Crocker Snow Reports From Germany; Men Against Hitler

Well in the report you're about to hear six persons now living in New England who have a deep interest in the topic will discuss the program and the questions it raises. Man against Hitler. Thank God thank. God. And thank God thank you thank you. That was the voice of a judge a Nazi judge in Nazi Germany in 1944. His name Roland fries were head of the infamous People's Court of Berkeley and you hear him doing a job for which he was well suited trying and sentencing those men of Nazi Germany who chose to resist Adolf Hitler. Operation Val Curie was what ignited frys was hysterical ravings. This was the code name for what was the most nearly successful of a series of attempts to assassinate Hitler July 20th 1944. A German officer planted a bomb in Hitler's headquarters.

The bomb went off. Hitler was present but due to a combination of fate and fortune he lived. His reaction was swift and terrible. A special Gestapo commission was set up immediately to ferret out the men involved. This soon blossomed into an organization of 11 departments and 400 officers according to British Admiralty figures four thousand nine hundred and eighty Germans were executed for their part in the resistance movement by the wars and less than a year later. The voice of. A leader of the civilian resistance to the Nazi regime. The secret police. You folks need to know and I didn't want to. And it is not because in that case probably I would have been sentenced to death. And so on but I didn't use it like that. OXO from the Bushes who was a young officer in 1943 agreed

to blow up himself and the leaders of the third at the same time in autumn 43. I got into cult stuff from Beck's office who was then chief of staff of the home of me and he made what then was laughingly Read on to be a very indecent proposal to give me a bomb then to go to use pressure to blow up it. Fabi unfunctional outgunned off. Who is a representative of a group of conspirators spoke with Winston Churchill the 1938. And didn't we go hard to the frogger. Yeah we shifted to goodies you got. You're gonna tear them just a dark object shorn from George. I still remember his question to me. Can you guarantee that the German opposition will have any influence. In those whose brother and sister will be headed for printing and distributing anti Nazi

leaflets. I would never take a thing I'm ashamed that I haven't. Then why I often think we haven't even been in a bed to dream. Yours of Mina. The contact man between a group of military conspirators and the Vatican in 1939. Gibraltar only said it was the pope for peace. Then be dated that dual dual everybody seeing peeps. Thank. God. The German Army was the power base which at least passively permitted the rise of Naziism during the 1980s and early thirties. It's extreme nationalism was clear. But when Adolf Hitler took control in 1933 he did it legally

not by force but as a result of receiving the plurality of the votes in a general election. Within the legality of Hitler's position it was the German army which was necessarily the instrument for his aggressive foreign ventures. Though the Army didn't make the initial decisions it held the power and wielded it. And in this way had its own responsibility a few visionaries recognized this early such as General Ludwig Beck who as chief of the general staff and one thousand thirty seven. Shortly before resigning in protest to Hitler's actions wrote to a fellow general in our army worshipping nation the Vemma enjoys an almost boundless trust responsibility for the coming events now rests completely on the army. There is no way out of this fact. The coming events Hitler's war against the nations of Europe his brand of power politics was perfect for the times while the Allied Powers bowed to German bluster half of the nations of Central Europe bowed to her military might

by the autumn of 1939 Hitler was riding a wave of success. This more than anything stifled most of the dormant opposition to him that did exist in military circles. A few of the more outspoken quick like General Beck another small group whose opposition was well known were fired like General cook for how much time a former commander in chief of the army. Funny how much star and Sun a curtain rod a young officer in the Ponza Corps at the time tells of the background of this event you know he was not a nationalist nationalist and Highland head ended with a success but I did like it. There may be no offices for all of that commanding positions as this is and he kicked out the ones who with whom he could trust very much and the officers the officers generally in the Army about their position you have been an officer their land

while he bit Han had nothing against him. Within the officer within the officer corps and the officer this had not been trained to understand and let you get away. Yes and they Seanez in their mentoring Lida but she was too and then he was an American and he succeeds like success and many successes despite these early successes several members of the general staff still sought ways to track the Nazi express Hitler's premature orders in the autumn of 1939 to prepare for a winter invasion of the West rekindled their hopes. The army was almost unanimously against the move. The leading conspirators saw it as the perfect excuse for a coup d'etat. This prompted them to try a trump card and listing the help of the Vatican in Rome.

