July 20 assassination attempt, other
assassination attempts, and other resistance activities are not. One
deserves special note, Mr. President, and that is von Kleist, a name
familiar to quite a few Senators but, I suspect, not many other
Americans.
The von Kleist family has an illustrious heritage dating back more
than eight centuries. It has given Germany more diplomats, generals,
and field marshals than any other in history, as well as two of
Germany's finest poets. Prussian Kings awarded their highest award, the
Pour la Merit, to generation after generation of von Kleists, more than
to any other family.
Along with other Members of the Senate, I have had the privilege to
come to know a prominent member of this family, Baron Ewald Heinrich
von Kleist, who played a key role in the July 20 and other
assassination attempts.
In 1944, as a 22-year-old lieutenant in the Wehrmacht, von Kleist was
asked by Count von Stauffenberg to strap explosives to himself and
detonate it when he was standing next to Hitler. That attempt, however,
was unsuccessful as circumstances prevented a close encounter between
Hitler and the bomb-bearing young lieutenant.
Lieutenant von Kleist was also asked to play a central role in the
July 20 assassination attempt. He was to carry the briefcase bearing
the explosive while giving Hitler a report on new uniforms, for which
the unit he commanded was testing. Concerns about Gestapo infiltration,
however, led to the decision that the briefcase would be placed next to
Hitler by von Stauffenberg himself, who as chief of staff for the armed
forces in the homeland was in Hitler's inner circle.
Lieutenant von Kleist, however, still played a key role in the plan,
known as Operation Valkyrie, to take control from the Nazis in the wake
of the July 20 assassination. After the explosion in Hitler's East
Prussian headquarters, von Kleist arrested the senior officer in the
War Office in Berlin and others. But, in the end, the plot failed. Von
Kleist himself was arrested, interrogated for several weeks by the
Gestapo, then unexpectedly released, perhaps in the vain hope that he
would lead the Gestapo to other conspirators. He later ended up in the
concentration camp at Ravensbruch, north of Berlin.
The unusual courage of the young Lieutenant von Kleist was a
reflection, no doubt, of the noble heritage he received from his family
and, in particular, his father, Field Marshal Ewald von Kleist-
Schmenzin. Long after the war, in one of the rare occasions he
discussed those events, Baron von Kleist recalled that he sought the
counsel and permission of his father to proceed with the suicide
bombing.
The elder von Kleist had long been an ardent anti-Nazi. In 1938,
German resistance leaders sent him on a secret mission to London in a
desperate effort to persuade British leaders to take a strong stand
against Hitler's planned dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, helping to
set the stage for a coup attempt in Berlin if and when Hitler invaded
Czechoslovakia. In one of the worst miscalculations in history, then-
Major von Kleist was rebuffed by British officials suspicious of his
true allegiances. Seven years and tens of millions of deaths later, the
elder von Kleist was executed for his resistance activities by the
Nazis in Berlin as Allied troops closed in on the city.
Baron von Kleist reports that when his father was told of the suicide
assassination plan, he pondered only briefly before unequivocally
telling his young son, ``Yes, you have to do this.''
In commenting years later on that solemn conversation, von Kleist
said ``Fathers love their sons and mine certainly did, and I had been
quite sure he would say no. But, as always, I had underestimated him.''
After the war, von Kleist devoted himself to public education on
security matters to help ensure that, as he says, ``that tremendous
tragedy will not happen again.'' For the last 31 years, this has
included sponsoring the annual Wehrkunde Conference in Munich that
brings together prominent thinkers, policymakers, military officials,
and journalists from the NATO countries in an informal setting to
promote real dialogue on critical security issues. Many rate this
conference as among the most important and productive forums held on
international security policy.
Three years ago, the Vice President presented Baron von Kleist with
the Department of Defense Award for Distinguished Public Service, the
highest honor to a civilian by the Defense Department. The citation
accompanying the award specifically cited the Wehrkunde conference as
the ``the premier international conference on NATO security issues''
and stated that:
Baron von Kleist's unwavering stand against the horrors of
totalitarianism, forged through his personal experiences, has
certainly played a role on the undoing of the walls that have
separated his own Germany, and those that have separated all
of Europe and the world.
Both the United States of America and the Alliance have
been generously served by this selfless patriot's dedication
to the concept of freedom.
After the war, Churchill told the British Parliament that those who
plotted to assassinate Hitler and overthrow the Nazi regime ``belonged
to the noblest and greatest of resistance movements that have ever
arisen in the history of all peoples.''
