again and again this thought came to him: “Would You have shot him…!” All his life he thought back to that one missed moment. In this few seconds, where he went on a troops visit in Smolensk three, four meters in front of Hitler. With a loaded and unlocked gun in his pants pocket. Hours earlier, he had to kill his General, who was inaugurated into the plans of the conspirators, the agreement to get Hitler. Philipp von Boeselager was determined to fire now.
How to present to him this Moment remained in March 1943, illustrated Baron of Boeselager, when I visited him in 2007 in his home in the Ahreifel. As he sat in his chair and pointed over to the fireplace. “Here I stand, and because Hitler over there. And again, I think: You should have done it!“
Survivors of the Stauffenberg assassination attempt: “The tension was unbearable,”
Now he sat opposite Hitler. He would have been able to shoot. “The tension was unbearable.” But minutes earlier, the General field Marshal Kluge had withdrawn his consent, as he had learned that Himmler would not appear in the casino. Kluge feared a civil war between the Wehrmacht and the SS, if the SS would have survived as a leader.
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More about Stauffenberg, Sophie Scholl, and other brave people you read about in Tim Pröses long-term “century witnesses. The message of the last hero against Hitler. 18 encounters“. He appeared in the Heyne-Verlag.
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Also as a Cognac-bottle-disguised bomb, the Henning von Tresckow and Fabian von Schlabrendorff after eating in Hitler’s plane locks, was not able to kill Hitler. When flying over Russia, the detonator icy.
at the time, privileged soldier of the General staff boeselager took advantage of his contacts and asked the SS to officers directly on the head, what it had with the “Special treatment” of whom his comrades in the bar whispered. He learned that all the Jews and Gypsies were shot in the back of the Eastern front. “It was said that 16,000 Jews die every day. To date, it was Gossip, I had now a certainty.“ Heinrich Hoffmann/UPI/Reuters Reich Marshal Hermann Göring (light Uniform) and the chief of the “Kanzlei of the leader”, Martin Bormann (left), inspect the destruction in the room of the maps-barracks in Hitler’s headquarters in Rastenburg, where Colonel Stauffenberg on 20. July 1944, the explosive charge detonated, with the intention of Hitler to kill
From this assurance, he drew a conclusion: “We had to eliminate Hitler, because we wanted to end the crimes, the murder of Jews,. We were in its vicinity and able to do so. We had to act. I said to myself: You can stop him. So please!“ About the author
Tim Pröse (50) has taken 25 years, people who opposed the Nazis. He has been looking for you, accompanied and portrayed – and witness in his long-selling “Century. The message of the last heroes against Hitler“ to be immortalized. For him, the anniversary of the death of the Scholl siblings on 22’s. In February, a similarly important and touching day of 20. July – and for him, Stauffenberg is a real Hero.
The Ahreifel, in the Boeselager lived, resembles a toy train set. From rugged cliffs jutting out of the woods, in the middle of the village of Kreuzberg, the eponymous castle, with ivy and Wisteria, and surrounded perched on a hill. During my visit, a signpost for hikers, who is the Lord of the castle was betrayed. Philipp von Boeselager lived at the time, the old seat below the castle, a half-timbered building pretty. David clamp for Focus For the chapel of his castle in the Ahreifel let evil bearing a Relief of the dragon Slayer Georg customize
his legs of Russian bullets were scarred, mentioned the Baron ungern
With his 89 years of life, he was still sitting very straight in his chair, and his gaze was sharp. The old man took one in the visor, all of a officer remained. On the walls of the living room are oil Paintings of the castles of his ancestors hung.
Boeselager pointed to an old soldier photo. The resolute moves of the young man had received in the wrinkled face of the old Lord. “Only my legs no longer do so”, said the Baron.
his legs of Russian bullets were scarred, he mentioned reluctantly. A Hero he wants to be – like the other conspirators had not been. “The Survivors of a tragedy are never the heroes,” said Boese camp in 2007. Each week provides you FOCUS Online with the most important news from the knowledge Department. Here you can subscribe to the Newsletter.
