Heroes Against Hitler, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg

I first published this article on November 9, 2011.

"Colonel Claus Graf (=Count) von Stauffenberg"

The man who nearly killed Hitler was born in eastern Swabia, a part of Bavaria, although the German dialect (German: Schwäbisch or Swabian in English) is not Bavarian, but rather it is more closely related to Swiss German and Alsatian German, located in that same overall region. A devout Catholic, his religious beliefs may have had an influence on his later opposition to Hitler and the Nazis, although not all historians agree on that. His first love was the cavalry, and he became an officer, although by the mid to late 1930s, traditional horse cavalry were giving way to mechanized cavalry. Stauffenberg began to have serious doubts about Hitler when the Führer sent troops to occupy the remainder of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, after the little nation had ceded German populated regions to Germany just six months earlier. He served in the campaigns in Poland in September 1939 and in France in May-June 1940. Like many Germans, Stauffenberg favored the reclaiming of territories lost to Poland after World War One. During the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Stauffenberg served as a staff officer in the army high command, not in a field unit. He tried to help change or limit German ill treatment of Soviet civilians, including Jews, and Soviet prisoners of war in the early months of the German invasion, but the brutal and murderous policies pushed Stauffenberg to embrace other German officers in opposition to Hitler.

Early in 1943 Stauffenberg was sent to Tunisia in North Africa, where German and Italian forces, under the operational control of Field Marshal Rommel, were trying to prevent the total loss of North Africa to the Allies. Just a month before the final Axis surrender there, Stauffenberg was severely wounded, losing his right hand, two fingers on his left hand, and his left eye, over which he eventually wore a black patch. It took several months in the hospital and further convalescence at home before Stauffenberg was able to resume service, this time as a staff officer at the headquarters of the Ersatzheer (Replacement Army), which was located in Berlin.* The Replacement Army had a number of anti-Nazi conspirators and plans for a takeover of Germany were developed, but most were not put into operation, while others failed, or had to be changed due to important Nazi leaders not being present. Eventually Stauffenberg carried a bomb-laden briefcase into Hitler's headquarters in northeastern Germany. The briefcase was placed under the conference table, just a short distance from Hitler, and Stauffenberg excused himself by saying he had to make a phone call. Just a few minutes later the bomb exploded, but Hitler, though shaken and bruised, survived, as one of the officers had moved the briefcase to the other side of the table support, and thus further away from Hitler, with the table support deflecting some of the direct affects of the blast. Stauffenberg witnessed the explosion from a distance and managed to get through the headquarters' security, convinced Hitler was dead. He flew back to Berlin and found that plans for the takeover of the government had not really moved, as many conspirators were uncertain about Hitler's death. Word came that Hitler was very much alive and Colonel General Fromm, the commander of the Replacement Army, and aware of the plot,** now tried to save himself by having Stauffenberg and other conspirators arrested, tried and executed in the early morning hours of July 21, 1944. There is a memorial in the courtyard where Stauffenberg and the other plotters were executed. Its heading reads: "Here Died For Germany" ("Hier Starben Für Deutschland"), and then it lists the names of the executed men. These men and hundreds more were executed for the attempt to kill Hitler. They weren't perfect, and many had supported Hitler earlier, but they saw evil and tried to do stop it. That makes them heroes in my book.

The information I've provided here is very basic. There are numerous detailed books on the July 20 plot, as well as the overall German Resistance movement. A very good source, and one I used, is by German historian Joachim Fest, "Plotting Hitler's Death, The Story of the German Resistance," Metropolitan Books, New York, 1996, published in the original German as "Staatsstreich, Der Lange Weg zum 20. Juli," Berlin, 1994 (translation:. "Coup, The Long Way (or Path) to July 20")

For more, see my article in "The German Question" series on the plot:
http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2011/08/german-question-part-one-hundred-fifty_29.html

* The Replacement Army was in charge of inducting men into the army and then training and equipping them for service with units in the field. Germany was divided into numerous military districts (Wehrkreise), with various training units stationed in each district under the control of the Replacement Army. Collectively these units totaled many hundreds of thousands of men. A number of anti-Nazi conspirators were in high positions in the Replacement Army, and they planned to use these substantial forces to secure control of Germany by disarming SS units and other Nazi formations, if Hitler were arrested or killed.

** Fromm's depth of involvement in the plot has been a subject of debate (after all, he had some of the main conspirators killed), but by all accounts, he knew of the plot and did not report it. That certainly implicated him. The Gestapo investigation did not uncover direct evidence against Fromm, but he was removed from the army a couple of months later. Just two months before the war ended, Fromm was sentenced to death by the Nazi court and the sentence was carried out only days later (by firing squad). Even with the walls crashing down around them, the Nazis pursued their enemies at home.

WORD HISTORY:
My/Mine-"My" is simply a shortened form of "mine," which was used to show possession by being placed before nouns. Both go back to Indo European "meyn." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "minaz," which then gave Anglo-Saxon (Old English) "min" (long "i" sound). By the 1100s or early 1200s, the shortened form had developed as its own distinctive word to show possession, "mi," and later "my," although "min" (also "myn") stuck around for quite awhile for use before words beginning with a vowel; thus it is still found in old Bibles. Of course "mine" is still with us to show possession, but instead of showing possession before a noun, it comes afterward: "That is my book," but "That book is mine." Common throughout the other Germanic languages: West Frisian "myn," Dutch "mijn," German "mein," but in Bavarian dialect "mei," Low German Saxon "mien," Icelandic "minn," Swedish, Norwegian and Danish "min."