Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

OK, I assume most people know about Claus von Stauffenberg, and his famous attempt to blow Hitler to hell a little sooner than he eventually got there.

While he is often considered a hero I have to ask if he is unfairly considered one. He didn't seem to have a problem with Hitler until it became clear he was destroying Germany and the war was pretty much lost.

Would a real hero have been opposed to Hitler earlier than this, like when he was persecuting much of the German population? Do we consider a guy who seemed to have no problem with Hitler until he saw his country and his kind of people suffering under him to be a hero?

I'm just going to put it to people that considering CVS a hero may be stretching the term and ask for opinions on it. I am fairly skeptical of just now much of a halo he deserves.

One heroic act does make a hero. He was not a Nazi, but he had no problem supporting and serving the Nazis. He was a racist, German supremacist and overall a complete scumbag. He was less of a scumbag than many other German officers, but that again does not make him good or a hero. He just had a somewhat better moral compass than his compatriots, but when your compatriots are the most evil people to ever have lived in all of world history, that is not saying much.

So, the fact that he actually felt bad about mass-murdering people and had the courage to try and kill Hitler does elevate him above the vast majority of Germans in WW2, but that is not a high bar to jump over. He deserves praise for being one of the few who actually acted against Hitler, but he equally deserves condemnation for taking actively part in the most absolute evil regime the world has ever seen.

I do wonder why there were not more German officers who tried to kill Hitler. These were not stupid people. By 1942-1943 they surely must all have realised that they had lost the war and that Hitler was leading them towards destruction. I think it says a lot about how thoroughly corrupted German society was at the time.

The only thing that matters is do you believe Stauffenberg was a hero. I've probably delved too deeply into Kinoku Nasu's musings on heroism and legend for my own good, but at the end of the day hero is just a word. A nebulous concept of idealism that you either chose to believe in or you do not.

Either someone did something you find worthy of admiration or they did not. For Stauffenberg I'm sure there's many people who find a reason to admire him in the same way we often admire men and women who stand up to tyrants at their own detriment.

I do wonder why there were not more German officers who tried to kill Hitler. These were not stupid people. By 1942-1943 they surely must all have realised that they had lost the war and that Hitler was leading them towards destruction. I think it says a lot about how thoroughly corrupted German society was at the time.

I could probably write a really long response on this but... urg. No one wants that wall of text. So in short;

Much like the American South leading to the American Civil War, Nazi Germany is mired in a list of convenient fictions propagated after WWII. One of the biggest ones is now catching on with the name "Clean Wehrmacht Myth."

His early successes were sweeping and bought the loyalty of less critical members of the officer corp while suppressing opposition elements like the Oster Ring, or the Tresckow Circle, both of which continually struggled with their limited positions in the German military command. Disagreement over how to resist the Nazi's didn't help. Unable to pick how to oppose Hitler's regime is a big part of why what opposition elements existed took such limited actions. They endured endless gridlock. Hitler or Himmler was one of the biggest debates and they never really managed to pick.

By 1942 the officers in the military were largely as committed to Hitler's vision of German supremacy as anyone else, even if they weren't members of the Nazi party itself or personal admirers of the man. By 1944, they were as dirty as Hitler. Many officers in their personal writings had realized by then that a reckoning would follow the war. You can't round up and execute millions under a cover of darkness. The Germany military was as dirty as the SS or Hitler ever were, and they knew it. They were hardly the men to suddenly turn around and at that moment do the right thing. They'd all turned blind eyes for years, and that's when they weren't collaborating in some of the worst sins of human history.

Von Stauffenberg joined the army before the Nazis were in power, so things changed around him rather than his joining the army to support naziism. Yes, he was a racist and nationalist, but unusually so for the period? Probably not. A lot of British people were exactly the same thinking the British were superior to others in the empire.

