Graf von Stauffenberg - Evil?

[sandeepmukherjee196]

They gained militarily big time.

The Abwehr under Canaris and Oster was working against the country's war efforts in significant ways

Key war leaders like Rommel got compromised. Competent commanders like Kluge were neutralised. You can't focus on your normal work with the dagger hanging on over your head.

A lot of personnel and command decisions were being taken in France on non military, conspiracy driven factors, in the midst of a life and death struggle.

[Sarge3525]

The word evil I dislike using, because it implies that humans behave as disney like clichés, which they don't.

About Stauffenberg.
I am personally astonished by the fact that Stauffenberg has been made a hero by the modern reunified German state.
I just did not think that the Germans could dare revision history and make propaganda about it, with their past.
But they did.

Germans seem to hail Stauffenberg simply because he was the most famous guy who attempted to kill Hitler.
The fact he was also a Prussian (not an Austrian like Hitler), quite good looking, and a Christian & family man, I think made him the perfect idol for propaganda purposes for the modern German state. A sort of hero for the phenomenon of "Vergangenheitsbewältigung" (dealing with our German past and moving forward). Stauffenberg is thus made into a representative of the collective German nation (pious, conservative, family orientated, logical, professional, devoted to the fatherland), who opposed the madness of the Nazi regime.

This is astonishing to me.
Because this image, that the average German culture did nothing to push Nazism to its heights, is inherently wrong and misguided.
In fact it is precisely the militarism of Stauffenberg's prussian culture, which set up the backbone of the Nazi state and its military autocratic power. It is no wonder that the Allies abolished Prussia as a German state in 1945. They knew that it was at the core of the German phenomenon of the 20th century. In other words....Hitler would not have been able to achieve everything he did, in Austria. He could only achieve it in a country with the culture/mentality of Stauffenberg (ruthless obedience, discipline, conservatism, etc).

What would a Stauffenberg coup have done?
Stauffenberg would essentially have replaced the Nazis with Junker elitists/monarchists, and kept the Nazi state fully autocratic.
It would have been a military junker autocracy instead of a Nazi autocracy, so to speak.
The concentration camps would still be running, the censorship too, and so on and so forth.
Only the snake at the head of the monster would have changed, so to speak.

Stauffenberg & his Junker clique would essentially have tried to preserve the Reich, and make deals with the allies.
Deals which the Allies would have refused anyway, so Stauffenberg's coup would not have changed much. I think the allies would still have put everyone at Nuremberg (including Stauffenberg), but that is just my idea.

I also think Stauffenberg in power, the first act he would have done would be to purge the Reich of Nazis, which would have resisted Monarchist/Junker prussian rule and also to show the allies some good will (present them with the heads of Hitler/himmler/etc). This would have resulted, in the midst of a war, in the killing or imprisonment of millions (there were 8 million Nazi party members, and many more Nazi loyalists not to mention the SS who would have waged war on them).

Basically, in hindsight, I understand fully why Stauffenberg failed: What his vision was did not make sense at the time he made it.
Germans would be totally unwilling to support what he was doing (restore Junker power, maybe even put some kind of noble as German Emperor), especially in a total war where a coup was unwise and could threaten the war effort with division.

I also really doubt that a Monarchist Reich, with Nazis purged/exterminated, would have been authorised to exist by the Allies anyway. I think many Junkers even wanted to keep territories conquered in the East. I think with or without, the unconditional surrender wanted by the Allies showed they just did not want to deal with these people just as much as the Nazis.

[sandeepmukherjee196]

Roosevelt had made it clear in 1943 that he didn't want to deal with "East German Junkers". Both Roosevelt and Eisenhower were pathologically anti German. Roosevelt is on record as in favour of starving the Germans as a people. The Morgenthau Plan had the personal approval of Roosevelt. In fact the Soviets were less anti German per se than Roosevelt... regardless of their inhuman vengeance brought upon conquered Germany east of the Oder.

Lets not get into morality, democracy, autocracy, totalitarianism et al. Roosevelt was in bed with established colonial powers and over the years his Nation bedded a string of vicious dictators all over.

I agree with Sarge3525 that its ridiculous to eulogise Stauffenberg and co for their actions at that stage of the war.

[Jan-Hendrik]

Because this image, that the average German culture did nothing to push Nazism to its heights, is inherently wrong and misguided.
In fact it is precisely the militarism of Stauffenberg's prussian culture, which set up the backbone of the Nazi state and its military autocratic power. It is no wonder that the Allies abolished Prussia as a German state in 1945.

'Autsch'

Seldom read so much unawarness of german history in simply 2 sentences.
Neither prussian culture was a backbone of nazism, indeed it was the seed of Resistance against them, nor was it a militaristic culture. If you look back prussia was the core of the cultural, scientifical and economical advance of the 2nd Reich!

