Crocker Snow Reports From Germany; Men Against Hitler

Men against Hitler. Postscript you have just been listening to man against Hitler a documentary of the German resistance within the Third Reich. This was a program produced in Germany for WGBH FM and God you die Trevenna. Now here in Boston several people have gathered to discuss the program and the questions it has raised. Would each of you please introduce yourself. I'm far from Mort the wife of the fine Larkin mentioned in the broadcast you just had. I'm good Ruth I'm a drone television correspondent in Washington and I produced a kind of there's no commander of 14 one of the problems of not feeling down there. I Mary Goldhagen I teach politics at Brandeis University and frittering and I teach German history at Harvard University. I William Henry Chamberlin the writer and journalist and I've published a book the German Phoenix about the rise of Germany since 1945 and I mine so if I try to teach history at Brandeis.

How I suppose it would be appropriate for me. To begin the discussion with France a month ago I was the one person here who has probably a closer personal connection with the resistance than anyone else. Probably more do you want me to see what my general impressions of this broadcast please. On the whole or the impression I got when I listened to the broadcast was that the opposition in Germany had been weak. I think the broadcast is quite fair. There are a few points that could be better heard some could say more but quite a lot. But this fact that the impression to me is that listeners must think the position is weak I would like to say something about I think it was

weak and I'm not going to defend it. I don't think that there's much purpose in defending it. But I want to be a little aggressive in saying it was weak because I think what one can learn of its weakness is really how very difficult it is to have an opposition and active resistance against a very totalitarian regime. And the. The quality of that regime I think is very difficult to imagine unless you live in it. You cannot imagine how how every opposition had been destroyed and how everybody who was against Hitler was alone in the beginning. You cannot imagine the power and the omnipotence that word was used in the fall of the regime head.

And also it took some time to find out that these questions how to get rid of a totalitarian regime not just a man but as a regime. You need much more the understanding. I don't want to see the cooperation that's far too much but the understanding of the outside world that world. I think this is something which only runs out later after the regime has come to an end. And so I'm not going to try and vindicate the Germans and the resistors. I don't I don't want to. But I do think that it's important for the world to learn the lesson may happen again in different parts of the world that it is hard to actively oppose but orderly Therion regime. MR. Well I like to draw very much I must say I think it was quite complete of course

there are points which what happened can discuss CML and which one would have to say more about perhaps one of the other what I liked about of this is that it did not concentrate entirely on the what you might call the military resistance but rather showed to fairly broad spectrum of early resistance in the first five years from now if you will in Germany which is something very often not considered in Germany too. That's what I liked about it it was very complete and gives really a fairly broad picture and I would I should put in a few figures here because I didn't know you meant three 139 230000 people had been sentenced to jail for political activities which is quite a lot. One million people in Germany had been forced out along at times or worse still in concentration camps. That time. And effort 10:39 your hundred sixty five hundred sixty two thousand people in concentration camps 27 told one particular trials and other terror cells and sentenced to jail. This was before the so-called military conspiracy began. This was I mean still

I don't know yet time and I think it's very worthwhile pointing that out and pointing out the great difficulties of course for any kind of organized resistance once it's too late. But I think that I have no objection to anything said in the film. Mr. Gold taken any serious objections to anything said in the film but when one speaks with the weakness of the resistance and about the omnipotence of the talking. Terry in St.. I think two things are to be borne in mind. The Irresistible not only week because of the objective circumstances it was isolated morally in the domination. I think one member of the resistance said paraphrasing a drum an artist will straight conform because as tunable of the science I'm very much impressed by the fact that the Nazi regime out of this may sound was less total or carry on than the Soviet regime the Army had a considerable measure of autonomy and I think if there was the will to act it could act it will wasn't there the out there had been sort of measure of autonomy.

Indeed one of the most greatest curiosities of the Nazi regime. As we read the record after the war was how dispersed the ruling elite were how how how weak the totalitarian controls were in the Soviet Union there were objective difficulties no matter how much you wanted to resist it was impossible in Germany there were objective possibilities many more objective possibilities but the resistance was morally isolated it lacked it had great inhibitions and it did not act in the for many opportunities to act. So it is important to bear in mind that the total materialism of Marxism while thorough at the lower level of society was not as thorough in the lead. It's inconceivable that in the Soviet Union there would be a conspiracy in the army for so long without being discovered by the police or that the whole intelligence service such as the the obvious would be a hotbed of the conspiracy. So it is important to bear in mind that these man were were aliens in Germany. Alien to the dominant spirit that was ruling Germany at the time.

