Nina von Stauffenberg, widow of would-be Hitler assassin Count Claus von Stauffenberg, has passed away at 92.
Pregnant at the time of the assassination attempt, she was placed in a concentration camp while 5,000 people were executed as traitors. Her husband was executed by gunshot and his body burned. Her brother-in-law's execution by strangulation with piano wire was filmed, and Hitler watched it over and over.
The Restless Conscience is an amazing documentary on the German Resistance. It might be in your library system, and I can't recommend it highly enough for giving very clear lessons on what it really meant for a German to lift a hand against Hitler.
I can *smell* the leiderhosen all the way over here..
I wonder what young Adolph's MySpace journal
would have looked like....surely some firecracker/toadfrog videos...
LOL. I had a good laugh imagining his MySpace page.
Posted by: Donnah at April 4, 2006 04:28 PMToo bad the German resistance couldn't get off the pot before it was too late. Stauffenberg's group had a chance, but they counted on officers who were indecisive at best, and they could have learned some lessons from Lenin about how to seize power quickly.
The truth is, the German army backed Hitler until it became clear that the war was lost. Then they put a little more energy into their resistance.
Posted by: Chris at April 8, 2006 09:30 AMThat being said, Stauffenberg at least was sincere, and he paid the price for it. RIP to his widow and all the victims of a madman.
Posted by: Chris at April 8, 2006 09:31 AMHitler was brutally crushing dissent from the very beginning. It's very hard to resist in a police state. I really have a lot of pity for the people that did. Almost invariably, they got it in the neck. The wife of White Rose member Christopher Probst (I think it was Probst), had every single male in her family executed. First her husband for the distribution of leaflets, then when the Allies were near, the men in her family tried to take over a radio station. All were executed.
Canaris was working against Hitler for years and payed in the end by being strangled to death:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Canaris
