All language subtitles for The.Restless.Conscience.Resistance.To.Hitler.Within.Germany.1933-1945.1992.1080p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]

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- At least 170 German citizens
were brought to trial

and convicted in 1944 as
participants in the last plot

to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

It was not an isolated act

but only the last
of over 20 attempts and plots

to overthrow
the Nazi leadership,

acts of individual conscience
at war

with an overpowering
national consensus.

- [speaking German]

- [speaking German]

- [screaming in German]

[ominous music]

♪ ♪

[upbeat marching band music]

♪ ♪

[fireworks popping]

[upbeat music]

♪ ♪

[overlapping chatter]

[bombs whistling]

[upbeat orchestral music]

[explosion]

♪ ♪

- We lived in Berlin
when the Nazis came to power,

and there were
lots of people in Germany,

they were still inclined
to like national socialism

in the beginning because
they were first national,

and they were, secondly,
thinking social,

that means industrial workers
will be treated well,

and they must have their share

in the governing of the country,

and this is going to be social,

and it's going to be national,

and that's going to be
just what we need.

- The Germans came from more
than a thousand years

of monarchist traditions,

and they had not adjusted
to democratic self-government.

And there came Hitler,
that leader from nowhere,

and put on the old feelings
a new head and walked

and worked the nation
as if it was a monarchy

but no traditional strings
attached in the moral,

traditional, ethical way,
but that didn't appear at once.

- There were a few people
in Germany

who recognized
the emerging danger

and responded to it.

Who were they?

What made them choose to act
against the new regime

with so very few prospects
for success?

They knew they were
endangering themselves,

as well as their friends
and families.

Coming from
such diverse backgrounds,

how did they find each other?

Why weren't they able to create

an organized resistance
movement?

But above all,
what could they do?

In the Nazi police state,
what could anyone do?

This question was faced
in different ways by people

who often didn't know each other

but were eventually
drawn together,

people as diverse
as Julius Leber,

a trade union leader
and a former Reichstag deputy.

- He was an editor
at the local paper

and member of the Reichstag,
but he came to Luebeck

I think in '22, '23.

I was about ten years old then,

and I met him often
until he went to prison

and I went to Norway
in the spring of 1933.

I mean, he was an intellectual
but very close

to ordinary people in the city,

very impressive,

militant kind
of a political leader.

I remember sometimes there
were not just oral quarrels

with the... with the Nazis,
the growing Nazi movement,

but even clashes at meetings,
gatherings, whatnot,

and he would never be
in the background.

He would be in front of those

who did take the fight,
even in the streets,

and he was in the concentration
camp of Papenburg

near the Dutch border and then
several years in Sachsenhausen.

It's just unbelievable,

the kind of torture
that he went through.

- Helmuth James Count
von Moltke,

an international lawyer
and a descendant

of one of Germany's great
19th-century military heroes.

- On the 30th of January,
a friend said,

"Well, it's a good thing
the Nazis have come to power

"because it's going to be
like any other government.

"It has its time,
and then it gets tired,

and then it's replaced
by another government,"

and Helmuth got furious...
or not furious,

terribly excited, and said,

"How can you say
such a thing when

"this is a terrible
catastrophe that has happened?

How can you say such a thing?
It's the beginning of the end."

He said that the very day
it happened.

He became lawyer in Berlin,
and he helped as much

as he could to get people out
with as much as possible,

and he said to all of those
who knew,

"Get out, get out, get out,

because he's going to do
what he says in his book."

He was not a nationalist,
of course.

He was antinationalist,
but he was hardly national.

His values had never to do
with nationalism.

His values were completely
different, wider.

Within himself,
he was a very free man.

That's why he could resist
and be critical.

And so I think it was
a terrific loss

for Germany to have killed him.

I really do think that.

[ominous music]

♪ ♪

- Adam von Trott zu Solz,

a civil servant with
an American great-grandmother.

As a Rhodes Scholar,

Adam von Trott had close
personal ties to England.