The high points of this story be first of all of course the decision to try to reach the allies. Professor Harold Deutsch of the University of Minnesota a specialist on World War 2. It was felt that the pope who enjoyed a great deal of confidence in the West. He was one of the very few people in the Vatican for example who had been pro allied in World War One and the British knew this very well is that they would certainly first of all because he was pope have to treat such an overture politely. And secondly because of his special character and their confidence in him would probably be treated with very serious consideration as did turn out to be the case. And these negotiations though they were unfortunately delayed very seriously at the end. The last part of one thousand thirty nine. And it did come to a climax at the end of February the assurance was given via the pope through the German opposition was then translated they get transferred for a minute onto the generals. But the most important of them from the standpoint

General housed there on the 4th of April and that first of all there would be no allied offensive. To take advantage of a turnover in Germany which would of course create a stab in the back legend for ever after and that secondly they would make with a non Nazi government which would compensate for Nazi crimes for example pay for the damage done in Poland and said with such a government they would make what would be regarded as a fair peace. But by that time things were already well along for the offensive in France and the great anger of the general over his generals over Hitler's insane desire to attack in the autumn of 39 or actually the winter of 39 40 had now given way to a certain amount of confidence the Army had tripled in size within these months and so far as well trained divisions were concerned the armor had doubled in size the whole outlook was entirely different.

The man most involved in the actual contact with the Vatican was one. Jolie Oxman a Munich attorney closely associated with the Catholic Church traveling under military orders of the ob they are a counter espionage organization which in reality was a hotbed of anti Hitler opposition led by Admiral Canaris Miller made countless journeys between Berlin and Rome. The Gestapo caught up with him in 1943 but he survived concentration camps. Doc how Auschwitz will convolved and Fleischmann book to tell about it. I brought professions the first question was visible. Wouldn't be if that was the end of it I got the gaze as I brought the sick fish. It's got us by the question I think which is that I don't like to speak about

so long. The English Government don't speak about him because. Four to five saves some confusion about so questions wrong to only say hey what's a poke for a piece and began that to do good. Everybody's seen for peace. The significance of this attempt of the pope to effect an agreement between the allied powers and the German opposition. Professor Deutsch I personally feel a great tribute to the courage of Pius the 12th because if this had become known it would have been even in the eyes for example of American Catholics an action of great questionable character to have imagined the Vatican which had always tried to adopt a political and politically international neutral position and which according to the latter in pact

with the Italian government was supposed international affairs to keep out of major relations of this kind. Actually negotiating with a rebel group in one country planning to overthrow that government and the enemy government during a period of war it was a most remarkable decision in my view. Thus in the years between 1933 and 1940 several small groups of general officers of the German military machine tried to upset their commander in chief Adolf Hitler. They talked they cogitated and sometimes they plotted. There was a scheme to arrest the furore. Another scheme to disobey is orders but the vital move was never made. Why there didn't exist any basic fundamental and take on something between the military and Hitler. Professor Theodore Adorno a leading sociologist of Frankfurt university after all was the one who reconstructed the groom and

me and the idea that they always hate to take a break only with respect to a few people. It was much more difference than say a difference of taste. That is to say the high class people of society with the capital has. Who considered the army as more or less their property despised the ill bred vulgar and didn't want to spoil their hands to close the community with him. But they considered him as a very valuable instrument for their own aims. And there was no basic difference with regard to the center problem. That is to say military expansion of Germany. This meant of course that for a long time and particularly after Hitler had proved so

successful in his diplomatic strategy he quite willing to exploit a more or less exploits for their own purposes only when it became absolutely soaked and two of them that he would be defeated. They particularly the more intellectual and more critical. Heads among them began to take a different view from the whole thing and started to organize resistance. But in and of the last one who not to have the greatest admiration for all the people of the army who finally risked their lives and more than their lives in order to get rid of Hitler I think they made good very good. And a marker of what they had seen before about this should

