From: cramer@optilink.COM (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: soc.history,talk.politics.misc,rec.arts.books
Subject: _Target Hitler_ a book review
Date: 4 Jan 93 17:23:10 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA


_Target Hitler: The Plots to Kill Adolf Hitler_, 
by James P. Duffy & Vincent L. Ricci
(Praeger, Westport Connecticut: 1992)

Most books about the Third Reich mention the von Stauffenberg
plot (sometimes called the General's Plot) against Hitler, and 
a few allude to "other" plots, but _Target Hitler_ attempts to 
provide a history of not only the General's Plot, but the other
serious (and sometimes tragically comic) plots against Hitler.
Contrary to some other writings on the subject, Duffy & Ricci
assert that Rommel was not a conspirator in the Stauffenberg
scheme, but simply one of the many officers who chose to remain
silent about the plot, waiting for the risks to be taken by
others.

There were plots discussed here that were completely new to me,
such as the bomb that appears to have been planted with Himmler's
active assistance -- though it is unclear whether this was an
internal power struggle of Himmler to replace Hitler, or an
attempt to produce a plot for propaganda purposes, for which it was
well used.  

There are tragicomic efforts here, such as Maurice Bavaud's.
Bavaud was an anti-Communist Swiss seminary student who sought 
to assassinate Hitler for cozying up to the Communists -- and 
thought he was going to succeed using a .25 pocket pistol, 
which even Bavaud knew was only accurate enough with this
gun to kill Hitler if he could get with 25 feet of his target!
Unfortunately, Hitler walked down the wrong side of the street
in Munich in commemoration of the Beer Hall Putsch.

Duffy & Ricci also demonstrate that, contrary to the view
taken by some other historians, the General's Plot was *not*
simply the result of the German officer corps attempting to
save their own necks once the war was lost, but the last in a
long series of efforts made before the war to remove Hitler from
power, out of opposition to the immorality of National Socialist
Party rule.  Much of the opposition was founded on the belief
that Hitler's actions in provoking wars, passing of the Nuremburg
laws, and other such actions against the Jews, were contrary to
Christianity.  Especially among the military and diplomatic
opposition, this Christian basis to opposition to Hitler created
a serious problem, because of a profound reluctance to commit
murder, even of someone such as Hitler.  Eventually, as the
nature of the brutality of the Nazi policies became impossible
to miss, the major plotters, such as von Stauffenberg, overcame
their reluctance.  The plot to depose Hitler became a plot to
assassinate.

After the war, many officers sought to find protection in the 
argument, "I was only following orders."  Duffy & Ricci provide
an example of the traditional German military view with a quote
from General Beck's memorandum of July 16, 1938:

    Vital decisions for the future of the nation are at stake.
    History will indict these commanders [who blindly follow
    Hitler's orders] of blood guilt if, in the light of their
    professional and political knowledge, they do not obey
    the dictates of their conscience.  A soldier's duty to
    obey ends when his knowledge, his conscience, and his
    sense of responsbility forbid him to carry out a certain
    order.

There were many officers in the German military who, because
they had sworn a personal oath of loyalty to Hitler in the early
days of the National Socialist government of Germany, were 
reluctant to directly participate in the plot against Hitler --
but were ready to help as soon as Hitler was dead.

There were other factions as well, including labor leaders
not already incarcerated, and various Social Democrats.  While
they and the aristocratic conservative elements that made up
the plot were not able to completely agree on what the new
Germany should be, they were able to reach agreement that
Hitler had to be removed, one way or another.

The courage of many of the conspirators is astonishing.  Duffy
& Ricci recount a number of instances where high officers
put plastic explosive charges in their pockets, started the
fuses, then attempted to get close enough to Hitler to grab
hold.  Other generals attempted to enter Hitler's presence
while armed, in the hopes of getting at least one lethal wound
inflicted on Hitler before being killed themselves.

Hitler's luck is also astonishing.  Plot after plot were
foiled by Hitler's habit of changing plans and schedules at
the last moment.  The General's Plot, however, failed because
many elements in the plot failed to take action immediately
after the bomb went off -- and in failing to take action,
provided enough time for Hitler loyalists to mobilize.

One annoying error is that throughout the book the military
intelligence organization, which was a center of the conspiracy
against Hitler, even going so far as to give military intelligence
ID cards to Berlin Jews, to enable them to leave the country
safely posing as military intelligence officers, is consistently
misspelled as "Abwer" instead of "Abwehr."  Since the authors
have relied heavily on memoirs of survivors of the plots, this
error is all the more mystifying.

The book concludes with a description of what finally happened
to the major participants in the General's Plot.  The courage
of these people, confronting the Nazi People's Court, destroyed
whatever propaganda value these trials might have had.  As
Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben told Judge Freisler, "You
can hand us over to the executioner, but in three months'
time this outraged and suffering people will call you to
account and drag you alive through the mud of the streets."
-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
C++ is to C, as lung cancer is to lung.
Newsgroups: soc.history,talk.politics.misc,rec.arts.books