In recognition of his role in that effort and the contributions he
has made in the ensuing decades, Baron von Kleist was asked to
participate with Chancellor Kohl in France's recent commemoration of
Bastille Day. These ceremonies last week in Paris, in which German
troops marched down the Champs-Elysees for the first time since the
liberation of France, were intended to signal the irrevocable
transformation of Franco-German relations and their combined commitment
to a peaceful and secure Europe.
It was very fitting therefore, for one of the honored guests at those
ceremonies to be Baron von Kleist, who has done so much to build a
cooperative security relationship between Germany and her allies and
neighbors.
And it is fitting, Mr. President, that we should pay tribute to him
today, as well.
I ask unanimous consent that several articles regarding the heroic
efforts of Baron von Kleist and his collaborators be included in the
Record, along with material related to his receipt of the Distinguished
Public Service Award.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Vice President Quayle Presents Baron Von Kleist With Defense Award for
Distinguished Public Service
The Vice President's Office,
Office of the Press Secretary,
April 24, 1991.
Vice President Quayle presented Baron Ewald Heinrich Von
Kleist with the Department of Defense Award for Distinguished
Public Service in his Old Executive Office Building Office
today. The award is the highest honor given to a civilian by
the Department of Defense. Recipients must have distinguished
themselves in the area of national security.
Von Kleist was recognized for his work with the independent
defense affairs association that he founded in 1952,
``Gesellschaft fur Wehrkunde e.V.'' and for his work with
Europaische Wehrkunde, a magazine on European defense that he
founded in 1954. However, Von Kleist is most renowned for
founding the Wehrkunde Conference in 1963. This annual
meeting of the world's leading defense experts has long been
considered the preeminent conference on NATO security issues.
Von Kleist personally chooses all participants as well as the
topics for discussion.
The Vice President's involvement with the Wehrkunde
Conference, and with Von Kleist, dates back to his days as a
freshman member of the Senate Arms Services Committee. In
1981, Senator Dan Quayle attended the Conference on the
recommendation of the late Senator John Tower, marking the
beginning of a longstanding friendship with Von Kleist.
____
Recommended citation to Ewald Heinrich von Kleist
For exceptionally distinguished service as the fonder and
guiding spirit of the annual International Wehrkunde
Conference held in Munich.
Baron von Kleist's efforts in leading the Wehrkunde
Conference have contributed significantly to the maintenance
of a strong and unified defense posture for Europe and
America. In founding this conference in 1963, Baron von
Kleist sought to further the vibrant exchange of ideas on
political and military themes between the United States and
the countries of Western Europe. The Wehrkunde conference has
evolved throughout the years into the premier international
conference on North Atlantic Treaty Alliance security issues.
Baron von Kleist, in assembling respected and knowledgeable
experts from across the Alliance for this symposium, has
created an atmosphere in which the free exchange of ideas can
truly make our world a safer one.
The Baron von Kleist's unwavering stand against the horrors
of totalitarianism, forged through his personal experiences,
has certainly played a role in the undoing of the walls that
have separated his own Germany, and those that have separated
all of Europe and the world.
Both the United States of America and the Alliance have
been generously served by this selfless patriot's dedication
to the concept of freedom. I take great pleasure in
presenting Ewald Heinrich von Kleist the Department of
Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service.
Secretary of Defense.
____
Narrative Summary
In 1952 Baron Ewald Heinrich von Kleist founded the
Gesellschaft fur Wehrkunde a.V. (Society for Defense Affairs)
for the purpose of provoking discussion in the fields of
security and defense policy. This organization has grown to
over 4,000 members in about 120 chapters. The Baron founded a
publishing house in 1954 and began publishing a monthly
magazine, Europaische Wehrkunde, which has achieved fame far
beyond the German borders for its contents. Von Kleist's most
noteworthy accomplishment, however, has been the founding and
managing of the annual Wehrkunde Conference, a defense and
security symposium which meets in Munich. When von Kleist
hosted the first Wehrkunde Conference in November 1963, some
of his guests included Helmut Schmidt, later to be Chancellor
of the FRG, and Henry Kissinger. Other early guests included
Zbigniew Brzezinski and Franz-Josef Strauss, later to be
Minister-President of Bavaria. Von Kleist has successfully
cultivated an atmosphere highly conducive to the honest
exchange of differing viewpoints.
The Wehrkunde Conference has been an important forum for
the discussion of defense and security concerns within the
NATO Alliance. It is the most highly regarded of all
conferences in these matters, and the limited invitations
available each year are coveted. Baron von Kleist personally
selects all participants with the mind to assembling a wide
spectrum of opinions and views which will benefit the
Alliance. The invitations are extended to people that von
Kleist feels will be most able to contribute to the
conference. Invitees include Ministers of Defense, Foreign
Secretaries, Defense Secretaries and ASDs, Ambassadors,
respected defense Correspondents, professors, NATO and other
military leaders, Senators and Representatives, and other
respected businessmen. As Senator William Cohen, who has
headed the US delegation for several years, has said, ``Many
knowledgeable officials rate the Wehrkunde Conference as the
premier international conference on NATO security issues.''