not deflect from the fact that the problem Hitler or no Hitler was more a problem of expediency for their aims than a problem of basic political. So the differences between them. And this explains why they sprang into action and also perhaps why they didn't do more efficiently than they actually did. I think that the often repeated problem of the oath which played a considerably in this whole affair more or less full of the effect that they felt selves in spite of everything so deeply linked not to Hitler I suppose but to the political ideals of Hitler and to the aggressive

nationalism of Hitler that it meant two of them you know to act against their ideals if they would rebel against him. Professor Dorn all refers to the much discussed oath of allegiance which all members of the German military had to swear in the name of God I take this sacred oath that I will be unconditionally obedient to the floor of the German people and the German Adolf Hitler and that I will be ready as a brave soldier to offer my life for this oath at any time. The simple fact of this oath coupled with the traditional honor bound subordination of the German officers corps to their leader has often since World War Two been used as a justification of the general past 70 of the German military in the resistance movement. Maybe they didn't like the former World War One corporal and his methods but because of their oath their duty was clear.

But of course there was a resistance movement. Some men chose to disregard the oath they felt justified in doing so. Conrad found Hammerstein then a young lieutenant helping the resistance leader car go to work lives quietly today in Cologne and I had no mama Benz I was so much against him that I try not to kill him. Given no I didn't tell him how this was a oath of allegiance to the US when I was a recruit. Maybe I did but I'm sure I didn't say what you felt no moral obligation no rational. And and I said yes and yes because I knew in my heart that it had been committed by his regime. Everything that I did I did last year but what of the Army in general. Could they so easily disregard their oath OXO fund them Bushehr

was a battalion commander on the eastern front. The own government represented battlefield let the dictator to whom the entire army was bound in an oath of allegiance which was a bar if not the bondage of its own and that is strong bondage. So the general legal ethical theory was that in order to throw over the government you had to kill Hitler first. So to unleash this book and make the army free to get this brought one to the absolutely necessity from the very beginning to get rid of it look for years they had talked about just putting him into prison and then into court and they then they had gradually accepted the idea of of thought of him of

murder. All right. It was in the mood to be did and justified as I feel but all the things I'd seen the word murder. It began to arise more frequently in the secret meetings of those who opposed the Nazi regime. World War 2 was in full thunder the German army was struggling in Russia. The Homeland devastated by Allied bombs as the ravages of war increased. So too did the toughness of the Nazi regime. The number of forced labor camps was stopped up imprisoned Jews by the thousands and the tens of thousands gassed in the infamous concentration camps all open domestic criticism to the Nazis stamped out. Such acts only serve to strengthen the determination of the diehard conspirators to do away with the one man most responsible. In March 1943 general fund Trust Co had a bomb planted in his plane. It was a

dud. This marks the first of a series of false alarms during the next year. OKso Fonda and Bush are today the director of the young West German peace corps took part in another. I happened to be sued and then an officer in the regiment of the German which produced more officers imprisoned hanged and shot by Hitler than any other regiment. That means that the general climate in that regiment from the very start of the third had already been and was to the end. If not skip to go at any rate critical and then increasingly filled by a position of spirit in the Ukrainian. I ran into mass mass extermination of Jews at that time not as later in camps. Stoves and poison at that

time they were still being shopped individually. Sixteen hundred Jews in one day by a platoon of S. And from that moment on Woods I went around quite decided to stop criminal performances by offering myself anything worthwhile. It took me one year to get into the inner circle in Lynn and primarily the headquarters in East Prussia being a front office I was an infantry man by that time I believe Captain and battalion commander. They accepted my office as sound as motivated strongly enough to try to let me blow up the general headquarters of the Hitler presiding. In autumn 43 I got into country stuff from Beck's office who was then chief of staff of the who me

and he made what then was laughingly Read on to be the very indecent proposal to give me a bump and go to ease pressure to blow up Himalayan Gooding who were supposed to be together to be shown new uniforms for the Eastern Front and they needed a young man motivated as I was highly decorated if possibly looking rather what the third I expected a man to look like sort of blond and tall stuff and sent me out to use pressure to headquarters they have and they have those bombs was sitting and I didn't like these bombs they were too British bombs with 10 minutes silent fuse. I wanted the German stuff because I didn't know how to use these gadgets but they had the great advantage of having a 10 minute fuse which then was later used indeed on July 20th. A silent she was wild at