- We were at Oxford together
when it happened,

you see,
when Hitler came to power,

and of all of the Germans
there, Adam's reaction was,

in many ways, to me,
the most interesting

because he knew what was...
what it meant, all right,

and he didn't either think
it would easily go away,

nor did he have any intention
to leave it alone.

Some people then started
thinking of emigrating,

and I would have had
every sympathy, you know,

myself with that... that feeling

because it was so...
it was so alarming,

what Hitler did
when he came to power,

the way he clamped down
on the place,

but Adam wasn't... he didn't ever
view it in those terms,

as something that was
beyond his reach.

He felt, "Well, I belong
to this society.

"I'm not prepared
to give it up to Hitler.

I'm not prepared to accept
that he's got it."

- Dr. Carl Goerdeler,
a conservative politician

and mayor
of the city of Leipzig.

- [speaking German]

- He was active, I think,

since '35, '36, very active,

trying to find people
who would cooperate

in order to stop it,
not already to kill him,

but to stop him
or bring him even to court.

- Fritz-Dietlof Count
von der Schulenburg,

a Nazi party member
with growing doubts,

was deputy commissioner
of police in Berlin.

- [speaking German]

- My brothers were
fervent Nazis,

and my brother Fritzy turned...

well, in his heart, he turned
against Hitler in 1934.

From 1936, 1937 on,

they were deciding
to put away with Hitler.

I saw him
after my father's death.

Father had had a state burial
with Hitler present.

And it was then
that he told me that he was,

well, organizing the plot.

He was in the plot
to kill Hitler.

- Major General
Henning von Tresckow,

operations officer
in army group center

on the eastern front.

- [speaking German]

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer,

Lutheran pastor and theologian.

He came from a family
that persisted

in defying the Nazis' ideology
and anti-Jewish decrees.

- Dietrich,
just by his personality

and the way he behaved,
he was a dominant figure,

and that was his secret.

He was such an independent mind
by education, by his past,

by his theological
and church training.

Through him,
the first shattering

of my nationalistic views
started,

the first taking serious

the Jewish problem
in Nazi Germany.

- By his example
and his teaching,

Bonhoeffer brought a small
number of seminarians

and pastors out of the
established Lutheran church

and into a dissenting church,
the Confessing Church.

He insisted that Christianity
demanded resistance to Nazism.

- In the Confessing Church,

we were against
Hitler's church policy,

but at the same time,
we were anti-Semites,

not thinking of what later
then really developed

and really blind, in a way,

for what already
had happened in '33,

but Bonhoeffer saw the danger
when it came up

and knew exactly what it meant
in human terms.

The question was, how can a
Christian in Germany like him,

being a member
of the responsible

kind of elite in Germany,

how can he live
without being drawn

into complicity
with the murder of the Jews,

and how to draw yourself
out of that core complicity?

That was the real problem
out of which he understood

that he couldn't be near Christ,

couldn't claim to be a disciple
of Christ

by just sitting away

and become an accomplice
of the murder legislation

and the murder deeds.

And for that, he opened
my eyes, at least,

and of several of us.

- Two days after Hitler
came to power,

Dietrich Bonhoeffer broadcast
a radio address

decrying
the Nazi Fuehrerprinzip,

the idea of
an all-powerful leader.

Jesus alone, he insisted,
was the Christians' leader.

His broadcast was cut off
halfway through.

[church bells tolling]

Among the institutions

which offered
no opposition to Hitler

were the established churches.

A Nazi Lutheran bishop,
Ludwig Miller,

was installed
in the Berlin Cathedral.

[church bells tolling]

In July 1933,
a concordat was concluded

between the Vatican
and the German government,

Hitler's first major

international
diplomatic success.

[militaristic music]

Other successes followed.

♪ ♪

This sort of
international recognition

seemed to many to legitimize
Hitler's absolute rule.

[triumphant fanfare]

With Hitler,
a new Germany was born.

The Reichstag was dissolved.

Emergency ordinances
gave the police the power

to ban public meetings
and to control the press.