That's you know if you think that one million people have been in concentration camps by 1939 This means that 1 out of 17 had been in a concentration camp at that time which is quite a lot if you ask me I'm not quite sure how much resistance you can normally expect from people. It's very hard to say but I think it's not a very bad thing anyway. Yes but you must remember that many were taken to concentration and not for active resistance. The mere fact of having been a communist functionary the protest specially if your suspicion was an up and how many of these were Jews incidentally. Oh not so many I mean I kind only say that in the case of Hamburg my home town when I looked through cases about 9000 cases of people who had been condemned for political and political crimes and about 1000 of those had been Jews by that time. The difficulty is that you have that you feel works wonders if you work with a period before 1939 you have you no way. What is not yet quite resistance what is still the

establishment of the national socialist system and its persecution of dissident elements that were dissident people in national socialism was on. I founded it in a way interesting that the documentary did very little with the ideas of the resistance for example the ideas of the Kaiser circle. It struck me particularly after listening to a professor I don't know but the question of what work was in fact discredited politically and culturally before Hitler. And what you do logical but what faith what alternatives were available. Wasn't it made more pronounced in a way that seems to me the most interesting. Story of the resistance is not not in range of the Army leadership where the question of expediency is important

but if that segment of the leadership where these considerations clearly mixed with concerns over the possible establishment of a new kind of ideology a new kind of politics and perhaps somewhat later in the program we can come back to the question of what they saw what they meant to do and want what things seem to be just going to go on. I think the broadcaster has missed it slightly admirable in itself although there were a few points I would like to see him added. I think as Professor wringers said there should have been no more discussion of just what the opposition wanted to set up. There were of course many ideas that were floating around but there was perhaps not quite enough attention to what they wish to replace the Nazi regime with. Then I believe the one point that has always struck me

and looking back on this very heroic and very tragic experience was what a great loss it was for post-war Germany because these 5000 perished. Contain among them some of the most brilliant minds and I feel that in the Federal Republic today sometimes one feels that it's a very admirable regime as just a little stodgy and I imagine it is. And that is partly because they are natural leaders and many of them perished in this movement. Then I think also that it was perhaps a low I was not in Germany during my war and had no direct connection with the resistance. But I lived in Russia for 12 years from 1922 to 1934 and so I saw a good deal of a system where almost literally everyone was forced to spy on everyone else and of course the Nazi regime was very similar. All of them were the greater

greater freedom for the Army for the secret police and and so on so that I feel that perhaps I can sympathize more not only with the leaders of the resistance but with the average German who was not a Nazi even who was just wanted to keep out of trouble. I think anyone who has lived in a one under one kind of totalitarianism a communist type will be a less harsh perhaps and judging not the criminal and. Hide them all mosses but be great. Great numbers of Germans who we could put in the great category who are neither members of the resistance or yet associated with their own will with the crimes of the Nazis. And I think also this resistance movement was a wonderful vindication of the individual spirit there was. There could not be a mass movement because that would certainly have been discovered by the Gestapo. But that so many individuals of varying

social backgrounds and so on felt that it was incumbent to take some action rather harkening proof that even under the most ruthless kind of totalitarianism there were some individuals like this general trash felt that he had saved Germany's honor he and the other members of the resistance just by having acted in the not having let Hitler go unchallenged. And I think that can be. Also over the course of the resistance to refuting the idea some people have and I believe still have that Naziism was predominantly a conservative movement. Actually it was a rather revolutionary radical movement. Getting most of it support I think from the lower middle classes in Germany. I did spend a year in Germany 19 34 and so I got some. I did this in the first in a rather milder period of Naziism

would just walk in groups who were most affected by the Nazi propaganda and it seems to me it was rather the the lower middle class and I was just recently reading a very interesting book by we're still a phone card or about life in Berlin when the she said they were between the Allied bombs and the terror of the Gestapo and she emphasized the point that in her circle which was a rather aristocratic intellectual circle the discontent and the dislike of the Nazi regime was it was a very gentle force it was still not a mass movement of individuals. But I think the mere lists of the participants of the resistance a number of officers and people the aristocratic and high civil service backgrounds would show that the actually probably most of the resistance of the Nazis did not come from later masses of came rather from

individuals of high courage and high conscience. I mean I think we have to. Look at the word resistance no group. I was of course it did not come as a resistance which could actually kill Hitler or change the regime did not come from the masses but of course most people who executed are sentenced to jail and so on will of course not on the outside which is relatively not very strongly presented in these groups of political will trials but came of course from the workers there's no doubt about that. Well not that we've gone around the table once more or less. I. Think. It's fairly clear that there are at least two quite central questions which have been raised by. Various people. One is the acknowledged fact that it is very difficult to resist in what is called a totalitarian regime. And this raises