that time in the German army did not have a silent fuse the fuse in the German army always made a hissing noise. Of course you can't have 10 minutes he sing in the in the meeting of out of it love. I got myself a four point five second fuse of the German hand Grant and I got these people who have the same idea as at the headquarters to fly out to small lengths to get me a German explosive one kilogram explosive and it was square block which could easily be fitted into a pocket. I could take it in my pocket and I had constructed this form to have second if use hissing to sit on it. It went quite well in the book. When one morning Steve Colonel Steve the head of the organization branch of the general stuff of the Army sent for me and said that the recent attacks on Burlington had unfortunately damaged hopes of the railroad cars they couldn't possibly go through with the stuff in

headquarters because they were booked. Steven said you have to go back to your battalion which was then between Smolensk and Leningrad and we call you back. OK. Off I went. And on the defense of general I was wounded I lost my leg. That was the end of my enterprise. Despite the failure of actual funding Bush's enterprise at this point midway through the war the military conspirators still held high hopes for success in toppling Hitler. One of the most determined and dynamic of these men was kind of glass fun stuff and as the chief of staff of the home army he had both the rank and position necessary and he was laying careful plans under the code name Operation valor Kiri a contingency plan set up by the Nazis themselves in event of internal revolution. Key generals controlling key troops were alerted including the famous Desert Fox Erwin Rommel. A provisional government was drawn up to take control immediately

upon Hitler's death and there was little doubt among those involved that death. It must be for Ayla who was jailed in 1938 and survived to become a leader of the minority Social Democratic Party in Bonn today explains the feeling in 44. There was no other choice. Hitler was in that dress. And I think self defense of the nation against the man was allowed. Because Hitler normally wore a bulletproof vest a bomb was thought to be the best for the job kind of stuff and decided to do the deed himself. Twice in July he carried a British bomb in his briefcase to meetings with a furor. But each time something went wrong. On July 20th 1944 another chance came when he was called to a meeting at Hitler's headquarters in East Prussia kind of a little fonder of the

headquarters staff talked with both shelf and we're going to have more on the fateful day he was a witness of the bomb explosion. His account from my window I could show you stuff in back I was so scared he was carrying and ouch Morant leather bag. Seven times younger officers tried to do it digs his bag and stuff. Mick would not lead Sandy and he didn't want to attract attention. His was a big mission and one was in the meeting took place in as many bidding bollard hundred to fifty medals for my office. Soon the current stuff may get built. He no longer carried his big. So when we heard the expression at this moment and asked of him back into his car he left this instead of this segment of second cousin style of Meg and his engine and saddened assignation attempt his sexy to say we should

know was dead. Perhaps they saw the body of the dead secretary Ben Graham. He often in the same clothes as would look good in court and big pants. Four men were killed in the explosion. Hitler was not one of them. His right arm and his ear drums were injured and he was badly shaken up. But history credits a large oak table over which he was leaning at the exact moment of the explosion with saving his life. History also records the fatal actions of the conspirators based on Stoutenburg false assumption that Hitler was dead. Nazi leaders were temporarily overcome in Berwyn more than a thousand arrested and powerless. While this was happening however Hitler was not idle because of the close call. He was more convinced than ever of his godlike destiny as the Fuehrer of the German people. Colonel Sanders a communications officer tells of Hitler's first reactions after the

explosion. I was ordered to see it. He asked me who was soon can I be a jewel. I told him a bird to 9:00 said Pearson later. I did notice that if you looked at any walls. He acted as if an ass think happened. But is it right. I asked if you it most probably. So I felt at that instant shock and even ink. I had arranged it leasing for Hitler speech but because he was very excited Did you exist peach. But this was nothing new. This kind of excitement was common for Hitler even before as a nation intent. Within hours then Hitler's voice was being heard by the people of Germany. The soldiers the workers the loyal Nazis the conspirators. And it meant the end for this last group still struggling to gain control of Berlin and

