THE HISTORY CHANNEL is airing a magnificent documentary about something Americans don't learn about: The German resistance to Hitler. It was much more than Claus von Stauffenberg, who most of us have heard of, but he was quite a leader and risk taker in the effort. MANY men put their lives on the line and lost their lives, too, in trying to stop Hitler and I think it's an important aspect of history we'd all be better off for knowing.
This documentary adds to the story and includes some video from the new film..... Valkyrie. A friend was the production coordinator for this documentary and brought it over for us to watch Friday night. We were very impressed and I highly recommend that you see it.
z
22 comments:
I was stationed in Germany for 13 months back during desert shield in 1990, and I do remember that Hitler and the Nazi party were and are an embarrassment to the German people.
This is gonna sound SOOOOO wrong, but we're lucky that the German Army, who tried to assassinate Hitler many times, failed. If they had the war may well have gone an entirely different direction. One reason they lost, was due to Hitler's insanity.
But your point that the German people were not all Nazis is the same point I make concerning slavery and whites. Not all of our fathers did it. So don't punish the many for the idiocy of the few.
Hopefully I can check this out.
Christopher Hamilton
The Right Opinion, for the Right Wing
I'm planning on it Z. Thanks for the heads up.
Pris
Greywolfe said, "But your point that the German people were not all Nazis is the same point I make concerning slavery and whites. Not all of our fathers did it. So don't punish the many for the idiocy of the few."
He is so right on the mark Z. Actually my Grandmother and Grandfather did not come here until 1916 on my mothers side and my father and his family did not arrive on American shores until 1948. So I applaud Greywolfe's astute observation here.
Good write up hun!
XXX
Hitler suffers the same legacy as all of his fellow leftists that ever took up commanding a war. His greatest victories were always against people that couldn't shoot back.
But your point that the German people were not all Nazis is the same point I make concerning slavery and whites. Not all of our fathers did it. So don't punish the many for the idiocy of the few.
-----------------------
Or don't punish the few for the idiocy of the many?
Hmm, that doesn't work out as well, does it?
Not so much, ducky...not so much. LOL.
Beamish, the biggest reason that Nazi Germany lost was due to the fits that Hitler was prone to. When he'd go through one he'd end up dragging one leg for a time and would make horrifically bad decisions. For instance, he stopped blitzing England and decided to attack russia. Now he was fighting on 3 fronts. If he had kept pushing England would have fallen within a very few more months. Instead he put himself head to head with more troops than he had bullets.
No z, I don't I've finished the second volume in Richard Evans' trilogy on Hitler's rise to power and the problem is strikingly like the climate just before the Spanish Civil War.
A large number of scattered parties and a huge power vacuum in the center.
What does come through is that there was not a lot of resistance once Hitler had destroyed the left and either killed them of or put them in the camps. It was a population too tired and scared to offer much resistance.
The country just behaved like Oskar in The Tin Drum and stopped growing is my take.
I have to agree with you Z. Keep in mind, ducky, that toward the peak of Nazi power in Germany the civilian security force (...sounds familiar...) called the SS had, as it's primary role, to stamp out anyone who even whispered dissenting opinions about what the Nazi party was doing. They were, at their zenith, larger and better funded than the German regular Army.
Hitler and his thugs merely beat the starch out of his own people's will.
Greywolfe, you're right...the media here is sort of like what was going on, too...'stomping out who even whispered dissent' about THE ONE...as Hitler was also THE ONE. Scary times.
The Right in Germany also fought against Hitler...most clergy were conservative and fighting against him in their own ways.
z, are you comparing Obama to Hitler?
Greywolfe,
Hitler applied leftist economics to military logistics and found out the hard way that claiming fuel on bills of lading doesn't put fuel in the tank.
Z,
Leftism gave us Hitler, as well as a whole parcel of other killers from Robespierre to Hugo Chavez.
We'll know in 2012 just how leftist Obama really is. I don't know if he'll get in the same league as Hitler, but they're playing in the same leftist ballpark.
The only slaveholders in my family tree were Cherokee Indians. Some even took their slaves to Oklahoma with them when Andrew Jackson ethnically cleansed them out of northern Georgia.
Greywolfe,
Point of order... the "civilian national security force" under the Nazis were the Sturmabteilung... the SA, or "Brownshirts." The SS [Schutzstaffel] were initially trained as command officers (the Treaty of Versailles limited Germany to 100,000 troops, so they created a 100,000 strong force of command officers that set to training "civilian" paramilitary forces.") Instant army when the SA and SS were officially merged.
[League of Nations disarmament inspectors were just as clueless as UN disarmament inspectors]
actually beamish, as I understand it, you are only partially correct about the SA. The SA came first, true, but it was not a part of Hitler's plan, per se. It's loyalties were semi-independant and therefore considered to be a threat to Hitler's power. When the SS was formed, it was a small paramilitary force, true, but it also had what the SA did not, absulute loyalty to Hitler.
This is where my comparison to Barry Obama comes in. I fear that if a paramilitary organization is formed with equal power and pay as the U.S. Military, it will not have the same loyalties to the Constitution as our military does.