Each year the Baron personally chooses a topic for
discussion for the Conference. Recent topics have included
disarmament negotiations, the changes in Eastern Europe, and
the role of changing technology in defense planning. The
Baron has shaped the Wehrkunde Conference so as to allow for
much informal discussion over dinners, luncheons, and the
like. The environment is nothing like that of the stifling
official meetings often found among policymakers, but is one
of warmth and candor. The Baron, however, feels strongly that
he should avoid expressing his own opinions, and has done
so quite successfully.
Much of the Baron's attitude toward the defense of freedom
and opposition to tyranny stems from his own experiences in
his early days. The von Kleist family has given to Germany
more generals, diplomats, and field marshals than any other
family in the history of Germany. Two von Kleists are ranked
among Germany's greatest pests as well. Members of the von
Kleist family, whose heritage dates back to 1175, have
received more of the highest Prussian honor, the Pour la
Merit, than any other family.
Von Kleist, with the coming of war in 1940, abandoned his
own plans to study agriculture and joined the army to carry
on the tradition of his forefathers. Earlier, in 1938, his
father had made a little-known trip to England on behalf of
German leaders opposed to Hitler. He sought to persuade the
government of England to send Hitler a signal that they would
oppose him if he invaded Czechoslovakia. His attempt was in
vain, and Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia unopposed.
The son, Ewald Heinrich von Kleist, served faithfully as a
soldier in the German army, and was wounded in July of 1943
as a lieutenant of infantry on the Eastern Front. He then
served in Potsdam with Infantry Regiment Nine, once known as
the ``First Regiment of Guards'' but better known to its
members as the ``First Regiment of Christianity'' because so
many of its officers were opposed to Hitler. In 1944, he was
asked to participate in the attempt to kill Hitler with an
explosive device placed in a briefcase. He was to carry the
briefcase while giving Hitler a report on new uniforms.
However, because of fears of Gestapo infiltration, a man
closer to Hitler's inner circle was chosen. Von Kleist, then
only 22 years old, was removed from the Wehrmacht and placed
in a concentration camp at Ravensbruch, north of Berlin.
During this time, toward the end of the war, von Kleist's
father was taken into custody by the Gestapo and beheaded.
Because of his experience in the war, Baron von Kleist was
able to see the hideous effects of totalitarianism first-
hand. After the war, he devoted his time and energy to
combating its spread and sought to ensure that ``that
tremendous tragedy,'' as he described World War II, ``will
not happen again.'' It is for this reason that he has played
the important role that he has in the post-war Western world.
Always as a private citizen, and always with the concern of
maintaining a strong defense against tyranny, von Kleist has
been a prime factor in the preservation, and eventual
victory, of the Western Alliance.
Through Baron von Kleist's personal leadership and
exceptional dedication to the defense of Europe, he has made
invaluable contributions to the security of his own country,
NATO, and the United States. His understanding of the vital
ingredients of a successful security policy has contributed
greatly to the defense of freedom. The Baron von Kleist's
outstanding performance reflects great credit upon himself
and his country.
____
[From the Seattle Times, Oct. 9, 1992]
Restless Conscience: What-Ifs From the Hitler Years
(By John Hartl)
``The Restless Conscience: Resistance to Hitler Within
Germany, 1933-1945,'' documentary directed by Hava Kohav
Beller. Grand Illusion. No rating; includes footage of
concentration camps. In English and German, with subtitles.
One of the recent batch of Academy Award nominees for best
feature-length documentary, this wide-ranging, slow-building,
ultimately quite moving Austrian production is based on nine
years of research by its producer-director.
Born in Frankfurt in the 1930s and raised in Israel, Hava
Kohav Beller gives an urgent moral perspective to the film
that suggests what might have been if foreign governments had
recognized the continuing resistance movement within Germany,
if the Gestapo had not been quite so effective, and if Hitler
had not been so damnably lucky.
Part One concentrates on German efforts to bring Hitler
down during his early years in power, including several
futile attempts to inform British politicians that their firm
opposition to Hitler could result in his defeat at home.
Testimony from survivors suggests again and again that he was
still quite vulnerable in the mid-1930s, and that once the
unopposed invasions began, there was no turning back.
