Sixty-Four Stories of Resistance in Germany, 1933–45
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CONSCIENCE IN REVOLT CONSCIENCE IN REVOLT Sixty-Four Stories of Resistance in Germany, 1933-45 ANNEDORE LEBER WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF WILLY BRANDT & KARL DIETRICH BRACHER WITH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM HILDE WALTER WOLFGANG STEGLICH & HARALD POELCHAU TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY ROSEMARY o·NEILL Der Widerstand: Dissent and Resistance in the Third Reich First published 1957 by Westview Press Published 2021 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 1994 Taylor & Francis All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Unless otherwise indicated, all photographs in this book were privately owned. A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress ISBN 0-8133-2185-9 ISBN 13: 978-0-3670-0916-8 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978-0-3671-5903-0 (pbk) DOI: 10.4324/9780429039027 CONTENTS page Foreword by K. D. BRACHER vii Resistance and Conscience: An Introduction by ANDREW CHANDLER ix Introduction by ROBERT BIRLEY xxi Preface xxxix YOUTH Introduction I ANTON SCHMAUS . 4 HELMUTH HUBENER 7 HILDA MONTE 11 JONATHAN STARK 14 SOPHIE SCHOLL 16 HEINZ BELLO 20 FRIEDRICH KARL KLAUSING 24 MICHAEL KITZELMANN 27 LEARNING Introduction 32 CARL VON OSSIETZKY 34 FRITZ SOLMITZ 38 KURT HUBER 42 ELISABETH VON THADDEN 46 NIKOLAUS GROSS 49 ERICH KNAUF . 52 ADOLF REICHWEIN 62 WALTHER ARNDT 66 FRIENDSHIP Introduction 70 JOACHIM GOTTSCHALK 72 LILO GLOEDEN 76 LOTHAR ERDMANN 79 GERTRUD SEELE 82 ERNST HEILMANN 86 WILLI HAUSSLER 90 HEINRICH JASPER 94 HANS SCHIFTAN 97 JOHANNA KIRCHNER 100 WILHELM LEUSCHNER 103 BERNHARD LETTERHAUS 107 THE STATE AND THE LAW Introduction 110 WAI,,TER GEMPP 112 V page MARTIN GAUGER 115 HANS VON DOHNANYI 119 MARIA TERWIEL 123 ERNST VON HARNACK 127 FRITZ ELSAS 132 JOSEPH WIRMER 136 BERTHOLD SCHENCK GRAF VON STAUFFENBERG 139 ERWIN PLANCK 142 KLAUS BONHOEFFER . 145 RUDIGER SCHLEICHER . 149 TRADITION Introduction 152 ADOLF VON HARNIER 155 OTTO KARL KIEP 159 KARL FRIEDRICH GOERDELER 163 EWALD VON KLEIST-SCHMENZIN . 166 LUDWIG BECK 170 HANS OSTER 173 HENNING VON TRESCKOW 177 ULRICH-WILHELM GRAF SCHWERIN VON SCHWANENFELD 180 PETER GRAF YORCK VON WARTENBURG 184 CHRISTIANITY Introduction 187 ERICH KLAUSENER . 190 KARL FRIEDRICH STELLBRINK 194 BERNHARD LICHTENBERG 198 EDITH STEIN 203 MAX JOSEF METZGER . 208 FRIEDRICH JUSTUS PERELS 212 DIETRICH BONHOEFFER 216 THEO RESPERS 220 ALFRED DELP 224 HANS-BERND VON HAEFTEN 227 HELMUTH JAMES GRAF VON MOLTKE . 231 FREEDOM AND ORDER Introduction 234 CARLO MIERENDORFF 238 THEODOR HAUBACH 243 FRITZ-DIETLOF GRAF VON DER SCHULENBURG 247 ADAM VON TROTT ZU SOLZ 251 JULIUS LEBER 255 CLAUS SCHENK GRAF VON STAUFFENBERG 260 Bibliography 264 VJ FOREWORD By K. D. Bracher (Bonn, February 1994) THIS BOOK, edited by the widow of Julius Leber, leader of the Social Democratic resistance, was collected and written with the assistance of Willy Brandt, the young friend and political heir of Leber, and myself, a contemporary historian and the husband of a niece of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. When first published forty years ago, the story of the Ger- man resistance against National Socialism was still little known; at home the resistance was contested and defamed by old and neo-Nazis, and abroad it was only rarely taken seriously. Three years later a second vol- ume of resistance portraits followed: Das Gewissen Entscheidet. Today, as we debate again how democracy may be defended against its radical enemies in Germany and Europe, Conscience in Revolt re- minds us of the continuing dangers of totalitarian ideologies and dictato- rial rule. I welcome this new English edition and Andrew Chandler's thoughtful introduction. vii RESISTANCE AND CONSCIENCE An Introduction by Andrew Chandler (Birmingham, 1994) I The reality of the German resistance to Hitler has not always appeared clear to those outside the country. During the war against National So- cialism it was difficult for many abroad to believe that Hitler was much opposed, if at all, by the Germans themselves. Those who argued that Germany was a society governed against its wishes were hard put to sub- stantiate the case. A few scattered fragments of resistance might come to light, and people might talk vaguely of what they called the 'Confes- sional' Church, which they had seen as a statement of resistance to the Nazis before the war. They might then invoke the name of Bishop von Galen, whose sermons had been conveyed across Germany by couriers on motorcycles. But even these examples could appear vulnerable to crit- icism. It was soon known that the celebrated pastor Martin