that's going to happen no not really. That's all I want. I don't mind I'm going to go back I want to thank you all. Think I prefer Hitler spoke of the plot and its futility. He spoke of his own divine destiny. Most of all he assured the German people of the right and the might of the Nazi regime. The German resistance was at an end. The Inquisition had begun. Part one of men against Hitler has examined the opposition to Hitler within the German army. We now continue with part 2 and the story of the civilian resistance inside the Third Reich. Iran has Joseph Goebbels Burgo in 1943 the German army had

been beaten in North Africa. It was on the defensive in Russia Allied bombs were splattering the homeland. Goebbels appeal was for a more total war in response to the Allied Casablanca conference call for the country's unconditional surrender. And apparently even at this late date the Berwyn population was ready for more. This is the voice of Germany that the world heard. Prompted by this very speech of Goebbels a little poem began to make the rounds among German workers in outlying parts of the country. Tommy Pfleger Vita V isn't all about flying Tommy spellers So we're just working he have a code for you Vita enough Billy Dee Hambali yagis go and bomb on burn ins door. They all wanted total war discussed under spare should not be confused with the resistance. But this rime of the German workers in reply to the public voice of the Third Reich is somehow typical of the nature of the civilian

resistance against Adolf Hitler. Always the cry of this resistance was like a whispered poem behind the brute back of the Nazi oppression. I was in the socialist U of movement before the Nazis came to power. And we maintained clandestinely organisation for presently a leader of the West Germany minority Social Democratic Party. I was in a district in Berlin and later I was at the head of the whole network inside Germany and very close relations with my friends outside Germany and of thought I was the inevitable and for most of us was to be caught. What exactly were you caught for. What exact activities. Both the main painting of the socialist social democratic organisation. Which had inadvertently and Germany's meddling in the large cities. And

the secret police. You folks in Italy and that little part of it is not the whole because in that case probably I would have been sentenced to death. And so I got down to 10 years of hard labor. We try to maintain intellectual into costs between the non-Nazi minded people in Germany and the intellectual development outside of Germany. This was the main purpose that Germany should not be cut off and from the development in the rest of the band because after the breakdown of the Nazi regime there should be a frame of people able to build a new democracy. Do you feel that the civilian resistance was primarily then passive and negative. The resistance in 1933 because this was the exact date when the Nazis came to power. Was in the first

wave still a kind of movement but it was broken down by bloody terror. Hundreds and thousands of people have been killed and 10000 have been brought immediately to the forerunners of the concentration camps provision of installations. And people have been beaten and have been tortured and all of this broke down that mass. Why and what remained since the middle of the year 33. It was rather a set of different neighborhoods and different localized groups and mainly those who were not in the leadership of the great parties before 33 because these were known personalities who were either killed or arrested or forced into emigration or had emigrated. And there

Farai you teen groups which were not sundown before 30s we had to take the lead. A few leading civilian figures managed to take the lead themselves cargo to for example his break with the Nazis came in 1937 when he quit his post as mayor of Leipzig because of the destruction of a memorial to the Jewish composer Felix Mendelssohn. Good to have spent the rest of his life trying to organize an effective opposition to Hitler and was an acknowledged leader of any post Nazi rule. He was not directly involved in the July 20th 1904 assassination attempt because he believed murder to start a new age was a bad omen. But he was arrested in the round up that followed and executed in February 1945 on how much 9 was an aid to Goodwill and his underground activities. My impression was that he thought too with the people he thought the German people against Hitler and

I thought most of the damage even when knowing that they are aware of the crimes. Fritz Amor an active member of the civilian opposition during the 30s supports Hammerstein's assessment of the mood of the people. The Hitler regime had an overwhelming support of the population. There is no doubt about that one. Hitler came to power. Democracy in Germany unfortunately was discredited by the great economic crisis. By the fact that the different Democratic parties had noted achieved stability. And in a country with a good deal of misery it was unemployment the great difficulties in the farming population with hundred intellectuals and so on. The democracy was really not only in danger but there was a majority of the nation

which in free elections had voted against democracy. Part of that the majority voted for the Nazis part for the Communists but none of them was in favor of maintaining parliamentarian democracy and therefore we had to break down and immediately after having come to power his first measure. Gave to the population the impression that he could solve the economic and political problems of cars he created from the very start a bloody regime of terror against the opponents. But the majority was not in the position and therefore they did not suffer directly but they saw that unemployment was over come that nearly full employment could could be reached and rather short a time they didn't understand that it was done mainly by