Part Two focuses on surprisingly high-level efforts to help
Jews escape to other countries, the short-lived 1943 student-
protest movement known as the White Rose, organized
opposition by clergy and socialists, and several plots to
kill Hitler--most of them thwarted by his wiliness, cowardice
and/or what in hindsight can only be seen as a charmed life.
It's curiously suspenseful to watch the elaborate
preparations for his murder, then see him slip away by
choosing a different route, unexpectedly leaving early from a
public appearance, exiting from a bomb-rigged plane unharmed,
and finally surviving the one bomb that came within inches of
killing him.
Yet there are few regrets. ``Yes, you have to do it,'' one
man's father told him when he was given the opportunity to
kill Hitler. ``A man who doesn't take such a chance will
never be happy again in his life.''
The mixture of interviews and archival footage includes
several starkly horrifying sequences, among them the 1944
show trials of would-be assassins and their cohorts and
relatives who were hanged or beheaded for their convictions.
As the interviews with survivors pile up, it becomes
depressingly clear that almost none of the heroes of ``The
Restless Conscience'' got out of World War II with their
lives.
The Nazis were ruthlessly professional at crushing protest
and subterfuge, so much so that almost the only people left
to talk about what Germans of conscience did are widows,
children, other relatives and colleagues.
``The Restless Conscience'' is a genuinely inspiring film
about extraordinary courage. Most of the people celebrated
here knew that they had little chance of escaping torture and
death, yet their pride in their country and their sense of
decency allowed them no other choice. According to Beller, it
has not been widely shown in Germany because ``the fact there
was a resistance throws a long shadow on who didn't resist
and makes them feel uncomfortable.''
Mr. COHEN. I ask unanimous consent that several articles that recall
the stories about the bravery and heroism of von Kleist and his
collaborators be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Evening Standard, July 11, 1994]
Should Germany Hail These Men? Controversy Over the Heroes Who Tried to
Murder Hitler 50 Years Ago
(By Valentine Low)
In nine days' time, Germany hails its heroes. They are that
rare thing, heroes from the Second World War, a time of shame
and national guilt for Germany which many people would
happily see forgotten. But these men are those who attempted
to kill Hitler on 20 July 1944, and they can be remembered
with a clear conscience. Led by the charismatic Claus von
Stauffenberg, they are evidence that there really was
resistance to the murderous Nazi regime: if anyone needed
proof that there was such a thing as a ``good German'', the
officers involved in the conspiracy 50 years ago provided it.
So, in a ceremony in a courtyard of the old War Office in
Berlin, on the spot where Colonel von Stauffenberg and three
other conspirators were shot around midnight on the night of
the attempted coup, Germany will commemorate a failure. An
honourable failure, perhaps, and one which could have
succeeded were it not for simple bad luck--but at least it
provides some sort of recompense for Germany having had to
stand by while the Allies commemorated D-Day. Among those
crowded into the courtyard of what used to be Bendlerstrasse
-- now Stauffenbergstrasse--will be a
few of the plotters still alive today, together with families
of the other conspirators, including Lady Gowrie and her
husband Lord Gowrie, chairman of the Arts Council.
Lady Gowrie is the youngest daughter of Count Fritz-Dietlof
von der Schulenburg, who was one of the most important
members of the anti-Nazi resistance. He was executed after
the attempt, but his family were treated relatively well
thanks to a friendly official who used to go shooting with
her grandfather before the war.
However, what should have been a straightforward
commemoration has turned out to be riven with controversy,
with Chancellor Kohl facing problems remarkably similar to
those encountered by John Major over D-Day. A small but vocal
minority of Germans still exist who believe that Stauffenberg
and his colleagues were traitors who committed an
unforgivable crime by breaking their sacred oath of
allegiance to the Fhrer.
Many young Germans are also critical. It was all very well,
they say, to try to kill Hitler when defeat for Germany was a
virtual certainty: what the plotters should have had was the
moral courage to kill him much earlier in the war.
In addition, the ceremony has caused political problems
because the Social Democrats are not being allowed to make
any speeches, prompting accusations that Kohl is trying to
make the anniversary part of his re-election campaign.
Most embarrassingly of all, one of Stauffenberg's sons has
threatened to disrupt the ceremony, claiming it sullies
the reputation of his father and the other plotters. At
least one conspirator still alive has joined the angry
protests.
It comes as something of a surprise to realize that anyone
survived the coup, Ewald von Kleist is now a semi-retired
publisher living in a prosperous suburb of Munich: then he
was a slim young lieutenant who played a crucial role. He was
arrested along with all the other conspirators, interrogated
and--miraculously--released.
Of the scores of officers involved in the plot, only 10
survived the war. The leading conspirators were hanged by
piano wire from meat hooks--a slow and painful death which
Hitler filmed and watched time and time again.
