[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).)

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