[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 97 (Friday, July 22, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: July 22, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
JULY 20, 1944--THE PLOT TO KILL HITLER
Mr. PELL. Mr. President, 50 years ago this week we learned of the
unsuccessful attempt by a group of German officers to kill Adolf
Hitler. At the time there was little information as to what had
happened. That the attempt was unsuccessful was clear after a few hours
when Hitler was heard broadcasting to the German people in his
distinctive, guttural voice.
At that period the war appeared to be going well, but it was by no
means over, and the thought that German military officers joined in a
plot to kill Hitler was electrifying. Until that moment German
propaganda had proclaimed an image of invincibility and unity for the
German war effort led by Hitler. After July 20, that war effort seemed
less invincible, less unified.
The horrors that followed for the plot leaders and the families are
well known. Some of the finest officers of the German military were put
to death for their complicity in the plot. Even a hint that someone had
been involved was enough to have him killed, with an estimated 5,000-
7,000 put to death by Hitler's forces in retaliation for this attempt.
For Germans, July 20, 1944, has long conveyed a mixed message. For
many it has provided a convenient symbol of resistance to Hitler that
unfortunately did not appear to have a substantial basis in the public
at large. For others, including some who opposed the Nazis, it was ill
conceived and unlikely to succeed. Helmut von Moltke, of a
distinguished German family, who was one of those killed after the July
20 attempt, had thought it better to have Hitler live and bear
responsibility for Germany's defeat.
Much has been written about the July 20, 1944 plot. A particularly
poignant essay appeared in yesterday's Los Angeles Times, written by
Beate Ruhm von Oppen, a distinguished scholar of German affairs who
teaches at St. John's College in Annapolis, MD.Political Intelligence
Department of the British Foreign Office when the first reports of the
assassination attempt were received. Later that night she listened to
Hitler's broadcast as he denounced the coup plotters whom he had
ordered to be exterminated so cruelly.
Ms. von Oppen concludes her essay about the July 20, 1994 attempt
with these words about its significance:
There were people who tried to end the abomination, though
there was hardly any chance of success; and the sacrifice
of their lives was a demonstration of the spirit of
humanity in an inhuman age.
To help us remember this date and the event that it marks, I ask that
the article by Professor von Oppen entitled ``A Gift to Humanity at
Large'' be printed in the Congressional Record at this point.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Los Angeles Times, July 21, 1994]
A Gift to Humanity at Large
(By Beate Ruhm von Oppen)
When the first news fragments about the failed attempt to
kill Adolf Hitler came over the ticker tape in the afternoon
of July 20, 1944, it was almost unbearably exciting. I was
working in the Political Intelligence Department of the
British Foreign Office. We had a machine that gave us
intercepts of the German news agency.
I listened to Hitler's midnight broadcast. There was, alas,
no doubt about it--it was his voice. He denounced the ``tiny
clique'' of traitorous, ambitious and stupid officers who had
tried to rob the German people of its leadership and way of
life. The stab in the back of the embattled nation had
failed. The trailors would be exterminated mercilessly.
Ten years later, in July, 1954, Theodor Heuss, the first
president of the Federal Republic, called the desperate and
costly attempt to overthrow the Nazi regime a ``gift to
Germany's future.'' It was, I should say, a gift to humanity
at large. For, despite the sometimes obvious diplomatic use
made of ``other Germans'' who laid down their lives for a
better Germany and a better Europe, despite the usefulness of
``the German resistance'' as fig leaf after the war, there is
more involved than Germany and its image in the world.
It was not a foregone conclusion that killing Hitler was
the best thing to do--though it would free the soldiers from
the oath of loyalty they had sworn to him personally. Thus,
Helmuth James von Moltke thought it better to let Hitler live
and bear the responsibility for the defeat. Moltke was an
international lawyer working in the Abwehr, the military
intelligence service, as legal adviser to the German High
Command. He helped save many lives. He was one of the victims
of the purges carried out after the July 20 assassination
attempt.
The judge saw Moltke as at least as dangerous to the regime
as those who had taken violent steps to end it. Moltke had
opposed the Nazis from the beginning, but had argued against
the assassination and coup attempts. He did not think they
would bring about the necessary change in the German
mentality.
The young Protestant theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, held
the opposite view. He thought that killing Hitler would be an
``act of liberation,'' freeing the Germans from their
stupefaction with the Nazi display of power. So he and his
brother-in-law, Hans von Dohnanyi, were part of the circle of
plotter. They were both members of the Abwehr, too, protected
by its head, Adm. Wilhelm Canaris, and in league with his
most active righthand man and plotter, Hans Oster.
Although the Cold War and the division of Germany and
Europe are over, their after-effects are still with us.
Divisions between left and right, even of East and West,
persist, straining German commemorations of the anti-Hitler
resistance. Social Democrats didn't want Chancellor Helmut
Kohl to be the main speaker at the ceremonies marking the
50th anniversary of the assassination attempt. Some of the
people connected with the permanent center of commemoration
at the Stauffenbergstrasse in Berlin were worried that the
military Establishment is muscling in. Conversely, others
objected to including exhibits representing Moscow-sponsored
groups. Yet, the decision seems right not to censor them, but
to let people make up their own minds about the likely
motives and relative merits of the diversity of Germans who
opposed the Nazi regime.
The Allies called the events of July 20 a ``Generals'
Plot.'' It was a misnomer. Obviously, generals were needed if
there was to be any chance of overthrowing the Nazi regime.
But the literature on the German resistance to the Nazis has
made it clear how hard it was to recruit more than a few
generals to the cause.
The cost in lives was terrible. Peter Yorck von Wartenburg,
the cofounder, with Moltke, of the Kreisau Circle that worked
on plans for a better future, joined in the conspiracy after
Moltke's arrest in January, 1944, as did other Kreisauers.
Yorck was one of the accused in the first of the ghastly
People's Court trials that followed the assassination
attempt.
His last letter before his execution speaks of atonement
for ``the guilt we all bear.'' He gave his life in expiation
of the crimes of the regime he had fought. And that, surely,
is the significance of the attempt of July 20, 1944: There
were people who tried to end the abomination, though there
was hardly any chance of success; and the sacrifice of their
lives was a demonstration of the spirit of humanity in an
inhuman age.
(Beate Ruhm von Oppen teaches at St. John's College. Her
publications include ``Helmuth James von Moltke: Letters to
Freya 1939-1945'' (Knopf).)
____________________