a very huge rearmament that the policy of the regime visibly was directed towards a new ball. This was not understood by the population. The minority knew it but this minority was persecuted the boot hero of the Gestapo and the SS It was enough to stamp out all but the most committed and courageous of the population. Professor théodore Adorno nobody who didn't live under a fascist dictatorship or under any kind of kookie Tarion dictatorship can imagine to what extent the whole system and the atmosphere of terror that permeates every sphere of life prevents from any effective action. I think a measure against the omnipotence of the dictatorship is the importance of individual resistance. Quite

understandable and all attempts to all get their resistance went into pieces because the spies and the stool pigeons. And that is the technique of pigeons was developed to the. I disagree that Nazis incidentally think that the very fact of talks are the thing that people who did to resist after the surgery they have to feel worlds. Then there is also one of the effects which make it quite understandable that no organized resistance on the meta scale arose from the population. I think one has to admit that the only ones who really were in a position to resist the will of those who commanded the size of our positions who other than the Nazis held such a power position in fascist Germany the German churches the Catholic and the

Protestant held one kind of power base it was originally moral one based on words. As soon as he took control in 1933 Adolf Hitler tried to assert his authority over them. He set up a German Christian church with the support of sympathetic Protestant clergyman in an attempt to attract and thereby control the bulk of the Protestant church. What was the reaction. Or again Gaston Maya today the president of the West German parliament was away executive in the Protestant church at the time that the mouthpieces couldn't come for Sabah. But the theme of the church resistance was quite different from that of the political resistance the church did not aim at toppling it all Hitler. I must stress this rather that it only wanted hands off the church at will to get fuel. So it's a saga. The pilot had to make for the kitchen in 1936 a few Protestant leaders such as Martin e-mailer a Berlin minister were aroused enough by Hitler's actions to publish a manifesto.

When blood race nationalism and honor are being ranked as eternal values the Protestant Christian is forced to oppose these values because of the First Commandment. The Catholic Church was not silent at this time either. In 1937 after meeting with a group of German bishops Pope Pius the eleventh announced his ardent concern about developments in Germany. From that time on a number of Catholic priests used the pulpit to voice their opposition to Naziism. Of course the robes of the clergy do not isolate them from the disciplines of the times. Many of the most outspoken of the church men were arrested according to American figures 400 Protestant and 800 Catholic priests were killed in the single concentration camp of Dakar in general however the Church did not take an active role in the resistance movement. Sociology Professor Theodore Adorno the Trojans were interim and he loudly from the party

and they gave the Sultan political importance as a result of a reservoir for those who did not identify themselves with Nazis to be a devote a devote Catholic already vote Protestant During the right and meant India they had one lesson and now its on the other hand I do not think the truck driver just says commanded any action political by which they might have resisted activity. Nazis in fact only the German Army had the kind of power necessary to upset the Nazi caterers. The leaders of the civilian resistance quickly recognized this. And what of the army. With a war imminent and then waging the military men were busy in their work. They had a tradition of loyalty to their leader strengthened by the required oath of allegiance to

Hitler with a few notable exceptions military opposition consisted of disagreement and dissatisfaction and a little more to translate this general dissatisfaction into action. The few confirmed conspirators and the general staff constantly sought the absolute support of their comrades. Professor Howard Deutch one of the most fantastic aspects of the whole story the military leadership of Germany in World War 2 is that almost every single significant jungle at one time or another was approached to be recruited for the opposition. And of course a very large number actually went along up to some point. Very different degrees but the feature is that not one gave away the persons who tried to recruit them and that according to Nazi law they were guilty of something which was equivalent to treason right there and made themselves subject to the death penalty at that moment.