He could only achieve it in a country with the culture/mentality of Stauffenberg (ruthless obedience, discipline, conservatism, etc).

Especially ruthless obedience was nothing that you could put as 'common' within prussia. Thats rather the comicquesce propaganda produced by its enemies...

Jan-Hendrik

[sandeepmukherjee196]

But what is the need to be defensive about commitment, loyalty, discipline and steadfastness in the face of the enemy? Are they negative qualities?

[Nautilus]

Because this image, that the average German culture did nothing to push Nazism to its heights, is inherently wrong and misguided.
In fact it is precisely the militarism of Stauffenberg's prussian culture, which set up the backbone of the Nazi state and its military autocratic power. It is no wonder that the Allies abolished Prussia as a German state in 1945. They knew that it was at the core of the German phenomenon of the 20th century. In other words....Hitler would not have been able to achieve everything he did, in Austria. He could only achieve it in a country with the culture/mentality of Stauffenberg (ruthless obedience, discipline, conservatism, etc).

What would a Stauffenberg coup have done?
Stauffenberg would essentially have replaced the Nazis with Junker elitists/monarchists, and kept the Nazi state fully autocratic.
It would have been a military junker autocracy instead of a Nazi autocracy, so to speak.
The concentration camps would still be running, the censorship too, and so on and so forth.
Only the snake at the head of the monster would have changed, so to speak.

This assumes the general officers who ran the military machine and also the bureaucracy and businesspeople class were somehow idealistic and ready to endure whatever mishap to preserve some fantasy ideal of "Prussianism".

There were two guys, Emmanuel Kreike and William C. Jordan, who analyzed some historical events from the perspection of good ole' corruption going on (Corrupt Histories, University Rochester Press, 2004). And came to the conclusion, in chapter 4, "Black Marks", that loyalty of the generals and civilian dignitaries was highly dependent on money.

That is, in short, the Hitlerian government used much more "carrots", in terms of prizes, grants, gifts, loot (property gained by the state by unsavory means and gifted or sold for ridiculously small amounts to selected people), compared to "sticks" as threats of court-martial and shooting, to insure the decisions taken in Berlin of Wolfsschanze did not meet too much protests in the field HQs.

The Führer himself was highly distrustful of the military hierarchy after the 1934-1938 events and fully expected some backstab from men like Generaloberst Ludwig Beck, years before the first bullet of WWII had been fired. So he did what he expected to work when dealing with people who outranked him in military ability, as in social class or political connections: made them partners in spoils.

The basic plank of financial corruption would consist of monthly tax-exempt payments into the bank accounts of two top ranks. Field Marshals (Army, Luftwaffe) and Grand Amirals (Navy) would receive RM 4,000 per month; Colonel Generals (Army, Luftwaffe) and General-Admirals (Navy) would receive RM 2,000 per month. These sums would be paid in addition to regular salaries and normal wartime supplements. Politely known as Aufwandsentschädigungen (compensations for expenses), the payments would come from a special account known as Konto 5. This, in turn, was part of a larger and seemingly bottomless Chancellery discretionary fund, which itself ballooned from RM 150,000 in 1933 to perhaps RM 40 million by the end of the war. The fund was administered by the Reich Chancellery through its chief, Dr. Hans Heinrich Lammers, without the customary supervision of the Reich Finance Ministry over fiscal-year budgeting. Thus Lammers and his staff withdrew money from discretionary funds in accordance to Hitler's criteria and answered to Hitler alone.

Top ranking civilian leaders had been receiving the same supplements since April 1936. Reich Ministers pocketed RM 4,000 per month and State Secretaries RM 2,000 in addition to their regular salaries.

Over this basis came the periodic gifts of about RM 250,000 to Field Marshals, the properties gifted or sold to them and other.

[michael mills]

The fact he was also a Prussian

Stauffenberg was not a Prussian. He was born in Bavaria, and his family belonged to the nobility of the former Kingdom of Wuerttemberg, in South-West Germany.

[Nautilus]

PS The RM 4000 secret allowance was actually a great amount of money as of 1940 - practically 1.5 times the peacetime monthly salary of a Field Marshal, no taxes, no justifications, no questions asked.

According to this source, RM 4000 comes out as the value of a medium-sized car, the wages of 20 skilled factory workers, or, judging by RM - USD exchange rate and conversion from 1943 to 2010 dollars, about USD 30,000 in present day money. Which had to be spent practically always on black market goods.

Which means the Army and Army Group commanders practically could allow themselves to live like Kings throughout the war, and expect a pretty wealthy retirement assuming a reasonable surrender agreement was negotiated and the "Eastern hordes" did not overrun the country. The assumption failed in real life, but as of 1943 they hadn't yet known this.

[sandeepmukherjee196]

I am told that GeneralFeldMarschall Gerd von Rundstedt had to shack up in an one room studio pad after the war !!