the question of when is it too late to try and I think well I'd like to say just one thing about this very struck by the fact that. In many ways the crucial point was the spring of 1933 after Hitler had been appointed Chancellor by 30th of January and after the elections which gave the Nazis and the nationalists together as a coalition a tiny majority came the great vote of the 23rd of March on which the cabinet rather than Hitler personally was given dictatorial powers for a supposedly period of four years. Now at that point and this is really quite a decisive point. At that point the Catholic Church

was. Quietly pretty much in favor of Hitler and worrying about the court that the Protestants or Jews were being pretty quiet if not somewhat warm in favor of it. The industrialists the bankers the great landowners the army were all either enthusiastic or at least friendly or at least hoping that something useful would come of this experiment. And at the meeting of the rock star in the crowded Opera House since the Reich started being burned at the meeting of the rock star to vote on these dictatorial powers the only group which stood up against Hitler were the SPDC with the Social Democrats. And nobody came to their aid nobody else supported the center party didn't support them. The Conservatives didn't support them and of course the Communists were excluded by the Nazis from most of them most of the leaders were in jail anyway. And this seems to me a tragic moment in German history because that was the point I

think which resistance was still possible. Perhaps if I may just add something if one looks at what the conspirators themselves the man who would risk their lives that at that time most of them look with favor upon this development and Stauffenberg marginata parade in Bunbury This is very well attested by many witnesses and he was even approached by his fellow officers for marching in a political parade so a bro and others I happened to remember my husband the day took power that he said this was the greatest tragedy that could have happened and how depressed is nowhere. He was relieved. Completely in despair. There's no doubt about his feelings on that day and I think that is the fact that his letter. I had an almost diabolical cleverness in fooling in the seating great numbers of people promising to be more or less all things to all people and then the successively disillusioning one

group after another. That is undoubtedly in the beginning. Many German nationalists who were not fanatical racists just felt that Hitler was good for national unity national moral and many of them as a cult held over for others who lost their lives either in the connection of July 20th or love the too late they realize that they've been very badly fooled and granted the great the holder of a higher officers corps I think was in that same position that in the beginning they looked rather with favor at a man who. Dave national slogans and promise rearmament and restoration of Germany quality and so on. Then when they saw play and a lot of business of catastrophe Hitler was leading them they say that the accounts for that interesting point brought out in the broadcast that a great many generals were approached and gave more a less ambiguous answers but none of these generals

betrayed the people who approached them showing that. I think almost all higher officers realized by well probably even before 1944 that the war was lost in the Nothing way ahead with ruin and that the best thing done was to possible to get rid of Hitler in the making peace and peace. I also think that I don't know that that came properly within the sphere of the broadcast but I do think that the Western powers made a great mistake in not making more of an effort to deal with the anti-Nazi underground and in emphasizing unconditional surrender I think that a negotiated peace with a non Nazi Germany would have been the nearest thing to a happy ending you could have had in the war and would have averted many of the unfortunate consequences that we see now. Longer. Not just the ringers of the allied response to the existence after all.

Even though there were repeated contacts contacts where individual contacts and allied state dates missed told by someone that there is a resistance which leaves him in a very poor position to estimate exactly what it is plus the fact that it is true that within the army and within the diplomatic corps there was as I said earlier a range from an attempt really to make a good peace before. Before the war really got out of control and in some cases probably a better peace for Germany then the Allies were by any stretch of the imagination in a position to grant a range from this position to a much more principled opposition. At this stage. Well how is the allied leader going to know this how is he going to know how strong the resistance is in any position to make any kind of bargains at this point. I mean this is not an attempt I think to discredit for the distance but I mean it seems to me more or less

comprehensible why the Allies behaved as they did. Given what they couldn't know about the resistance and what they could be sure not sure of George's questions quite characteristic What can you guarantee well. To the man who represents this was a student. It seems unfair and a very hard question to an allied leader it's an absolutely natural essential and I agree on that and I think the Germans at least should not to dwell on that point too strongly that they should have been helped by the allies about them by the powers outside but the interplay of powers outside and what they think and the what happens inside the country of course is much greater than the powers are realized and what kind of cannot blame them but their effect was certainly detrimental to the opposition. And this thinking of I just want to make a correction

on something on the tape. In the recording of fog in front of his remarks about Churchill there is a small mistranslation of the question which Churchill asked properly was can you give us any guarantee that the opposition will actually come to power but that it will in fact have a chance to act not will it have any influence and upper part of this I think it's also worth pointing out that the conversation which he had he had with Churchill who was not only out of power but out of favor and that is in a sense symptomatic of these contacts they were very indirect. They were very unofficial. They were in many respects promising more than they could guarantee to carry out. And that is not as