The generals were disgruntled enough to accept this risk. But one very practical concern the limited their action the possible consequences to Germany in event of an overthrow of Hitler the allies could take great military advantage of an internal revolution. This the general is worried about. For this reason several different opposition groups made contact with the allies. They sought some sort of assurance of fair treatment to a Germany without Hitler even before the start of the war the leaders of the Allied powers were aware of the internal resistance to the Third Reich. This was made clear in Winston Churchill's radio broadcast to the American Congress in October 930 HDD on that bed and so rounded by the banning of that and a bunch of them only that are made of wood and thought wood but number on off during a dome all the more powerful big on THE LEAD carried by a little a little

die in a matter of going to be in the room and eating them by about the date of running to Benny. They made right again but the bar ad though and would that have radio of the working of the human mind. Churchill's words weren't simply speculation. One of his later sources was Fabienne von Schwab one door a man active in both civilian and military resistance circles throughout the war. Funk Shaaban Goff was sent to England in March thirty nine in behalf of conspirators in the German Foreign Service to explain to Churchill that after all the tiny mouse of oppositional thought needed support to grow and to enrich No Harvard or Frogger. Yeah I'm interested to see you got your gun on him just to Garfield you join him to still remember his question to me.

Can you guarantee that the German opposition will have any influence on Charlie Sheen to the frogger 9 by Dr.. Right one and two Viking begun mnemonics even named Carl. Then I answered No because one could never guarantee such a thing. I'm a church's rep shorn of tea were taught how to be good enough of nor did I say hi to me. That's over just shown. I'm 40 just in fact or action by Winston Churchill's reaction to this conversation of June 1939 made it clear to me that he counted on the German opposition as a political factor. Peter was ignored and shipped subjectivities Stevie. I'd Sheesh you don't you only non-chain Jarosz by churchy via later on in 1949 after 10 years.

This impression was strengthened when I met Churchill again. Why do you think you are leading right back to church Sure. No that's not forgotten that Shane is used because of all of the sheer discreteness He read us the doors nobody Jorn should walk on this occasion he said. After everything that has happened it is clear to me now that during the war I was not well enough informed about the growth and the effectiveness of the German opposition to Hitler. There was no reason for the Allies to underestimate the opposition to Hitler. They were told of it constantly in the late fall of thirty nine by a group of leading generals negotiating through the Vatican with the British Foreign Service in 1900 to buy a Protestant minister Dietrich Bonhoeffer during secret talks with

Bishop Bell of Chichester in Stockholm in the same year by several sources contacting Allen Dulles of the American Office of Strategic Services in Switzerland in the end however all these talks led nowhere. The reason is clear. The demands by each side were too great. The concessions too small. At the Casablanca conference of January 1943 Roosevelt Churchill and Stalin agreed upon the goal of Germany's unconditional surrender. With this all hopes of the resistance circles for indirect allied support in overthrowing the Nazis vanished the Allied commitment was clear and irrevocable. Professor Harold Deutsch was working in the Office of Strategic Services in Washington during the war. A good vantage point from which to observe this commitment. The president was firmly convinced that it was important to really give them a licking all the way to Berlin. That would not be like in 1918 an armistice

where they could after the war be a legend in Germany that the army had never been beaten. And so anything which involved a negotiated peace was disagreeable to him. By midway through the war then the civilian resistance within Germany was groping in the dark. A number of key men had been arrested. The various groups were forced into deep hiding and isolation from one another. The Allies were cold to any contacts. Who could or did resist sociology professor Theodore Adorno the forces of resistance it drew me. Well much more to be flown among the nameless people who sacrificed their lives in order to save persecuted Jews or who took isolated action and often some apparently crazy action. I think that the

none of the official men of the strong syndrome a whose names be forgotten and whose names we don't even know that they are represented much more. The motive force of resistance against Hitler. Then shots meet up them I have no other way on scene than a good example of the efforts of these unknown people comes from the documents of the Nazi secret service. A report concerning the general mood of the population in one thousand forty three. Details The following incident which took place in the Ruhr Valley City of Dortmund on the 12th of March an Army captain stopped an anti-aircraft gunner for careless saluting. It turned out that the soldier had deserted his unit so the officer arranged for his arrest. A crowd of about 400 people gathered mostly women.

Unbelievable rumors spread all directed against the captain. The crowd became violent and charged him. He had to escape into a street car. The excited crowd yelled there's going to be a revolution. Give us back our sons and husbands. Yet there was no revolution. The sons of husbands kept on dying on the fields of battle. At home the mere fact of opposition meant arrest and often death. But still some people spoke out like the small group of Munich university students who call themselves the white rose in 1900 too they began to pass out anti Nazi leaflets in Munich. One such urging the passive resistance of the population ended with the words remember that every nation deserves the government it endures. The White Rose group was caught in one thousand forty three. Their leader onshore 25 and his sister Sophie were sentenced to death together with three other students and a professor. They were beheaded in the same year.