Coming from a noble family line and being catholic, he also had other attitudes towards what being just and fair were, and as the Nazis became more extreme and overt in their prejudice he became disillusioned with them. If you accept he was a man of his time, I don’t think he was too dissimilar to a large number of people of his upbringing or era, but he was one of those that chose to act against Hitler in a way the majority did not.

I’m not sure you could call him a ‘hero’ but what he was prepared to do was a brave action that required personal fortitude. The nazi state was a dangerous place to have subversive thoughts as you could be betrayed or just suspected, and be tortured and executed. Stauffenberg wasn’t the only to make an attempt on Hitler’s life. But just being able to predict Hitler’s movements and get close enough with a weapon was difficult, especially as the war progressed. No one in his inner circle had the remotest feelings towards assassinating him and outsiders would rarely get the opportunity. You might as well ask why nobody assassinates any of a number of evil dictators, it’s just not as easy as it sounds.

Staufenberg and many others controversial person

During the war, and many years after it they considered traitors, not only by Nazis, but by the military Officers and also by the Allies (specially the US wanted to keep an existing political and military elite around that was against the socialist/communist movement and would never turn around and prevented a bad reputation for them that way).

Specially the British military considered resistance inside the German military as traitors who were breaking their oath to serve the government, who or whatever it is.

Back than, not believing into victory was a reason for a death sentence, openly questioning the politics too.
So most people in the military kept politics and war agendas separate (and civilian resistance was more or less wiped out before the war even started)

So there were 3 groups, the Nazis, those who were not but accepted their politics, and those who were acting actively against them.


Staufenberg is considered Hero because he is the most famous and wildly known of those who acted against the Nazis, because he was the one who nearly did it.

But calling him a hero what also mean to call others hero too and this is still controversial as it would mean that all those who just did their job and questioning their orders or the politics behind it (for whatever reason, if they were into it, or just wanted to stay alive makes no difference) look bad.

They'd all turned blind eyes for years,

this is just wrong
Not all of them did, but you just don't know much of those as there were no news or historical writing about traitors, nor was there any reckoning of them as something else outside of Germany.
And not all of them were killed immediately, some were kept in prison for a public trial and execution after victory was gained.
The Red Orchestra would be one of those groups acting during the 1940s, although all of them were killed before the war ended. And not talking about all those Deserteurs and Partisans who are still not rehabilitated today

It's been a rather well explored matter. I think there are few militaries that have received as much attention as the SS and the Wehrmacht have in modern literature. Sure not all of them, but I didn't say "all of them" (EDIT: Actually I did say all didn't I? That would be a misused word. I'm mostly talking about general officers). Outside of isolated rings of collaborators who largely achieved little there was no concerted effort within the German military to oppose the Nazi regime. opposition forces were wiped away from the top ranks in the 1930s, and by the time of WWII many of those ranking officers were as knee deep in it as anyone.

There's a reason opposition tended to mostly be made up of 1-3 mid-level officers leading a corp of junior officers. The Oster Ring, the Tresckow Circle, and even Stauffenberg group were all like this. A few general officers became involved at one point or another, but you'll note many of them took limited action in the end or took none at all.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:

While he is often considered a hero I have to ask if he is unfairly considered one. He didn't seem to have a problem with Hitler until it became clear he was destroying Germany and the war was pretty much lost.
Would a real hero have been opposed to Hitler earlier than this, like when he was persecuting much of the German population? Do we consider a guy who seemed to have no problem with Hitler until he saw his country and his kind of people suffering under him to be a hero?
I'm just going to put it to people that considering CVS a hero may be stretching the term and ask for opinions on it. I am fairly skeptical of just now much of a halo he deserves.

To be fair, most people in general back then held backwards, prejudicial or somewhat racist and supremacist views. CVS would have been no different to plenty other soldiers and officers in the war, on both sides. Or people in general, being perfectly blunt. I mean, Britain, for example had its empire, it's atrocities and its 'heroes'. As did the Americans. And plenty folks were OK with the nasty doings of their own govts against folks of different religions/skin colours or whatever and still gave medals, or refused to punish people who did despicable things.