Niemoller, bundled off to a concentration camp by the secret police in 1938 for his stand against 'German Christianity', had earlier offered his services to the state that now put him in prison. In the Great War he had commanded a U-boat. English opinion became bitter. The British public saw nothing to sug- gest that the German people desisted from the evil purposes wrought by their leaders. Instead, Poland was annihilated, Rotterdam was bombed, France fell, and soon the Wehrmacht confronted Britain itself across a bare twenty-one miles of water. When London was bombed it became even more difficult to maintain that any 'good' Germans existed. When in December 1942 the awful truth of the massacre of Jews was acknowl- edged by the British government in Parliament, those who spoke of good Germans were driven further into retreat. If on the one hand the idea of a decent Germany appeared hard to jus- tify, those who on the other hand declared that Hitler represented the be- liefs of the German people sensed that they stood boldly on ground that was hard to contest. In Britain the hatred of Germans found its prophet in a retired diplomat, Lord Vansittart, whose robust little polemic, Black Record, stated the case pungently. It was Vansittart's argument that Na- zism was no accident, looming suddenly out of the fog of history, but rather a natural expression of the German character as history itself had ix revealed it; indeed, the logical outcome of German history itself. After all, what kind of a people were the Germans? Ardent columnists in newspapers would say that they were a people given to discipline and conformity; when attached to a sinister purpose they became a menace to the world. Where, asked Lord Vansittart, as Nazi crimes accumulated, was there evidence of protest? 'Hardly a German soul bothers-not even the women'. Meanwhile, the British government doubted reports of a re- sistance movement inside Germany; the government required proof of the movement's existence and found none. II Nothing could be worse than that a civilized nation, without any show of opposition, be 'governed' by an irresponsible clique given over completely to their own lusts for power. Is it not so that today every honest German is ashamed of his government? And who amongst us has any idea of the ex- tent of the outrages which we and our children must one day bear witness to when finally the shades are lifted from our eyes and we will behold in broad daylight all the hideous and monstrous crimes? These words were written in Germany itself-in the heart of Bavaria, in Munich, near the concentration camp of Dachau. They were the work of two young students, Hans Scholl and Alexander Schmorell, who had ac- quired a typewriter and a mimeograph machine with which to publish se- ditious literature. Their first, 'Leaflet ofthe White Rose', was printed one hundred times and then circulated in the city. It raised again the question that preoccupied so many abroad and that continues to make work for historians today: How could a tolerant, democratic society pass into the hands of the violent racialist totalitarianism of National Socialism? Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany on 30 January I 933. He came to power through a combination of popular approval in the first place and political mismanagement in the second. Hoisted into the heights of influence by a sizeable minority of the electorate, he was ush- ered surreptitiously through the doors of the Reichschancellory by an as- sortment of conservative politicians who sought to pursue their own ends. It was a resistable rise. His immense, but not overwhelming, popu- larity notwithstanding, Hitler was fortunate to succeed. When the pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer pondered the sig- nificance of the I 933 event from his prison cell at Tegel ten years later, he wrote, 'The great masquerade of evil has wrought havoc with all our ethical preconceptions. This appearance of evil in the guise of light, be- neficence and historical necessity is utterly bewildering to anyone nur- tured in our traditional ethical systems. But for the Christian it simply X confirms the radical evilness of evil'. Today most might find it difficult to understand what Bonhoeffer meant. But for many Germans in 1933, depressed by political confusions and economic misfortunes and fearful of a loss of social coherence, National Socialism appeared to offer much. It seemed to them the best of all worlds; explicitly nationalist and social- ist, revolutionary and yet, it was claimed, legal. The enthusiasts were ex- hilarated by the sense of vitality and vision that the party announced while the traditionally minded were reassured by its claims of respect- ability.