it was during You said that is not really a sufficient basis of action for statesmen in a complicated situation. I would like to go. The abstract ponders that really I think we have reached the point by now where we try to avoid creating our advisers as a monolith on monolithic blocks and the point where we know that. I wish we could go in there. Well anyway I think we have come very close in this kind of discussion and to the point where we were twins and say taken out of time that whether we like the conservative ideas which were in the 20th of July and possibly I would not have liked many of them many things I would have thought very dangerous. Still I mean they're conservatives and they're not Nazis which is a distinction to make distinction worth my thinking often word in power politics. Well the other side is the oldest skit I think there even if the Allies had full knowledge of the magnitude of the resistance and after all there was not that great but they had full knowledge and they were too inhibiting factors first which

they broadcast mentioned the fear of their in your dog's trust again. Stab in the back which will again be a source feeding Gary five German nationalism. And secondly there was fear that about the actions of the new German government born out of a successful coup. What would you do with the lights of the Russia and the Russians were failed by the lights over the West. This was the dominating factor in the compilations of both the Western allies and and the Russians and I think even to this day if the those who are still alive from those are still alive off of the group that govern the destinies of the alliance we're asked. Do you think it is good that there is a sense of fair that would say yes and I can bring good documentary evidence that one of the leading stooge German students and British students of the German army Wheeler Bennett and has been in the German army says yes it is good that it

failed. It would have been worse if it had been successful from a purely parochial point of view I think it would have succeeded for a number of reasons. Because a million Jews with a bit of life today and I get all of getting Jews would have it would have been alive from the conspiracists have plans to dispose of concentration camps but I think the word is deep. Fact is the limited any any encouragement of religion a little assistance. But it seems to me that if they had never put out that slogan unconditional surrender and Id rather kept on chapping the idea that the non Nazi Germany that got rid of Hitler and the Nazi regime could expect better terms than the Nazi Germany that that would have given the Western powers a far greater freedom of political warfare than I had and it might. No one can say what would have happened if a different course of been followed. But it just might have created a situation that would have prevented or anticipated the Russian invasion of Germany which I think that

terrible disaster morally and politically because of the Russians committed the horrible sack of Berlin and the innumerable atrocities of the Red Army committed all over eastern Germany. But. Is also left a dilemma of a divided Germany am the Soviet satellite regime in East Germany. I think it would have been worth a great deal if the Russian army could have been kept out of Germany altogether and if the final arrangements had been made strictly between the Western powers and not Nazi Germany. And I think also there was not much reason to fear the alliance with Russia because I think all the resistance leaders were thoroughly western in their ideals and their ideology and I think it for most improbable of they would turn toward Russia. I think they would have pursued the same policy that the Federal Republic has pursued had but had the

chance of this so I still think it's the reader. I still think you've put your finger on one of the most compelling reasons not to gamble too heavily at that point on the on the resistance which is that you suggest the Russians suspicion of any sort of some goshi ation would have been just a fine and indeed would have you know does integrated the alliance and after all you have you're dealing with people who remember not whom you had closed on impact but who also remember the mutual distrust of the late and Saudis. And allied weakness against Hitler's early advances which you know every historian seems to me since then has agreed to condemn. So I think the just this element the element of the possibility of suspicion among the allies is perhaps another one to add to the list on factors making and negotiation with an

unofficial representative often inestimably large or small resistance highly dangerous and unknown lines. Oh I would not suggest for the formal negotiations treaty there is no one really in Germany who could've had commanded enough support. Unless of course they cool. But if it succeeded which it did not. But I do think that a three year hand in political warfare and some effort directly recognize a distinction between the German people and the Nazi government would have been desirable and might have led to much to a much better post-war settled them. We actually got what I think by now we're well into the second question that I thought was raised right at the beginning since we know that the resistance failed. The interesting question that arises is what would

have happened conceivably if it had succeeded. And here I would suggest that one of the incidental perhaps like weaknesses of the program that we've heard is that it has somewhat underplayed the political aspect of the resistance moral aspect as well brought out the difficulties and reintegrate more coverage and in many cases heroism involved. But it's a very interesting question to raise. Why the resistance movement politically and I think the first thing here is that it was politically not at all united. We heard practically nothing on the problem. How about one person. A political leader who was very important in a college girl who was a success I think would have been almost an unmitigated disaster. We heard terribly little about the ideas of the cries of

crisis which I think were and I'm obviously just voicing my personal predilections were absolutely first rate even though they have often been called academic and too theoretical and so forth and I think it might be worthwhile to discuss a little what the political intentions of some of the principal political resistance were and here I think perhaps we could ask Monica. Where are the people when they started getting together to think and plan about the time after the collapse of the regime tried to get all of the different forces that were opposed to national socialism together. Of course there a very important element was what is the same as the Labor Party in England.