Although there were many plans to kill Hitler, the 1944
plot came closer than any other to success. The driving force
was the dashing, courageous Count von Stauffenberg, who at 37
was one of the most promising young officers in the German
army. In the Africa campaign he was severely wounded and 1944
found him as Chief of Staff of the Reich Reserve Army:
crucially, one of the few officers with access to Hitler.
Stauffenberg, who already had the reputation of someone
whom senior officers were prepared to listen to, even take
advice from, was the man who overcame the inertia and moral
qualms of the older conspirators and got them to agree to the
unthinkable: that the only way to stop Hitler was to kill
him. But time was against them, and the plan had to be put
into action in July 1944 when it became clear that the
Gestapo was in danger of uncovering the conspiracy. As
Stauffenberg was the only of them who could get close to
Hitler, who at the time was based at Wolfsschanze (Wolf's
Lair) at Rastenburg in East Prussia, now part of Poland, it
fell upon him to plant the bomb. Shortly after 12:30, after
setting off the 10-minute fuse, Stauffenberg walked into the
conference room at the Wolf's Lair where Hitler was due to be
briefed on the situation on the Eastern Front and put the
briefcase containing the bomb under the table in front of
him.
After a few minutes, pretending that he had to telephone
Berlin, Stauffenberg left the room and hurried to a shelter
across the compound to wait for the explosion. When it came,
at 12:42, the hut was reduced to rubble and Stauffenberg
bluffed his way to a plane waiting to take him to Berlin.
For the next three hours he was convinced the Fuhrer was
dead. But one of those at the meeting, Colonel Brandt, had
barked his shin on the briefcase and moved it so that the
heavy support for the oak map table was now between Hitler
and the bomb. This, and the thick table top, saved Hitler's
life. Five people died, but Hitler suffered only minor
wounds.
Those three hours that Stauffenber spent in the air proved
a fatal delay. When he arrived at the War Office around 4 pm
the other conspirators had only just begun to put into effect
the key elements of Operation Valkyrie--issuing orders,
arresting pro-Nazi elements. Lieutenant von Kleist, who at 22
was one of the youngest officers involved, was one of those
who arrested the senior officer there, General Fromm, and
also disarmed an SS colonel who tried to stop the coup. But
some lines of communication were still open from the Wolf's
Lair. It was only a matter of time before the War Office was
surrounded by troops loyal to Hitler. Stauffenberg and
three other conspirators were led down to the courtyard
and shot: General Beck, who would have been head of state
in the new government, was allowed to commit suicide. With
Hitler swearing vengeance on all who had been connected
with the attempted putsch, how did Kleist survive? Sitting
in the garden of his Munich home, the picture of genial
affluence, he explained that he had a relatively easy
interrogation. ``I played the role of being young and
stupid and unpolitical.'' There was even a sympathetic
Gestapo officer who would stand in during interrogations
and indicate by a nod of his head when they already knew
the answer to their questions. After three or four weeks
of this he was suddenly freed, and went to see the
friendly Gestapo officer to find out why. ``I know you're
free,'' he said, ``but there are some people who think
they are free, but really * * * the Gestapo were after a
fellow conspirator and close friend of Kleist's, Ludwig
von Hammerstein, and hoped he would contact him. For once
the Gestapo slipped up. Hammerstein is alive today.
One should be thankful that men like Kleist are still here
to tell their story, for they answer--and raise--interesting
questions of what people could, and should, have done in
Hitler's Germany. As a boy, Kleist was turned against Hitler
after the Night of the Long Knives in 1934, when Ernst Rhm
and the other leaders of the brown shirt SA were
assassinated, and his own father narrowly escaped.
``It was absolutely clear that the state had become a
murderer. Later on many people said they knew little or
nothing of what was happening, which was mostly true. But
this was in the newspapers. People knew about concentration
camps, but thought they were places where criminals were
concentrated, as well as Jews and people who didn't want to
work. I knew what was happening--I had excellent
information.''
For years Kleist was in no position to do anything about
it. He was recruited to the resistance by Fritz-Dietlof von
der Schulenburg. A plot was hatched in early 1943 for a
suicide bomb attack against Hitler but when that had to be
cancelled, the leaders of the resistance turned to the young
Kleist.
While the courage of the conspirators has never been in
question, there has been much debate about what they hoped to
achieve.
