Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
5
It quickly became apparent what had happened, and the hunt for Stauffenberg was on. Hitler
issued orders to the SS in Berlin to summarily execute anyone who was slightly suspect, and
dispatched Himmler to the city to quell the rebellion. Back in the military Supreme Command
headquarters in Bendlerstrasse, the conspiracy was in chaos. Word reached Stauffenberg and
the two main army conspirators, Generals Beck and Witzleben, that the Führer was still alive.
They had already lost essential hours by failing to issue the carefully planned order to mobilize
their sympathizers in the city and elsewhere, and had even failed to carry out the obvious
precaution of severing all communications out of the city. Goebbels succeeded in telephoning
Hitler, who spoke directly to the arrest team, ordering them to obey his propaganda minister.
Then Goebbels set to work contacting SS and Gestapo units, and reminding army garrisons of
their oath of loyalty to the Führer. After a few hours of tragicomic scenes as the conspirators
tried to persuade high-ranking o
cials to join them, the Bendlerstrasse HQ was surrounded
by SS troops, and it was announced that the Führer would broadcast to the nation later that
evening. The attempted coup was over. At 9pm, Hitler broadcast on national radio, saying he
would “settle accounts the way we National Socialists are accustomed to settle them”.
The conspirators were gathered together, given paper to write farewell messages to their
wives, taken to the courtyard of the HQ (a memorial stands on the spot) and, under the orders
of one General Fromm, shot by firing squad. Stauffenberg's last words were “Long live our
sacred Germany!” Fromm had known about the plot almost from the beginning, but had
refused to join it. By executing the leaders he hoped to save his own skin - and, it must be
added, save them from the torturers of the SS.
Hitler's revenge on the conspirators was severe even by the ruthless standards of the Third
Reich. All the colleagues, friends and immediate relatives of Stauffenberg and the other
conspirators were rounded up, tortured and taken before the “People's Court” - the building
where the court convened, the Kammergericht building, still stands (see p.114) - where they
were humiliated and given more or less automatic death sentences, most of which were brutally
carried out at
Plötzensee Prison
(see p.157). Many of those executed knew nothing of the plot
and were found guilty merely by association. As the blood lust grew, the Nazi party used the plot
as a pretext for settling old scores, and eradicated anyone who had the slightest hint of anything
less than total dedication to the Führer. General Fromm himself was among those tried, found
guilty of cowardice and shot by firing squad. Those whose names were blurted out under torture
were quickly arrested, the most notable being Field Marshal Rommel, who, because of his
popularity, was given the choice of a trial in the so-called People's Court - or suicide and a state
funeral. He chose suicide, but other high-ranking conspirators were forced before the court for a
public show trial. All were sentenced to death by the Nazi judge Ronald Freisler and hanged on
meat-hooks at Plötzensee Prison, their death agonies being filmed for Hitler's private delectation.
The July Bomb Plot resulted in the deaths of at least five thousand people, including some of
Germany's most brilliant military thinkers and almost all of those who would have been best
qualified to run the postwar German government. (Freisler himself was killed by an American
bomb.) Within six months the country lay in ruins as the Allies advanced; had events at
Rastenburg been only a little different, the entire course of the war - and European history -
would have been altered incalculably.
Tiergarten
S-Bahn Tiergarten - though the park is best accessed by bus #100, which cuts through it on its way between Bahnhof Zoo and
Alexanderplatz
Flanking the north sides of both the Kulturforum and the diplomatic district is the
Tiergarten
park, a restful expanse of woodland and lakes that was designed by Peter
Lenné as a hunting ground under Elector Friedrich III. Largely destroyed during the
1945 Battle of Berlin, after the war it was used as farmland, chiefly to grow potatoes
for starving citizens; since then the replanting has been so successful that these days it's
hard to tell it's not original.
he best way to appreciate the park is on foot or by bike. At the very least, try
wandering along the Landwehrkanal, an inland waterway off the River Spree that
separates the park from the zoo. It's an easy hour's walk between
Corneliusbrücke
- just
