On Wednesday, July 20, at almost 40 degrees, the officers around Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg and those resistance fighters who made the assassination attempt possible in loose networks were commemorated in the Plötzensee memorial. Among them were social democrats, those acting from their faith, conservatives, trade unionists and also communists. Despite the extreme heat, numerous guests attended the annual commemoration ceremony and wreath-laying ceremony. In between, they kept looking for shade on the walls of the memorial, within which almost 3,000 people were executed during the Nazi dictatorship.
Exactly 78 years ago, Stauffenberg and some of his co-conspirators tried to kill Adolf Hitler with a suitcase bomb during a briefing at the Führer’s headquarters, the “Wolf’s Lair” – as is well known, Hitler survived the detonation. Most of those involved were caught and some of them, including Stauffenberg himself, were shot in the courtyard of the Bendler Block on the night of July 21, 1944. By May 1945, 110 executions were carried out in connection with the assassination, many of the families were taken into custody, and children were interned in homes.
What were the motives of the resisters?
The conservative military resistance is still being debated to this day. The view persists that the high-ranking military officers wanted to save their skins at the last moment in the face of the inevitable military defeat of Nazi Germany and the approaching Allied troops. However, a number of them had already broken with Hitler in connection with the Sudeten crisis, i.e. in 1938, and had become conspirators. Were these men themselves, at least in part, anti-Semitic and primarily concerned with national interests? After all, they initially followed Hitler and joined the NSDAP. On the other hand, many of them even before the Nazi judge Roland Freisler, who was known for his martial judgments, did not plead national interests, but the crimes of the Germans against the Jews as the motive for their attempted coup.
The speech by Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) had to be read out in absentia on Wednesday due to his corona disease. According to Habeck’s speech, many of the resisters had found the strength to shed their ideological blindness. Precisely because Stauffenberg and other members of the military resistance initially followed National Socialism, because they were “everyman of the Germany of their time”, their actions and the way they got there are so remarkable. But Habeck also recalled the “silent heroes” of the Nazi era. This meant above all people from the so-called rescue resistance who, within the scope of their possibilities – and at the risk of their lives – had supported and hidden Jewish persecutees.
Tichanovskaya: “It took months for the European democracies to show their teeth”
Then the Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tichanovskaya spoke. The civil rights activist left for neighboring Lithuania in 2020 after running for president in Belarus. According to a campaign worker, she was forced by the authorities to leave the country. Her husband, Sergei Tichanowski, was sentenced to 18 years in prison in December 2021. Amnesty International considers the allegations against him (preparation and organization of mass uprisings) to be false, classifies Tichanowski as a political prisoner and demands his release. Habeck praised Tichanovskaya on Wednesday for “risking her own life to end the rule of injustice and inhumanity, or at least to do something to counter it.”
The Belarusian civil rights activist herself expressed her gratitude to Germany for her commitment to the democracy movement in Belarus: “You refused to recognize the illegitimate regime. You welcomed Belarusian refugees within your borders.” Now there is more to do: the civil rights activist, who was recently awarded the Aachen Charlemagne Prize, emphasized most energetically that Germany must engage more decisively in the Ukraine conflict. In addition, one should not repeat the mistakes made by Hitler and make no territorial concessions to Putin for the purpose of supposed peacekeeping. “Dictatorships thrive when democracies are not careful,” said the Belarusian civil rights activist. But that is exactly what happened in the Ukraine war. “It took months for the European democracies to show their teeth.”
Looking at resistant traditions can be groundbreaking
Tichanovskaya emphasized how important “small, courageous actions” are under authoritarian regimes, the often small, also unknown actions of the “silent heroes”. The latter seemed like an answer to Robert Habeck’s speech. She was inspired by young resistance fighters under the Nazis, such as Lina Berkowitz, who was executed at the age of just 19. Or Elisabeth von Thadden, who continued to teach Jewish women at her girls’ school even during the Nazi era. Among other things, von Thadden was sentenced to death in 1944 for alleged high treason.
In a world that is increasingly characterized by authoritarianism, dictatorships and terror, but also by populism and radicalization in democratic countries, a look at resistant traditions can be inspiring and groundbreaking. Or existentially crucial, as in the case of the Belarusian opposition movement. And so Svetlana Tichanowskaja said goodbye with the short, powerful “Shiwe Belarus”, long live Belarus.