"Valkyrie" and the Myth of the "Good German"

Pajamas Media ^ | January 8 | John Rosenthal

[wardaddy]

Good post but it will be lost on the emotive souls here..

[wardaddy]

folks here forget that a police state is very hard on folks who dissent

[Barnacle]

Many delude themselves into believing Hitler was not elected in a massive landslide.

If you have evidence to the contrary, present it.

I believe that Germany didn't simply become Nazi because of Hitler any more than America is now Democrat because of Odmama.

There were good German people who wanted nothing to do with the Nazi insanity.

[wardaddy]

The German military could have won the war if not for Hitler. That was the reason for trying to kill him.

By late summer 1944, Wermacht leaders who were already whipped at Kursk on the eastern front were desperate to sue for a less punitive peace than unconditional surrender. That is what was going on here.

Wermacht generals were worried about Soviet occupation....with good reason.

They certainly knew any dream of world dominance was dead and stinking.

[Eva]

There was a book review in the WSj about a new book on the Vichy French, it’s all about the culturally elite French were big German collaborators. They quoted one writer as excusing the collaboration by saying that he would rather be a good German than a dead Frenchman. He was the only writer to be executed for his collaboration.

[Campion]

No "delusion" required; it's simply a fact. Hitler never received a "vast majority of votes" in a German national election.

In the last truly free German election (November, 1932), the Nazis received 33.1% of the total, which was the largest share of any single party, but was actually a poorer showing than they had had in the previous election.

The election of March, 1933, after Hitler's appointment to the chancellorship, was not really free. The leadership of the communist party had been arrested, and the leadership of the social democrat party had left the country. (Those were the Nazis' closest competitors.) The election was "monitored" by SS and SA pollwatchers in much of Germany. Campaigning by parties other than the Nazis was restricted.

Despite this, the Nazis only managed to win 43.9% of the vote -- still not a majority, much less a vast majority.

By July of 1933, all political parties other than the Nazis had either been absorbed by the NSDAP, had voted themselves out of existence, or were legally banned. There were no more elections in Germany until 1949.

It doesn't take a "vast majority of votes" for a democracy to turn into a brutal dictatorship.

[Barnacle]

...tonight, I have a wonderful time watching a wonderful film where he did a wonderful acting job.

Good job reviewing the movie. Much better than the "professionals".

[wolf78]

Sorry, but that article is part bullsh*t. The conspirators were neither 100% good nor all Nazi believers. Some took part for personal gain or to avoid the total collapse of the German state. Others had been plotting for years against Hitler, there were Reichswehr generals who called for the "lunatic" Hitler to be shot as early as the 1920s / 30s. From what I have seen, Valkyrie seems to sacrifice these distinctions for the sake of making a thriller (the goodies vs. the baddies). To say that none of the conspirators "saw evil" makes Rosenthal guilty of historical revisionism as well.

"Hitler ist ein tanzender Derwisch. Man muß ihn totschießen." (Hitler is a dancing dervish [i.e. out of control], he needs to be shot dead.) - von Tresckow, 1938

"In München ist ein Gefreiter Hitler verrückt geworden." (In Munich a private named Hitler has gone mad.) - von Hammerstein-Equord, 1923

"Verbrecherbande und Schweinigels" ([The Nazis are] a gang of criminals and sodomites) - ibid., 1933. Although von Hammerstein-Equord died in 1943, his sons were part of the attempted coup.