The show's sister Anna was arrested too but survived to tell the story of the white rose in her book six against tyranny. In the show lives today in the southern German town of autumn where she is director of the Adult Education school nearly in every leaf they cut to the passive resistance. And I think it's good to tell what they mean about passive resistance. They mean that the people understand that themselves from the government from. Nazi movement and from all who watch meant it and his followers they tried to reach first the groups of students teachers the so-called educated classes because after their opinion these parts of the society at the most responsibility rational to resist all was just unique for you.

For Munich to do so I think it was fashionable in Munich and in Germany to think like my brother and my sister. But it must have been rather unique to do any DVDs. The terror was so perfect that even a spoken Freebird being banished from his prison was concentration camp. Do you have any examples I can give you one example. My father had been denounced by his own secretary Joe whom he had carelessly expressed his opinion of Hitler. He had called Hitler a Scotch of God. To put the human race and early morning the Gestapo came. That was in the nineteen hundred thirty two and he had to sit in prison in several of these when only the spoken

word most dangerous and how much more was written. My little sister told each to the president of the People's Court. She said so many people think what you have said and written but do not dare to say in actual fact the civilian opposition could not be measured in terms of political success. There was no hope for that. What could one do except prepare for the future. Most representative of this thinking was count how much from Marca a scholar an aristocrat and the acknowledged leader of the cries out circle. This group was drawn from a cross-section of German society liberals and conservatives politicians and churchmen. Their discussion is concerned not how to overthrow Hitler but rather how to lay a foundation for a new society to follow. Fine Mako was arrested early in 1904. He was tried and later sentenced to death for his

complicity in the resistance movement. In his farewell letter to his wife from prison he wrote We are hanged because we thought together thoughts of the tortured present thoughts of a brighter future thoughts in this way characteristic of the entire resistance movement for a one time member of this resistance and now a leading member of the German parliament in the resistance. There was a great. Public GTD of opinion in the direction of a new democratic state and conservatives labor union leaders as they all had more or less say a similar concept called the intellectuals and people in the resistance and much of the upper crust. Really I think there has been such an appeal across again said I would you rather

agree on Thomas Mann who said that there has been a capital relation of the intellectuals. Neither the one nor the other position. It is true that in already in 1932 a good deal of the intellectuals in Germany did not defend active democracy but others did. Our intellectuals university people our writers were divided divided into the same groups of opinion and the rest of the nation. You feel that this division of the intellectuals that you spoke of in 1933 was a division in actual thought and philosophy or was it a division of the courageous and courageous. Both. A good deal of intellectuals who worked consciously and actively for the Nazi regime by their conviction. They were not only cowards but they fought for

the right thing to do. This worked against them and have been persecuted or driven out others. Left the country because they couldn't borrow and they didn't see any chance to to work in Germany because foreign intellectuals necessary to speak out what he is thinking and therefore they left the country about the world. Her son who had another opinion didn't do too to spell it out remained in German he did not take part in any activity against the regime but just to try to to make a life of their own in a totalitarian regime. Every kind of deformed mation of human nature is possible. There was not a unique class. They were all human beings with all the variety of of thinking and of acting as in other groups of the nation too.

And after thirty three I must say that all of those who worked at different places and the rest of the resistance in my view were the leading model of personalities in Germany and work out their spirit of sacrifice for freedom for democracy and for a new Germany probably the nation could not have been rebuilt after 45 a good deal of the spirit of the rule. This. Has become the basis for a new democratic life mission to go. To get. Men against Hitler was written and produced for WGBH FM in Boston by Crocker snow and Michael Naumann radio dacha Volokh alone

West Germany. Speakers work rockers know Michael Naumann and Robert Montague. We invite you to stay tuned for a critical discussion of the program you have just heard. Participants will include persons now living in New England who for reasons of academic research or personal experience have a deep interest in the topic. This is the eastern educational radio network.