The Good Germans by Catrine Clay

Author:Catrine Clay
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781474607902
Publisher: Orion

‘All Germany is talking about the attempt on Hitler’s life at Bürgerbräu,’ wrote the former diplomat Ulrich von Hassell, sitting at his desk in his house at Ebenhausen. ‘The press is quite unable to cover up the fact that there is absolutely no “fanatical indignation” as described by official propaganda. Rather, an astounding indifference and many people quite openly express regret that the explosion was delayed.’

Hassell had been dismissed from his post as German Ambassador to Rome by a suspicious Ribbentrop in 1938. Once ‘freed’ he quickly made contact with other resisters, including Beck and Goerdeler. And he started his diary, determined to leave a record of the Nazi terror regime. ‘Yesterday it was announced that the would-be assassin had been caught. An astonishingly frank man whose attitude is puzzling,’ he added a week later. It was hard to tell fact from fiction and lies in the newspapers these days. Goebbels had a field day. It was a gift from heaven for the propaganda machine. Elser had not acted alone, they said, but in collaboration with the British Secret Service. As to the Führer – his escape had been a God-given ‘Act of Providence,’ Hitler announced in a wireless broadcast to the Volk.

Meanwhile the great Führer was preparing to take the Reich into war. On 23 August 1939 Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop and Russian Foreign Minister Molotov had signed the Nazi–Soviet Pact, ostensibly a Non-Aggression pact, but effectively agreeing to carve up Poland between them once the moment arrived. It threw everyone and everything into confusion, not least the leadership of the KPD German Communist Party. Surely Stalin didn’t want to become an ally of the Fascist Hitler? What could it mean? What could they do?

‘The German working people, and especially the German workers, must support the peace policy of the Soviet Union,’ announced the German Communist Secretariat two days later, on 25 August, totally confused. ‘They must place themselves at the side of all peoples which are oppressed and threatened by the Nazis, and must now take up the fight as never before, to ensure that peace in the spirit of the Pact which has just been concluded between the Soviet Union and Germany is also made with Poland and Romania, with France and England …’

Five days later, Hitler was demanding the return of the Polish Corridor and Silesia which had been taken by the Treaty of Versailles. On 1 September, Germany invaded Poland. ‘Few people on the streets,’ wrote Hassell in his diary. ‘Only official enthusiasm over the closing of the border.’

On 3 September England and France finally understood that Hitler’s protestations of peace were nothing but lies, and declared war on Germany.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.