Richard Leigh, co-author with Michael Baigent of a new book
on Stauffenberg (Secret Germany: Claus von Stauffenberg and
the Mystical Crusade Against Hitler, Jonathan Cape, L16.99),
said: ``In the context of the war its significance is
minimal. But for the men who did it its significance was
immense. It was necessary to demonstrate to the rest of the
world that there were good Germans who kept their honour
clean and their uniform unstained.'' The one thing that
provokes Kleist's ire is the suggestion that the putsch was
ill-planned. He exploded: ``That is just theoretical jibber-
jabber from people who understand nothing. In a dictatorship
it is extremely difficult even to get near to Hitler.
``Others will bring different memories to the wreath-laying
ceremony on 20 July. Stauffenberg's eldest son, Berthold, who
was 10 at the time and is now a major-general in the German
army, did not know Stauffenberg the plotter--only the fond
father who was away fighting so much of the time.
At home in the Swabian Alps there was little clue for the
children of what their father's real beliefs were. ``In a
totalitarian state you have to be very cautious,'' said
Berthold. ``My parents didn't work openly against the
normal indoctrination that was going on everywhere. I had
an uncritical attitude to Hitler--he was the Fuhrer.''
Two days after the plot, his mother Nina tried to explain
what had happened. ``She said it was my father who had
actually laid the bomb. By that time it was clear that Hitler
had survived. It was a terrible shock--first of all that my
father was dead, and then that he had attacked the Fuhrer.''
Then their mother was arrested, and for the next few months
was shunted from prison to prison despite being pregnant
while the children were taken to a special home in central
Germany. Nina was finally freed when the elderly policeman
escorting her grew frightened of the advancing Russians.
Berthold's younger brother, Franz Ludwig, a former Right-
wing MP, has created the most controversy over the 20 July
commemorations. Backed to a lesser extent by Berthold, he is
objecting to an exhibition to be opened by Kohl which
includes exhibits commemorating two groups--the National
Committee of Free Germany and the League of German Officers--
consisting of German officers captured by the Russians who
made anti-Nazi propaganda broadcasts calling on German
soldiers to desert.
Ewald von Kleist said: ``There is a group of people who
want to enlarge the resistance by including communists and
those officers captured by the Russians. These people insist
they resisted very strongly. A few people, like Franz Ludwig
von Stauffenberg and myself, disagree with that. To sit
somewhere safe and dry and shout `You must do something' is
not enough.''
Berthold von Stauffenberg said: ``The post-1968 generation
didn't like the fact that the conspiracy was very
militaristic, rather aristocratic and very Christian--and not
very Marxist.''
But there are other perspectives. Clarita von Trott, widow
of the diplomat Adam von Trott, who made frequent trips to
neutral capitals during the war in a forlorn attempt to
persuade the Allies to take the German resistance seriously,
and who was hanged for his part in the plot--describes it as
``an awful, silly conflict''. There were other groups in the
resistance, and they all played their part. Lady Gowrie will
be attending the ceremony with mixed feelings, not least
because her late mother's birthday fell on the same day. She
has not been to the annual commemoration for 20 years, and
feels there is a certain irony in the way politicians and
diplomats get accorded places of honour at such occasions
rather than those who should really be the focus of
attention.
She said, ``I have always had ambivalent feelings toward
this. Always the wrong people are in the first row. Twenty
years ago Nina von Stauffenberg didn't even have a seat--it
was by sheer mistake, but it was very embarrassing.''
In the end, however, all the ceremony, all the political
rows about who should be honoured and who should make
speeches count for nothing against the one simple fact that
there were men prepared to give up their lives to stop the
greatest evil this century has known.
Ewald von Kleist said: ``I am content with having been
there 50 years ago. I will go this year, and I will hope to
see two of the others who were my friends. I will go this
time, because it will be the last time.''
____
[From the Guardian, July 23, 1992]
How Whitehall Helped Hitler
(By Martin Gilbert)
The Unnecessary War, by Patricia Meehan (Sinclair-
Stevenson, pounds 18.95)
This book delves into one of the murky corners of recent
history, the official British response to the German
opposition to Hitler. Even before the outbreak of the second
world war, individual Germans of some stature had asked the
British government for moral support in their opposition to
Hitler, and these approaches continued throughout the war.
Most of those who made them were eventually killed by the
Gestapo after the Hitler bomb plot in 1944. This book is the
fullest attempt yet to examine who these Germans were, how
serious and sustained their approaches to the British had
been, and how, almost without exception, their efforts to
enlist British support were dismissed and belittled.
The crucial moment occurred during the Munich crisis in
September 1938. Those Germans who were opposed to an invasion
of Czechoslovakia, including several senior army officers,
hoped that a strong stand by Britain would force Hitler to
desist, and would perhaps even bring his regime down. German
emissaries to Britain put this case to leading politicians
and diplomats. But Neville Chamberlain's decision to accept,
and indeed to promote, a compromise--whereby Czechoslovakia
would cede the Sudetenland to Germany and Hitler get his
immediate desires without a war--dashed the hopes of those
Germans who wanted Hitler's order to march into
Czechoslovakia to be the signal for the Fuhrer's overthrow.
