Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
5
ANTI
NAZI RESISTANCE AND THE JULY BOMB PLOT
Anti-Nazi resistance in Germany was less overt than in occupied Europe, but existed
throughout the war, particularly in Berlin, where a group of
KPD-run communist
cells
operated a clandestine information network and organized acts of resistance and sabotage.
But the odds against them were overwhelming, and most groups perished. More successful
for a while was the
Rote Kapelle
(Red Orchestra), headed by Harold Schulze-Boysen, an
aristocrat who worked in the Air Ministry, with agents in most of the military o
ces, who
supplied information to the Soviet Union. The
Kreisau Circle
, a resistance group led by
Count Helmut von Moltke, and the groups around Carl Goerdeler (former mayor of Leipzig)
and General Beck (ex-chief of staff ) talked about overthrowing the Nazis and opening
negotiations with the western Allies. However, the most effective resistance came from within
the military. There had been attempts on Hitler's life since 1942, but it wasn't until late 1943
and early 1944 that enough high-ranking o
cers had become convinced defeat was
inevitable, and a wide network of conspirators established.
The
July Bomb Plot
that took place in the summer of 1944 at Hitler's Polish HQ, the
“Wolf's Lair” in Rastenburg, was the assassination attempt that came closest to success. The
plot was led by the one-armed
Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg
, an aristocratic
o
cer and member of the General Staff, with the support of several high-ranking members
of the German army. Sickened by atrocities on the eastern front, and rapidly realizing that
the Wehrmacht was fighting a war that could not be won, Stauffenberg and his fellow
conspirators decided to kill the Führer, seize control of army headquarters on Bendlerstrasse
and sue for peace with the Allies. Germany was on the precipice of total destruction; only
such a desperate act, reasoned the plotters, could save the Fatherland.
On July 20, Stauffenberg was summoned to the Wolf's Lair to brief Hitler on troop
movements on the eastern front. In his briefcase was a small bomb, packed with high
explosive: once triggered, it would explode in under ten minutes. As Stauffenberg approached
the specially built conference hut, he triggered the device. He then positioned the briefcase
under the table, leaning it against one of the table's stout legs less than 2m away from the
Führer. Five minutes before the bomb exploded, the Count quietly slipped unnoticed from the
room. One of the o
cers, Colonel Brandt, then moved closer to the table to get a better look
at the campaign maps and, finding the briefcase in the way of his feet under the table, picked
it up and moved it to the other side of the table leg. This put the very solid support of the table
leg between the briefcase and Hitler.
At 12.42pm the bomb went off. Stauffenberg, watching the hut from a few hundred
metres away, was shocked by the force of the explosion; he didn't doubt that the Führer,
along with everyone else in the room, was dead, and hurried off to a waiting plane to make
his way to Berlin to join the other conspirators. Meanwhile, back in the wreckage of the
conference hut, Hitler and the survivors staggered out into the daylight. Four people were
killed, including Colonel Brandt, who had unwittingly saved the Führer's life. Hitler himself,
despite being badly shaken, suffered no more than a perforated eardrum and minor
injuries. After being attended to, he prepared himself for a meeting with Mussolini later
that afternoon.
Bauhaus Archive
Klingelhöferstr. 14 • Wed-Mon 10am-5pm • Wed-Fri €6, Sat-Mon €7 •
W
bauhaus.de • U-Wittenbergplatz or bus #100
he Bauhaus school of design, crafts and architecture was founded in 1919 in
Weimar by Walter Gropius. It moved to Dessau in 1925 and then to Berlin, to
be closed by the Nazis in 1933 (see box, p.102). he influence of Bauhaus has
been tremendous; you can get a small glimpse of this from the modest collection
of the
Bauhaus Archive
, in a building designed by Gropius and completed in 1979.
Marcel Breuer's seminal chair is still (with minor variations) in production today,
and former Bauhaus director Mies van der Rohe's designs and models for buildings
show how the modernist style has changed the face of today's cities. here's work,
too, by Kandinsky, Moholy-Nagy, Schlemmer and Klee, all of whom worked at
the Bauhaus.