I think this is so for Democrats in Germany and in their trying to get together with the other some more conservative more so. Or the inference backed by Christian thinking. The achievement of that group I think was that in their getting together they managed to see each other's weak points and also see how in the future they must get less dogmatic and open up to each other. Because after all Marxism is dead this is what at least the Socialists were willing to see. Now this is said by many former socialists but it wasn't at the time. The churches in their side had to learn a great deal to open up towards the industrial development that had taken.

Place all over your. So there they got very much closer and developed ideas which are taken for granted today but we had at the time that they where Democrats don't have really to say because it almost goes without saying. We are our friends where I had seen what totalitarianism led to when that democracy though it has great mistakes has grades safety valves to Windows safety well have to get rid of people and vote for new ones. If they found was absolutely necessary to bring back to Germany. I think it's perhaps too much to expect a clear cut problem in a situation like that I mean for two reasons One is that practically all of the documents of the time I got in there were a number of studies which would probably be even interesting today which were dealing

with the problems of industrial ocracy and modern forms of society in an administration. Things like that where they had destroyed the other thing is that in a real you should marry our confit conspiratorial situation. You never find a clear cut program. You find people of all kinds of ideas together. They may hate each other's ideas to a certain extent but they are together for one purpose and so the discussion about a program really begins later. We could take an example what do you think of the Hungarian revolution in Budapest where you had everything from pretty fascist to communist involved with no clear cut all of them. These things come out I mean after thing has succeeded and it would be really almost impossible to say what would have come out in July in my life. I'm talking about but I think that then I would do with anger and revolution has sort of carried too far because I get a little very spontaneous labor in far and prepared memoranda for many years good luck prepared to very good to have them

around on together with the help of the boundless particle to see go there which are fairly clear ideas were set out I think that what united them was the following. Most of them except for the Chrysler circuit most of them were not Democrats in the strict sense of the work there was a very strong authoritarian streak in the movement as Homburg is said to have spoken about the Kali high Trindle the eagle of Terry and frog which isn't better than democracy but what united them of was first negatively. A genuine revulsion against the totally Terran regime and above all positively a desire for a right to start this if you read the first book on NATION. The proclamation that was to be addressed to the German people it opens with the sentence. The foundation of all humanity is deep in my state. This does that. This this was here was the lalas regime the majesty of the law here was a lawless regime which makes life in secure which

is redress in cruel and many of them were certainly what united most of them was also a revulsion to Weimar and the desire to create a system that would not be a repetition of lime or any of that kind of the modesty of revalidation against it and the forts of vibes I had been so evident you could see I could lay a finger is on them and so there it was. You couldn't go back to Weimar but you. Which was after all a very well thought out democracy but didn't work. So what did you have to do to change it. Yes I think I just might add one thing is as I examined carefully the ideology of the of the person was especially interested in the article the Jews and this will come to the shop I find that most of them were in fact a bit under some of those with very few exceptions. But and yet my attitude towards them is not one of hostility or involvement because to me the criterion in Germany at the time was not

author of tarrying as worse as democracy not. Not what kind of constitution one has or not even but one is an antisemite. The criterion was a very fundamental one. Are you a trans evaluator of values like the Nazi Are you opposed to western civilization are you for Western Civilization. Mention I don't match and when you apply this criteria that most of the conspirators know late and some belong to the party of the manchild well on the other side where these great trends evaluate all values not system and I think this what unites them they were for the few exceptions because they were around the art characters and because procedures are to enable kill Jews in Eastern Europe and with few exceptions most of them belong to the party of humanity against the party of barbarous Mrs.. This certainly applies to gargle and his friends. Till this uprising players doesn't want to tell are whether you have one of the following. If I may just elaborate front one minute you have been a former Nazi ideal law for the name

of yester. Who was a member of the meet for itself which met six intellectuals met every day. But yes it was a Nazi idealogue who had many students now oh yes and had a reader to answer student whose name was owned or who was a massive secure girl I was almost killed by his units who presided over the mass extermination of Jews in Eastern Europe this was the product of the essence education. Yes in recall and to return seeing what he had read he returned what I call the part of humanity on Darth Terry the ideology of this logical conclusion and we can amass murderer. But when he did worry about the five they were authoritarians are not consumed nor am I one of them or understand what's most in there under some lights. Well I think I think it would be legitimate to worry a little bit. So long as one is talking in the context of the question what would the future of Germany have been in for example Gertler had become a head of state and I have no question whatsoever that he was a decent human being.