Was all this a pipe dream? Patricia Meehan shows how little
the Foreign Office experts were prepared to follow up the
wartime efforts of German opposition leaders to make contact.
They feared that if Hitler had been got rid of, the Allies
would then have had to accept a non-Nazi Germany as a
negotiating partner, thus undermining the whole concept of
unconditional surrender.
One of the most revealing documents published in this book
is a comment by the historian John Wheeler-Bennett, then a
member of the Foreign Office Political Intelligence
Department, written immediately after the failure of the
Hitler bomb plot. According to Wheeler-Bennett, ``the Gestapo
and the SS have done us an appreciable service in removing a
selection of those who would undoubtedly have posed as `good'
Germans after the defeat of a Nazi Germany.''
It was Wheeler-Bennett who put the word ``good'' in
quotation marks. Yet those Germans whom the Gestapo were
killing were the very anti-Nazis who might have formed the
backbone of a post-war democratic German administration.
These were the men who, despite Gestapo terror, had tried
since before the outbreak of war to form groups and circles
of opposition to Hitler, based on a deep loathing of Nazi
ideology and military aggression.
Patricia Meehan shows the embarrassment caused in official
circles in Britain by Churchill's declaration of June 22,
1941, that ``any man or State which fights against Nazism
will have our aid''. It was Richard Crossman, then head of
the German section of the Political Warfare Executive, who
asked for a ``clear ruling'' from the Foreign Office as to
whether the German people, as distinct from the Nazis and the
German military hierarchy, would ``be included among those
whose liberation will result from our victory''. The answer
Crossman got was ``no''.
The villains in Meehan's account are the Foreign Office
experts who, with extraordinary consistency, refused to take
seriously the many manifestations of internal German
opposition. The widow of a clergyman who had died after ill-
treatment in a Gestapo prison managed to get an account of
the torments of those who opposed the regime passed to
London. In response, the Deputy Permanent Under-Secretary of
State at the Foreign Office noted curtly: ``Very prejudiced
and exaggerated, I should say.'' The fate of the clergyman
and the struggles of his colleagues was further evidence of
the opposition to Nazism inside the Reich, but this made no
impact on the Foreign Office. Nor did the courage of a German
army officer, Major Ewald von Kleist, who made his way to
London in 1938.
To all those whom he met in political and military circles,
Major von Kleist made an appeal for a strong stand by
Britain, not only in defense of Czechoslovakia, but to enable
him to report back to his fellow-dissidents that Britain
recognised their intention to use the invasion of
Czechoslovakia as a clarion call to overthrow Hitler.
The major was rebuffed. Commented one senior British
official: ``There is always something suspicious about `anti-
Nazis' coming to this country in fear of their lives,
especially if they get away with it.'' The words ``anti-
Nazi'' were put in quotation marks, like the ``good'' Germans
of 1944. Yet in both cases, they were real: one and the same
people, fighting against a massive terror system to keep
their opposition alive, and to preserve decent values.
This book shows, with an impressive wealth of archival
detail, just how scathingly the efforts of the German
opposition to Hitler were treated in Whitehall. Even after
the war, the Foreign Office was describing them as ``a small
minority acting from divergent motives, not always in line
with democratic principles or Western interest''. Meehan
makes a strong case for regarding this statement, and many
similar ones expressed both internally and publicly, as
untrue, short-sighted, self-congratulatory, and masking a
wilfully missed opportunity.
____
The Making of a Tragedy
(By Thomas Fleming)
Fifty years ago tomorrow, Col. Claus Schenck von
Stauffenberg, the chief of staff of the 600,000-man army that
guarded Germany's home-front, joined Hitler and his military
advisers for a conference in the Fuhrer's headquarters,
Wolfschanze (Wolf's Lair), in East Prussia.
Count Stauffenberg placed his briefcase beneath the table a
few feet from Hitler and left the meeting to take a
prearranged telephone call from an aide. Moments later the
briefcase exploded, killing two members of Hitler's staff and
badly wounding a half dozen others.
But Hitler, the seat blown out of his trousers, his coat
ripped up the back, both eardrums ruptured, survived the
blast. By the end of the day, an impromptu firing squad had
executed Count Stauffenberg as Hitler launched a roundup
which wiped out virtually every member of a group whose
existence the British and Americans had repeatedly ignored,
dismissed or denied.