He was thinking of how Hitler always staged, even at his position meetings, in which Boeselager sometimes was. How he impressed his generals with technical detail knowledge: “He knew the screws of the English tanks.”
Boeselager remembered how he, if he wanted to, Hitler, the stations of the intimidation had to go through. The long way to him, the flags, the salute ends of the SS-people, the hard sound when they beat their Hoes together. “I felt as if I’m getting smaller and smaller, the closer I came to him. I thought: Hopefully, you’ll get out of here alive!“
In 1944, got bad bearings in the bombs for Stauffenberg. He had access to English explosives, of which the sound seem to be lots of Acid fuses are particularly suitable. The bombs he sent to Stauffenberg by a courier. He himself fought in this period on the Eastern front, commanding there, an elite unit of cavalry.
“Each noise, each of the left end of the vehicle to me
stress” “I expected every day to be caught,” said Boeselager. He constantly wore a cyanide capsule in his breast pocket, in order not to fall alive in the hands of the torturers, and to betray even his comrades. The button on the Uniform he had opened, to be able to make the poison come out. “Every noise, every passing let vehicle me stress.”
If he remembered, he still in the pocket of his jacket. Three years later, it was 2010, I visited another man of the 20th century. July: Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist.
He was, according to Baron von Boese camp death of the last surviving co-conspirator. 20. In July 1944, he had defended Stauffenberg with a design tailored tissue adhesives gun. It took a long time, until he finally told them. Again and again you had to ask him.
Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist: “Oh, it was just a harmless little Revolver-history, at the time,”
Then the old man spoke otherwise so straight out and ready for printing began to hum, suddenly. And gritted the sentence: “Oh, it was just a harmless little Revolver-history of the time.”
this small story took place at a place and on a day on which few men save a piece of German honor, failed to mention the Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist-Schmenzin like. Because he belonged to these men. The then 22-year-old Lieutenant was one of the circle around Stauffenberg. As the count, was also used in the Berlin bendler block.
On the afternoon of the 20. In July 1944, when Stauffenberg wanted to seize Power, hesitated Kleist is not long, in order to protect Stauffenberg before his captors. He drew his gun. Along with Stauffenberg’s adjutant von Haeften, he stopped so Stauffenbergs supervisor, Colonel-General Fromm.
just wanted to towers on the Hitler-assassin loss and him under arrest. Kleist, however, expressed the chief of the replacement army, his Revolver in the stomach. Kleist and his friends did not want to give up now. They still believed in the coup. Kleist saw in front of the bendler block, the “guards of the regiment Hermann Göring” has been fixed.
He remembered: “What a glorious sight! This had encouraged me once more.“ Kleist and his stature defied 88 years of life voice. Very erect he stood at my visit at that time, in the doorway of his Villa in the posh Munich-Grünwald. The sunlight fell through the tall trees of his garden into the living room. On the walls, embroidered eagle and a military hanging badge behind glass.
“going to The older I, the more I wonder that I survived”
Kleist fell in a heavy brocade-upholstered armchair, his gaze was straight ahead. He spoke with a voice, as we Know it from old Black-and-films knew, jagged sound, and yet elegant. A stoic Composure, a strength surrounded the Relatives of the poet Heinrich von Kleist. Maybe it was the Aura that had protected him at the time, in front of his pursuers.
He said: “The older I get, the more I wonder that I survived.” Just as he wondered from year to year, more, “as Stauffenberg succeeded, against the power block of Evil and almost make him topple. It was his human strength, which enabled him to do so.“
If he remembered Stauffenberg, there was a Smile in his usually serious face betrayed something of his Pride on the count. “Never before and never after have I met a man who combines such contradictions: a passionate Idealist. But pretty out of it. A master of fact.“ Assassination attempt on Hitler ZDF Enterprises assassination attempt on Hitler