None whatever. But his plans I find not only profoundly unrealistic domestically since he to all intents and purposes wanted to create a Germany which would have been fairly close to eight hundred thirty eight hundred forty at least the whole of the democratic revolution of a creator and I think his foreign policy plans are if anything even more fantastic. Oh yes and he wanted he wanted to derive benefits from Hitler's conquest. He wanted to keep Austria. He wanted to restore in Poland the borders of 1914. He wanted it lead to cede a substantial part of the Terrel he wanted to divide Alsace-Lorraine along linguistic lines and so forth and so on. And this I think. It raises one further connected question

and that is how far the leadership of the opposition fragments. I think it's a mistake to call it a single movement probably about how far they were realistic. And this brings us back once again to the question of what are the conditions what are the possibilities of really opposing a well entrenched regime once it is well entrenched in many respects. I think many of the groups were dreaming. Some of them as I think Girdler was of restored honorable decent but very traditionalist very conservative and very national Germany. In some cases I think it would not be unfair to say of the crisis circle they were dreaming of a socially just and democratic Germany. And in both cases

one or perhaps two. And you would use labor here about whom I think nothing was said on the program. From Great Socialist leader. I think in all these cases the question that arises is how far these plans and how far these ideas were geared to a Germany which even in 1944 was already in grave crisis. And it raises the very great question which was raised in a very remarkable article in 1946 by Dean Ford of Harvard on the 20th of July raises the question of whether in fact any of these plans and especially girlish plans would have commanded any popular support. Oh course I mean this was the great weakness though. I would think that at this last late phase of drug resistance. You know it's a slow point where the great and deep division was slowly breached very

slowly but it happened that I think was one of the most important things. That is one of the reasons of course how Hitler came to power and why resistance was so weak in the beginning. I mean. German society was entirely divided yet the upper and middle classes in deadly fear of the Marxist parties and finally willing to work for Italy even if they were Death time slightly disgusted with this programme even if they thought where they were off of course thought they could manage him and manipulate him where they were willing to do practically anything to exclude the sort of the Democrats and the Communists from power for fear of on social changes and this division this deadly fight in the German society before 33 gave it as a chance gave and made resistance almost impossible you had amassed bathers perhaps with the socialists communists and other groups. But you did not have the influential people in the army and so on who were willing to cooperate with them and the other way around of course too. Well I think Austria offers an

example that there's nothing like totalitarian rule to do away with these bitter differences that help so much to undermine the Weimar Republic because it is a fact that in post-war Austria and until very recently when the Christian social party decided to go it alone there has been a close coalition of the Christian social party that could more conservative party and the Austrian socialists and one reason why that was possible is of what are known visits to Russia is that in many cases the socialists and the Christian conservatives were in the same concentration camps they got to know each other. And it had a very educational thing. And I think perhaps by 1944 that might've worked out for Germany too. I think also what has happened. In the form of public in the West German government that there is nothing life today is the end kindness of tween right and left that there was in the Weimar period and that's one reason

why as a as a Swiss journalist wrote a book with the title long as Nick to Weimar long as non-Baha'i that's one of the reasons why the bond solidified itself and grew stronger all the more stable while Weimar it foundered on its internal differences and if I might make just one other historical analogy which I don't think has been mentioned it seems to me that the leaders of the July 20th movement of the German resistance were very very likely Russian. Take a brief study group of mostly army officers who were also aristocrats who farmed a plot and I think 25 to overthrow of the monarchy and they also had all sorts of reasons of alliance and so on that they weren't very good at Spirit ors and their movement to really put a lack of decision foundered most of them are sent to Siberia

so much but I think that's another reason for the failure of the. Movement on July 20th the man who took part in the tour not like communists or Nazis saw a man that they weren't hard boiled conspiratorial types they were a man who had been accustomed to speaking their minds and they were rather you might almost call open conspirators they didn't have of course. And the party in the proper sense of the word they had and developed a conspiratorial apparatus to the extent that say the Communists might have had and so on I think that analogy I think if you even look at the pictures from the berg and the some of the other leaders there really impressive looking figures and you can't help but feel that there was a tremendous trade here an idealism that was lost there as a pity that because of the somehow been salvaged although I personally feel that it was a good thing that if they did act. Well in the way this ends up with a question that in a way has has become entangled

with some of the things the mystery of the setting which is the question of the social incidence of just the one and then the sort of incidence of losses on the other that the fact of let's say the lower middle class character on the whole of the broad mainstream of the Nazi electorate is pretty well established on the other hand it's also it seems to me pretty clear that they're conservative and. I think this is a professor I don't know suggesting the conservative upper important segments of of violent society or really of prevailing society opposing one must contribute a great deal to its Phong. And contributed it seems to me to the destruction of communist and to some degree socialist Congress and leadership which was then it seems to me had an effect on the

