The Heretics' Hour: Traitors and Misfits - July 20th Conspirators

June 9, 2014

Carolyn looks at the members of the anti-Hitler faction in Germany, dominated by high-level military officers, and asks how they got away with their assassination plots for so long. She also asks: Can a consensus of opinion ever be reached, even among similar people? Some ideas covered:

• What makes a traitor?
• Of 30 top leaders, 20 held high military rank (Colonel or above) and 10 were diplomats and Chiefs of Police;
• It's all in how you view it -to them, they were the loyalists and Hitler was the traitor;
• While they didn't want the Jews around, they also didn't want to harm them;
• They believed Germany's enemies were only against Hitler, and wanted the same things they, as Germans, did;
• Their efforts to remain undetected may have hampered their success in achieving their goal.

Image: At Rastenburg on 15 July 1944. Stauffenberg at left, Hitler center, Keitel on right. The person shaking hands with Hitler is General Karl Bodenschatz, who was seriously wounded five days later, by Stauffenberg's bomb. Enlarge