July 20, 1944: The German resistance to Hitler

Abstract

It is fifty years since D-Day, the invasion of Western Europe on June 6, 1944. Two days before that famous date, in the South, the Allies had taken Rome; two weeks later, the great Soviet offensive tore open Germany's Eastern Front. Those coordinated attacks would squeeze the life out of Hitler's empire. But for a moment, it looked as if the war might end much more quickly. On July 20, 1944, a bomb exploded in Hitler's headquarters, a few feet from the dictator himself, and a broadly based opposition attempted, primarily in Berlin and Paris, to take power away from the Nazis and reestablish decency inside and peace outside Germany. But the explosion did not kill Hitler, and the attempted coup was quickly and successfully throttled. The war ground on. What had happened? Opposition to the government of a totalitarian police state is no easy matter. If you make your disapproval of the government's policies known, you do not appear on the eleven o'clock news, you disappear forever. And you disappear quietly. Only a few friends and relatives learn that you are not around anymore; the controlled mass media make no reference to the event, unless the government itself decides to use the matter in a context of its own choosing – with no provision of equal time for the inmate of camp or tomb. The same media will have broadcast an almost impenetrable fog of propaganda in the first place, making everyone incredulous of any who have seen some light and who try to persuade others that they are indeed in a fog.