resistance afterwards in the sense that it may very well be true for example that you find very you don't find as many prominent socialists very often as you find concern for the conservatives in the leading circles for example and Kaiser in song. It was agreed that you don't think they are going to get the socialists had their very prominent people in the resistance and I do think that it will. Really it is right that the nationalist groups in Germany helped the Nazis to come in. But some of their members then found out that they had made a grave mistake and and and required and. Whereas the socialists head relieved been strong opponents of National Socialism always and to me it still is extraordinary that such an and and well organized

mass of people is the socialist movement was at the time of the when the Nazis came in could not be made to act although they had really good. Leaders and this is what I said in the beginning reading the Torah was great that succeeded very quickly and getting rid of the leaders and having the mess of half will organize people to act you know like you see I think that's partly because I'm 33 and 34. Not only the lower middle classes but the middle class and what you would call upper class then would have backed justice part and U.S. provided a background for the destruction of all of the socialist organization in Prussia. So very very consistently the socialists saw themselves oppose in these early days not only by the National Socialists

but by the Conservatives by or by all the old elites. This has also it seems to me that you also find among the intellectuals it's true. These people have projected to the public and in a way had rejected Western ideas humanity in the Western sense it seems to me very often. And this helped to bring about the destruction of Weimar and this seeing that this isn't what they want the drama got out of hand and that is that. The distiller short of viable that they had been calling for all of them very often against Lima had taken had gone saw it taken a violent form of this is really it seems to me the main impetus for resistance among these circles and it seems to me that is why the ideas of the wrist and the positive ideas of the resistance are very often chastened versions of an early anti democratic sentiment anti-Republican

sentiment anti-Western sentiment and oftentimes a very curious sort of really. Anti political sentiment as such that is to say the claim that all politics are evil and that really the the learned or the old elites should rule and so on. And I think this connects with professor who first question as to whether a program conceived in these chastened but nevertheless. Ambiguous terms I think about politics about modern bottom about modern political organization general could have been turned at all feasible political structure. Want to know what exactly I mean it couldn't have been any worse of this I think it was an idea to keep in mind you know we couldn't have been any worse it was. Anyway it was a massacre

or similar something to work out if you know something about God afterwards and all you say about let's say the right wing of the nationalistic concern is probably right for certain and not an important segment for others it would not be right but it was also the anti-democratic feeling there. The effect of the exhaustion the other deadlock in 1933 in German politics. You know also why didn't the Social Democrats resist why didn't the trade unions do anything why did the communists just say well this is a passing phase. We fought communism and so on I think it was the complete deadlock and exhaustion. If I just play in defense of those characters. If you examined the plans drawn up in the middle of the war throughout history we're in the middle of a revolution you find it all in retrospect looking wildly unrealistic because a war is a destructor of the social fabric and opens so many possibilities that it is very difficult for those involved in a situation in which the social fabric of disintegrated to envision what would emerge from it all. And while

many planets late in the middle of a war with the middle revolution look wildly unrealistic and I don't think the conspiracy theories were unique in this respect but if I just made another point I think there is as I examined the evidence especially the attitude of the inability of the head of the officers of the officer class that it occurred to me that there was one element there which had been ignored by most writers except by by Soviet historians and by East German historians although I don't agree with them the overall interpretation of the resistance. There was an instinct of self-preservation. The nobility and the officer corps as they observe that what they call those guys into that mob that murderous mob that was ruling Germany they saw that the Demick come to the same murderousness we directed against them and that the Nazi rulers harbored a spoke to resentment against an adult. It's quite clear that this came out very clearly and Himmler's

famous speech after the uprising in which he spoke about those I forget at the exact moment phrase he was a bit of the nobility and I remember a letter by him with a conch t for Hitler he was the shorter general of the army and when the call comes the gifts fac the poisonous water he said. When I observe this as murdering Jews in Poland I wonder whether we will not be the next on THE LIST. There one can hear the marxist the right because it is basically the Marxist interpretation is that this vastly or German ruling class is a creator the Praetorian guard the Nazis the defendant the Praetorian guard that failed to heed the commands of the master and to again the Masters but this is a gross oversimplification to say the least. But there was an element of self preservation. The big victory of this regime may spell ruin for their stock RC and for the old officer class. May I add a point to that. This is not necessarily a wild Marxist interpretation I don't think Franklin port is exactly a wild Marxist in the

article which I have already referred to in the American Historical Review in 1946. He makes this point in a different way very clearly which is that for a good many of the conspirators. What was perhaps most frightening was not the occupation of Germany by foreign armies but the possibility of a repetition of 1918. The complete more collapse of Germany after a defeat. The specter are workers and soldiers councils the prospect of another social revolution. And so he writes and I'll quote from this one sentence for a former Price Commissioner named a girl or a crook financier named a loser or a great landowner Kleist the thought of social disintegration. Workers and soldiers councils the whole ball of his ation of collapse as they envisaged it could appear more frightening even