On March 23rd, the so-called
Enabling Act was passed,

removing all
constitutional restraints

on government power.

On March 29th,
the social democratic deputy

Julius Leber was arrested
at the entrance

to the Reichstag and sent to one

of the newly established
concentration camps.

The first laws abrogating

the civil rights of Jews
were passed.

By mid-July 1933,

all opposition parties
were banned.

Communist party members
were put into the camps.

- This complete destruction
of all opposition

in the ordinary sense
happened at once.

Hitler was
a very efficient person.

He destroyed all the groups
that were against him,

all of them,
and he did it very well.

He took their leaders away,

put them into concentration
camp, and created fear.

- Well, I don't think
we understand police states.

But in Germany, there was both
this... the absolute tyranny.

There also was the element
of lawlessness,

which the Nazis
used and exploited

because they didn't respect
the law and the due process.

This is a tyranny.

Anything could
happen to anybody.

This feeling
was very frightening,

but it wasn't just a feeling.

It was the reality that the
Nazis had a grip on the place

and they would do anything

and did
and a large number of Germans

were put in concentration
camps, I think.

It's always forgotten
how many were put inside

in the very early days

when they just pushed
in everybody who made trouble.

- I remember Peter
coming back one night.

He had defended a socialist

who had been passing
round legal leaflets,

and he'd got the man off,

and they'd walked outside
the law courts.

He'd taken him by the hand
and turned round to wave

as he got into his own car

and saw the man being
bundled into a Black Maria

by police, and he'd spent
the day looking for that man,

finding out what had happened
to that man

and had been told everywhere

had he not ever heard
of preventive custody?

I remember him coming
into the house and saying,

"For me, there is no more law
in this country,

and this is not a country where
we can bring up our children."

- I'm wondering whether,
in fact,

my political development

would have been different

if I hadn't happened
to have quite a number

of close Jewish friends
and contemporaries

who worked
for the legal examiner

at the same time as me.

One passed the exam on the
same day as me in May 1933,

and my career could go on
and his couldn't.

And if I hadn't experienced

this number of friends

and acquaintances suddenly
being underprivileged,

I'm not sure that
I would have taken

an interest in politics at all,

and maybe... I don't know,
maybe I would have

or could have become
one of those fellow travelers

who didn't want to be bothered
with any resistance

against the regime
and bought a party badge

in order not to be molested
by the Nazis

and... as had happened
to most people.

[militaristic music]

- The Roehm putsch
dispelled the last doubts

about the criminality
of the Nazi regime.

Ernst Roehm headed
a popular paramilitary force,

the Brownshirts,

which Hitler saw as
a possible rival for power.

During the night
of June 30, 1934,

thugs loyal to Hitler
murdered Roehm

and other Brownshirt leaders.

They also murdered
two army brigadier generals.

The army did not
protest the crime.

- [speaking German]

[all speaking German]

- The integrity of the army
was further eroded

by an unconstitutional oath
of personal loyalty to Hitler,

which every German soldier
was required to take.

- Adolf Hitler.

All: Adolf Hitler.

- [speaking German]

[all speaking German]

- And my father asked me,
he said,

"Do you dislike it, though?
You think it's a criminal?

How can you swear?"

And I said, "Well,
it wouldn't have been good,

I would have been shot,
and it would be useless."

And he said,
"That's very dangerous,

"because if many people
wouldn't have sworn,

"wouldn't have made that oath,
nobody would have shot,

"but if everybody obeys order,

then, of course,
Hitler gets away with it,"

and I said, "Yes,
but at the same time,

"I made another oath to myself
and... to break the official one

as soon as
and as much as I can."

He said, "Yes, maybe,
but this is

futilism and dangerous."

- In 1938, leading Nazis
engineered the disgrace

and removal
of two senior generals,

Fritsch and Blomberg,

due to their opposition
to Hitler's plans for war.

When the army once again
did not protest,

a few officers,
already disillusioned

by the Roehm putsch
and the Hitler oath,

were stirred
into active resistance.

One officer who became
more and more critical

of the regime was the young
Prussian Henning von Tresckow.

