Why a hero?Originally Posted by Wolf Slayer
Why a hero?
In Tunisia, he lost one arm and one eye. And seemingly for nothing, as the Afrika-campaign was a failure. So bitterness sank in his heart. He used to be attractive to women before...
A typical representative of the reactionary Prussian military clique.
Nothing less than an idol for democrats.
Surely he could not have been armed in the presence of the führer?
Nor is he an "idol for democrats", Spabjork; they usually never tire of pointing out his non-democratic, aristocratic ideals.
As far as I know, he could have been. Even if not, if he can smuggle in a bomb, he could have done the same to a gun.
Another handicap might have been that he only had 3 fingers left, then again the reason why Stauffenberg left was mainly due to that fact that tha assassination of Hitler would have followed an uprising which was supposed to be coordinated by him.
The best way to have killed Hitler would have been to send another officer willing to risk his life more directly (e.g. suicied bombing) and he stays in Berlin to manage things from there.
I am not sure if one should call him hero just because he "tried".
Additionally, WS names him a hero because of a) provocation and b) lack of historical understanding.
Stauffenberg and his gang were quite loyal at first, and what many of them did on the eastern front most likely would not please most "white power" fetishists.
They mostly didn't attack Hitler because of his policies, but simply because they were loosing the war. Stauffenberg might have kept NS in place if could.
"Nothing is more disgusting than the majority: because it consists of a few powerful predecessors, of rogues who adapt themselves, of weak who assimilate themselves, and the masses who imitate without knowing at all what they want." (Johann Wolfgang Goethe)
I can see where you're coming from, it was the guys job to assassinate Hitler and he doesn't even bring a gun and take the chance that he had, sounds pretty pansish to me.Heros should know self-sacrifice, he was too much of a coward.
He could have just used his gun, the chances he had, but he was too scared as it seems, therefor he paid, the NS "Führerprinzip" (leaders principle) worked perfectly
I think it was Pervitinist(could be wrong here) who best summed it up in a different thread. Basically he said that the July Plotters only turned against Hitler when the tide of the war had turned against Germany. For example, Tresckow never objected to the harsh treatment of partisans in the occupied areas. General Hoepner never made an objection to the Commisar Order, and only joined the anti-Hitler conspiracy when Hitler had him sacked after he pulled his unit back during the Moscow enemy counter-offensive. Just don't always be so quick to call them heroes.
Notwithstanding allied propaganda from the 1930's to now, Hitler was a maniac and a loser that should not have been allowed to take over the government of Germany. In 1944, the sensible thing was to get rid of him and negotiate a bearable peace with the allies: this is what Stauffenberg and the men of July 20 attempted. Hitler, on the other hand, insisted that the Germans should fight until the last man was fallen. And they did.
Yes, still, if Hitler would have not kept loosing Stauffenwichs and his gang would still have screamed "Sieg Heil".
This is just something to be considered before some Anti-NS call him a hero.
"Nothing is more disgusting than the majority: because it consists of a few powerful predecessors, of rogues who adapt themselves, of weak who assimilate themselves, and the masses who imitate without knowing at all what they want." (Johann Wolfgang Goethe)
The plotters against Hitler knew very well that allied peace terms were rigid "unconditional surrender". Churchills statement, in which he said that the allies do not fight Hitlers Nazism but Germany, that means the German people, tells us the reason why. If the plot had succeeded, after a short but bloody civil war, the result would have been much the same. I doubt, that the world would be a better place today, like somebody stated in this thread. Concerning Stauffenberg, I would not call him a hero, but he certainly was no coward, either. From what I have read about him, I am quite sure he had the guts to kill Hitler "with his own three fingers", but he and the other conspirators believed that he was indispensable for carrying on the plot in Berlin. He knew that he threw in his life, as he had done before, when he was badly wounded. So you may call him a traitor, but never a coward! hagallJust don't always be so quick to call them heroes.
Stauffenberg was not a coward - his previous military career and his willingness to face danger during the attempt on Hitler's life amply demonstrate his personal courage - yet I believe that he was ultimately a traitor. He turned on the legitimately-elected leader of his nation at a time when German was fighting for its life and he was (at least partly) motivated by outdated and meaningless notions of social elitism.
In 1066, when the Normans defeated a Saxon Army that had already marched the length of England twice and fought a pitched battle against other invaders in the north, the household troops of Harold, the slain English King, gathered around his body and refused to save their lives by surrendering. Like all Germanic soldiers, they swore to either bring their lord victory or die with him.
Was this a senseless waste of life or a shining example of selfless loyalty that should inspire us down the generations? I am sure that we could choose sides and debate that point for a long time...but let's imagine, just for a moment, that one of Harold's soldiers - maybe a man of proven courage with a long record of valour to his name - saw that the battle was likely to be lost and then decided to stab his King in the back, hoping that he might negotiate with the enemy...would we think of him as a hero who had 'the wider European picture' in mind at the moment of his treachery?
It is a great mistake to trust the 'historians' who depict Hitler as a raving madman. At the height of National Socialist Germany's pre-war economic boom, a man approached a publisher with a book he had written. He claimed (probably falsely) that he had known Hitler when he was a struggling art student in Vienna. The book - "Hitler: The Young Genuis I Knew" - was such a grovelling, sycophantic expression of adoration for the Fuhrer that Hitler felt bound to ask the publisher to suppress it.
3 days after Germany surrendered, the same author presented himself to the occupying American forces and offered his book again. He had thoughtfully provided it with a new title - "Hitler: The Young Monster I Knew". The Americans loved it so much that it was rushed into publication and widely distributed. This is admittedly an extreme example of one writer's eagerness to mangle the truth, but you might be surprised at how many 'historians' base their analyses of Hitler on this kind of 'eye-witness' material.
Aeric
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