than that of complete occupation by foreign armies. I think that exaggerate very much like that resentment. Yes I think that I have known many like that but of course I'm a fairly small group and. And in that group the local java tive ones who could have had such ideas in their heads there were much more driven by the German being so badly damaged to what had been going on. You me even clearly this is being your motive is important. Belief was for conservative minded people a variation. And and there were others whom I knew well who thought that this was secondary compared to the importance of getting rid of that spirit that spirit for which doesn't only occur in Germany and which must come to a defeat or something as far as the probable source reform were concerned then the groups have very much different and it's in themself.

If you think of the young officers involved in the conspiracy who by the way were not natural offices but many would just walk home offices and come from quite different backgrounds actually thought to keep in mind. But if you think of those they had come very early to become national socialists in 1933 or so very often for motives they suddenly felt it was the idea of national socialism was something which attracted them terribly let down think for modern British I mean do and remarked against their own class and system at that time turned to something which was different and somehow still. So the National martyrs. And they had I mean I think of people I think of stuff and that would be true. They had social ideas for a future system which were not just there for the vision so I mean there are so many motives and then of all of them probably true but what you quoted I think was too simple. I think another element of that very very important in this whole movement was that it was grew up in a period of fierce

struggle on two fronts and that many Germans were carefully divided internally. I once had the experience of I got acquainted with a German who later became fairly prominent in my diplomatic service of the West German government and he had been officer of war and he said I confided to him that I had rather mixed feelings that of course I wanted the United States to win and Hitler to fall. But I hate having lived 12 years in Russia I hated the very thought of the Red Army taking Budapest and Vienna early on and moving deep into Europe and he said Well many of us have the same feeling you are terribly divided we had to fight for our country and yet to think of after evil Shipler ruling Europe forever that I said is too horrible he said I'm a religious man I just don't believe God would permit it. So I think that there was an

alum player that was a southern portions of the psychology of the resistance movement this this division that on the one many of the many nearly all of the people who were here. True it were distinguished themselves like Stauffenberg on the front and had all sorts of decorations and so on so there was that double element of that terrible deep internal division which in a way I think makes the German resistance puts an even a higher light morally than the resistance movements in France and other countries of Europe simply because these movements are simple. Oliver is no question that whereas with the Germans they have to overcome this deep feeling that they're going against their country and the fact they're able to rise above that. I think it showed at least that for all this minority it was of course and I'm already of the party and it was a thing that marked them out. It gave them a

singular distinction and in terms of moral as well as physical courage. I would in this context we like to see is something about a remark Mr I Don't Know made in the broadcast he said that the general is really only in matters of taste. Def. with. There's quite a lot of truth in that but I must point out that the Anti Nazi movement in the army did not come from the generals it came from the young officers and they young officers like Stauffenberg Tesco and one dog and many more. Certainly we are not like that. Well life I think this might be a good note on which to bring the discussion to a close. I hope that the combination of the documentary that you heard and the discussion which has followed has at least suggested

that the German resistance is a complicated affair that very few simple answers can be given to very deep and abiding questions. I would even add that the question of resistance to politically morally and humanly destructive regimes. Whether or not they're called totalitarian is a question which is by no means academic and which undoubtedly raises its head constantly. I want to thank you very much. Prophet Marco Rubio used to call Hagen the ringer Mr. Chamberlain for having discussed the subject. This is Hans who bash moderated discussion you have just heard a discussion held in Boston under review of the program men against Hitler and the questions raised about the history of the German resistance but I have gone just one more to go. He is the

widow of Helmut James from Monaco who was jailed by the Nazis in January 1944 and executed a year later because of his leading role among the German intellectuals who opposed it. Got this from old Colonel lives in Norwich for a month. Good rule good is the Washington D.C. bureau chief for the German television network A R D and for the cologne Hamburg Radio Network. He was go author and producer of a series of 14 documentary films on the Third Reich going under on television. Professor Eric gold Hagen is the director of the Institute of East European Jewish affairs at Brandeis University. Professor Fritz keyring teaches German history at Harvard University. When you made Chamberlain is a writer now living in Cambridge author of the German Phoenix moderator Professor Hyslop Bice teaches politics at Brandeis University. This discussion took place in the studios of WGBH FM in Boston. In view of the extraordinary nature of the Record Man against Hitler and the discussion that followed we would especially appreciate your

comments and criticisms given your interest we can work to present further programmes concerned with the still open questions of contemporary history. This is the eastern educational radio network.