Hell, there's not much difference at all between the League of Nations and the current U.N. Except of course for the fact that the U.N. is more powerful and better funded. Mostly, thanks to our pocket books.
It's the one speech that, other than the Sept. 12th speech, that Bush gave that I agreed with. He said about 1 year before we went into Iraq that they (U.N.) had the choice to be effective or to go the way of the League of Nations as irrelevent. They chose irrelevency, in my estemation.
Greywolfe,
I guess the distinction I'm making is that the SA [Brownshirts] were primarily civilian Nazi partisan hacks [of far left bent, naturally] that took para-military ranks for themselves and proposed to be THE German Army that the Versailles Treaty had largely disbanded after their numbers grew.
After a purge of the effeminate homosexual leftists by the butch homosexual leftists (The Night of the Long Knives) the question of who would be the new German army was pretty much settled.
Z,
Thanks for posting this. I can't tell from the comments if anyone actually watched the doc, but it's getting some great reviews and was the highest Rated show for the day on the network.
Have a great day, and Happy Thanksgiving!
Deaner
Deaner, I was disappointed not to get some remarks after the fact, too! My friend Priscilla did email me privately raving about it..said she'd learned a LOT that she'd not known before, too.
I'm delighted it's getting good reviews!! Happy Thanksgiving to you and your betrothed!!! xxx
I went to go see Valkyrie on Saturday, and cried my eyes out. I am so happy that awareness of this story is finally coming to the forefront of society, that words fail to describe the joy I now feel. I am 23 years old, and I'm sad that the first time I ever learned about the July 20, 1944 bomb plot against Hitler, was on the History Channel... during my own free time.
I'm also sad that my Dad - who is now age 62 - only learned about the July 20, 1944 bomb plot against Hitler in school, because although his high school History hated with all his heart the crimes perpetrated by the Nazis, he still wanted his students to know that not all Germans were like Hitler. He was also Jewish, I must add.
Now, please understand: I am very grateful that schools are teaching the full truth about the Holocaust. Nothing less is acceptable, in my opinion. The systematic murder of millions of innocent Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, political dissidents, etc. was undoubtedly tragic... and remains deeply saddening to millions of people - both victim and observer alike. I know that as both a friend of Israel - and person of European descent - I am shocked and horrified about every facet of the Holocaust. Such shock and horror will remain with me all of my days, as I will probably never understand why people become compelled to do such horrible things to others.
But many American primary/secondary school officials seem to have forgotten that during World War II, a large number of Germans opposed Hitler... as the July 20, 1944 bombing was just one of 15 assassination attempts made against him, in Germany. And those are just the ones that were reported; there may have been more. Certainly, the Nazis would have done everything in their power to suppress information about such attempts.
In addition to their many crimes of hate and deceit, the Nazis were notorious for concealing the truth in practically all of their propaganda materials. They even went at great lengths to hide the existence of the death and work camps of the Holocaust, and in so doing suppressed any and all sentiments asserting their existence. This is why so many German civilians knew little (if anything) about the death and work camps, despite their abundant presence. Those who did know the truth - and were brave enough to speak up - did so under the threat of death, everywhere in Germany.
The fact that American primary/secondary schools today are teaching little (if anything) about the German Resistance against Hitler is not unfortunate - it’s downright disturbing. Because let's face it: as great a country as America is, what happened in Valkyrie could very well happen right here, right on our turf. Not because of Obama's election or anything like that, but because of our society's disturbing tendency to just roll over on command - and believe everything our leaders say without question. Such lack of independent thought is both encouraged and taught in American public schools today (and some private ones, too). This is by far one of the most dangerous threats to American society, if not the most dangerous. And it has increased in volatility every decade since JFK's signing into law the creation of teacher's unions.
To be blunt, there are way more similarities between today's American society and the society of the Weimar Republic of Germany, than there are between Obama and Hitler. Obama is by no means whatsoever a tyrant or proponent of Fascism. He is, however, a well-established sycophant and inflexible proponent of appeasement.
So Valkyrie is more than just a movie about heroism and unfailing integrity - it is a cautionary tale that carries with it immensely profound implications for all societies of all generations, and always will. If you love justice, honor, integrity, and righteousness - and have not yet seen Valkyrie - it is an absolute "must-see." This movie will not disappoint.
Valkyrie is perhaps the one WWII movie - shown from the German perspective - where just about any person can walk away from the movie, knowing full-well that there's absolutely no way any person could reasonably conclude that any part of the film, is sympathetic to Nazism or fascism in any way. There's absolutely no way anyone who sees this movie could do that in good faith. To that end, Valkyrie is very similar to Das Boot… which portrayed vividly the disillusionment of the crew of German Navy submarine U-96.
This is of great credit to the film's producers, who I believe have - at long last - broken a long-standing barrier in film, created and perpetuated by unwanted stereotypes. Suffice it to say, the actions of one do not always represent the beliefs of many - and Valkyrie is a shining example of this enduring truth.
I've not seen such an effective portrayal of integrity and justice, since the first time I saw Twelve O' Clock High (which is also a great movie I highly recommend). Hat's off to everyone who made Valkyrie possible!
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