It has not become apparent that the fate of the German
resistance was a tragedy not only for Germany but for Europe
and America as well. A negotiated peace with anti-Nazi
Germans in early or even mid-1944 probably would have saved
the lives of two million soldiers--and three million Jews.
East Germany and perhaps much of Eastern Europe would have
been spared 50 years of incarceration in the twilight world
of Soviet Communism.
The resistance included leading politicians and diplomats.
They were protected, nurtured and in some ways led by Adm.
Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr, the military
intelligence branch of the high command of the German armed
forces. For three years, they sent agent after agent to
various points on the borders of Hitler's Reich--Istanbul,
Stockholm, Bern, Madrid--vainly seeking negotiations with the
U.S. and Britian.
As early as 1940, an aide of Canaris's leaked the plans of
Hitler's invasion of the Lowlands and France to the Dutch,
who passed it to the English, who dismissed it as a ruse
until they realized, too late, that it was authentic.
Thereafter, Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, head of British
intelligence, remained in shadowy contact with Canaris. But
Menzies' ability to negotiate was crippled by the British
Foreign Office influenced by the passionate anti-Germanism of
Robert Vansittart, for many years the permanent under
secretary and later chief diplomatic adviser.
Then came Franklin D. Roosevelt's declaration of a policy
of unconditional surrender at Casablanca in January 1943.
Whatever the tactical considerations, such as allaying
Stalin's suspicions that his Western partners would make a
separate peace with Hitler, unconditional surrender was a
propaganda windfall for the Nazis. It played directly to the
Goebbels line that Germany's back was to the wall and that
defeat would mean Germany's total destruction.
Among those who at various times questioned the wisdom of
unconditional surrender were Gen. George Marshall and Gen.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Cordell Hull, Roosevelt's Secretary of
State, and Winston Churchill.
At Casablanca, Roosevelt disingenuously claimed the phrase
unconditional surrender had just ``popped into my head.'' On
the contrary, we now know it was recommended by a State
Department policy committee that Roosevelt had appointed in
the spring of 1942, whose chairman was one of his
closest friends. Robert Sherwood, a confidant of F.D.R.'s
top aide, Harry Hopkins, concluded the idea was ``very
deeply deliberated * * * a true statement of Roosevelt's
policy.''
Roosevelt was motivated, it seems, by his experience in
World War I, in which Woodrow Wilson had offered the Germans
terms that they accepted as a basis for a negotiated peace.
Wilson's chief critic, Theodore Roosevelt, insisted that
unconditional surrender was a better policy. The revived
German war machine that emerged in the 1930's, claiming that
the army had not been defeated but had been ``stabbed in the
back'' by German civilians, seemed to prove to F.D.R. that
Cousin Theodore had been right.
But F.D.R. was wrong in trying to apply the lessons of
history, always a perilous business. It would have been far
harder for any German to talk about a stab in the back after
the catastrophic defeat at Stalingrad and the successful
Allied landings at Normandy. By July 1944, it was apparent
that Hitler had lost the war. And above all, there was the
Allied air war, which had leveled two-thirds of Germany's
cities.
There was another, more morally regrettable element in
Roosevelt's motivation. He simply did not believe there was
such a thing as a good German. His conversations as recorded
in the diaries of his Secretary of the Treasury, Henry
Morgenthau, and his responses to Eisenhower's and Marshall's
pleas to repeal or soften unconditional surrender are studded
with expressions of sweeping condemnation of an entire
people.
In light of the available evidence, it is reasonable to
suppose that if Roosevelt and Churchill had made even a
gesture of moderation or support for the resistance after the
July 20 bomb blast, the generals in command of the German
armies in France would have agreed to a unilateral surrender,
in spite of Hitler's survival.
But Roosevelt said nothing and Churchill dismissed the bomb
as ``a disturbance in the German war machine.'' Ironically,
the only people who uttered a word on the plotters' behalf
were the Russians. ``Generals, officers, soldiers!'' said
Radio Moscow. ``Cease fire at once and turn your arms against
Hitler. Do not fail these courageous men!''
When an Associated Press correspondent, Louis Lochner,
attempted to file a story on the resistance from Paris--he
had known many of the members when he was stationed in Berlin
before the war--Army censors told him the subject had been
barred ``by specific order of the President.''
After July 20, Winston Churchill grew more and more dubious
about unconditional surrender. In a 1947 speech in
Parliament, Churchill went even further. He described
Canaris, Count Staffenberg and their fellow conspirators as
men who ``belonged to the noblest and greatest [of resistance
movements] that have ever arisen in the history of all
peoples.'' What a difference it could have made if he had
said just that in July 1944.
Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________