Ethically Yours

 

“Hero” is not an adjective often used to describe anyone who is formally a Nazi. After all, who familiar with the horrors perpetuated during WWII by Nazi officials would label them heroic?  Highlighting these horrors are genocide (attempting to eliminate various peoples to include anyone with “non-Aryan” blood), perverting professional institutions such as the media, medical, and engineering fields to engage in inhumane practices (attempting to generate a psychology of killing, inducing ‘medical killing’ for the State, and designing more ‘efficient’ means of murder), and rampant theft or destruction of property (so-called ‘prisoners’ had their goods confiscated, Nazi organized crimes such as Kristallnacht, etc.).

Behind the scenes, however, there were several movements within Germany to stop Hitler, Nazi officials, and the SS from sending Germany into further destruction and madness. Of particular interest are the professional soldiers of the German Army – particularly General Friedrich Olbricht, Major General Henning von Tresckow, and Colonel Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg – who plotted to assassinate Hitler, disarm the SS, arrest the Nazi leadership, and take control of German cities. These professional soldiers had sworn an oath to Hitler

I swear by almighty God this sacred oath: I will render unconditional obedience to the Fuehrer of the German Reich and people, Adolf Hitler, Supreme Commander of the Wehrmacht, and, as a brave soldier, I will be ready at any time to stake my life for this oath.

Failure to uphold The Fuehrer Oath was a death sentence, many times for the individual who violated the oath but also for those associated with the traitor. Yet many soldiers, many of whom we will never know their names, their dreams, their hopes for peace, or their fears, silently opposed this oath. They remembered a different oath they took upon entering service to Germany

I swear by almighty God this sacred oath: I will at all times loyally and honestly serve my people and my country and, as a brave soldier, I will be ready at all any time to stake my life for this oath.

Some German soldiers, formally Nazis, realized important truths about what it meant to be a professional soldier:

(1) There are important differences between serving a people and country versus serving a man.

(2) Hitler, the SS, and many Nazi officials were engaged in activities that no one, not even the soldiers of their country, could legitimately support.

(3) Someone had to take a stand to show the rest of the world that Hitler’s Germany was not ‘their’ Germany.

Not every German who participated in conspiracies against Hitler was a hero. Some were selfish – seeking their own power or forgiveness when eventually caught after Germany’s defeat. But others really were heroes, even in their failure. They are heroes because when it came down to it, they took action and tried to be better.

 

 

Ethically Yours

The Operational Philosopher