In my mind, holding 'the thinking of the times' against someone is somewhat unfair.

Deadnight wrote:

 Techpriestsupport wrote:

While he is often considered a hero I have to ask if he is unfairly considered one. He didn't seem to have a problem with Hitler until it became clear he was destroying Germany and the war was pretty much lost.
Would a real hero have been opposed to Hitler earlier than this, like when he was persecuting much of the German population? Do we consider a guy who seemed to have no problem with Hitler until he saw his country and his kind of people suffering under him to be a hero?
I'm just going to put it to people that considering CVS a hero may be stretching the term and ask for opinions on it. I am fairly skeptical of just now much of a halo he deserves.

To be fair, most people in general back then held backwards, prejudicial or somewhat racist and supremacist views. CVS would have been no different to plenty other soldiers and officers in the war, on both sides. Or people in general, being perfectly blunt. I mean, Britain, for example had its empire, it's atrocities and its 'heroes'. As did the Americans. And plenty folks were OK with the nasty doings of their own govts against folks of different religions/skin colours or whatever and still gave medals, or refused to punish people who did despicable things.

In my mind, holding 'the thinking of the times' against someone is somewhat unfair.

Yes, many people at the time had racist and/or antisemitic views. But even those people generally thought that the Nazis were the greatest evil ever. The Nazis and their supporters, like Von Stauffenberg, went far far beyond what any other regime in history had ever done in terms of evil. Yes, the British Empire was evil. But its atrocities simply pale in comparison to what the Nazis did. And Von Stauffenberg actively aided and abetted the Nazis in those crimes. He may not have liked it, but he still did it. And that makes him a despicable person. The only reason he stands out as 'good' is because he was largely surrounded by people who were much more despicable. It is the same thing with other WW2 German icons like Erwin Rommel. Rommel wasn't a particularly good or saintly person, he was just mostly a normal, decent guy. The only reason he has gained such a heroic reputation is that he was one of the few officers that could be considered 'decent' in an army that otherwise consisted mostly of genocidal mass murderers. And one of the few who finally decided to the morally right thing rather than continue to follow and aid someone absolutely evil. That people like Von Stauffenberg or Rommel have gained such reputations says more about Germany and the German military as a whole than it says about them.
In other words, evil is relative. A person who would normally be seen as somewhat morally questionable when surrounded by decent people (like Von Stauffenberg) suddenly becomes good when surrounded by people who are absolutely evil. You even see it with entire regimes. Stalin's regime was also highly morally questionable at best and outright evil at worst. But when they fought against the even more evil Nazis, Stalin suddenly became the good guy and is seen as a great hero to this day (at least in Russia).

I'd argue heroism is contextual and relative as well though. Hiding a Jew in your attic would've been a lot more heroic in Poland than in the US, where it'd just have been weird. Similarly, just being a decent fellow is a lot more heroic when your boss is literally Hitler than when he's FDR.

I really think that you need to weigh the era against the man and his actions. He was a military man on the pre Nazi times. Also, from what I've read, many Germans that served in north Africa early on in the war were more or less fighting honorably. They weren't exactly impressed with actions in Europe when they got back.


Its easy to look back with hindsight. In the heat of the moment, knowing that anything you say could get you or your family killed..... What would any of us do, even if we did think it was immoral?

Yep.

It's easy to say 'death before dishonor' when you're alone. When it's 'death' for you, and then 'off to the concentration camp' for your family... it's a lot harder to risk their lives as well as your own.

You know the bottom line is he seemed to be Ok with uncle 'dolf when he was winning for germany, and had no problem with what nazi germany was doing to other countries and those labeled "untermenschen".

He seemed to only find ol' toothbrush lip objectionable when germany started getting bombed on a regular basis and it was obvious germany wasn't going to win the war.

Yeah, is someone who's ok with a war and slavery, not to mention extermination, policy as long as he and his are doing fine worthy of the term hero? I'm not sure.