- [speaking German]

- Dr. Carl Goerdeler,
the mayor of Leipzig,

had briefly joined
the Nazi government

as price commissioner,

believing that he could
personally influence Hitler.

- [speaking German]

- In April 1937,
Dr. Goerdeler

had resigned from the office
of mayor in protest

against the removal
of the Mendelssohn monument,

carried out in his absence

and against
his explicit instructions

by the Nazi deputy mayor.

- [speaking German]

- And in all these things,
Goerdeler was very much in it,

knew, was one of the men
who traveled to England,

to different countries and
traveled in Germany itself,

tireless, out of old
conservative tradition,

but certainly to try

to... to bring about
another... another Germany.

- [speaking German]

- The British Foreign Office
simply told Goerdeler

that what he was proposing
amounted to treason.

[bells tolling]

In March of 1938,

Austria was incorporated
into the German Reich.

Although the international
community protested,

there was no retaliation.

In addition,
Hitler had already informed

his ministers and generals

that he intended
to take over Czechoslovakia,

even if it meant war.

Hopes for stopping Hitler's
evolving war plans

were focused on
Colonel General Ludwig Beck,

army chief of staff, who was
planning a military coup.

- There was the definite
feeling that the generals

were going to do something.

They were going to arrest him.

It was not murder.
It was not assassination.

- Hans von Dohnanyi
had collected

a chronicle of scandals
when he was still in the office

of the minis... of
the Ministry of Law,

of the just...
Ministry of Justice,

and had collected all the old
scandal facts in certain files

in order to present that
in a trial to the German public

in case Hitler would be stopped
and brought to trial.

- I don't think my father was
very happy with his alliance

with military people in general.

He was a convinced civilian,

and he hated any kind
of uniform, et cetera,

and yet these were the necessary

and inevitable allies.

I mean, the only way to change
the German government

in the period between 1933
and 1945 from the inside

was with the military,
not against them.

- In order to act,
Colonel Generals Beck, Halder,

and a vacillating
Field Marshal von Brauchitsch

needed to know
that the British would fight

rather than give in
to Hitler's demands

and would not interfere
in a German military coup.

As the Sudeten Crisis deepened,

General Beck arranged
to send the elder Kleist

to London to warn the British

of the planned invasion
of Czechoslovakia.

General Beck told Kleist,

"Bring me certain proof
that Britain will fight

"if Czechoslovakia is attacked,

and I will make
an end of this regime."

But the Chamberlain government
dismissed

Kleist's reports and implied
that he was a traitor.

Kleist's meeting
with Winston Churchill

also achieved nothing.

The British would not respond,
even when Theo Kordt

came from the German
Foreign Ministry's permanent

undersecretary of state,
Ernst von Weizsaecker,

with an appeal for
stiff resistance to Hitler.

- Hell of a disaster,
the Kordt mission.

It was inexplicable, they said,

that they couldn't
understand it.

They couldn't believe
that Weizsaecker

was sending somebody

to tell them how to frustrate
his own government.

They couldn't believe it.

If Kordt comes and says,

"The military are ready
to arrest Hitler

if you... if you don't give way
out of Sudetenland,"

and if Halifax
didn't believe him,

he should have sent somebody
to Germany to find out.

This idea of intriguing
with the army

was quite foreign to them,

and there was nobody... there was
no department of state

that was ready
to deal with that.

It wasn't diplomacy.

It wasn't military intelligence.

It didn't fit into
anybody's duty.

- The British government,
with the French,

were working hard to come

to a peaceful accommodation
with Hitler.

[crowd cheering]

- I'm going to have another
talk with Herr Hitler,

only this time, he has told me

that it is his intention

to come halfway to meet me.

[laughter]

- [speaking German]

- In September 1938,
Britain, France,

and Italy met in Munich
with Hitler

and signed an agreement

that the Sudetenland
be annexed to Germany.

They accepted Hitler's promise
that he had no further

territorial ambitions
beyond the Sudetenland.

The warnings of Kleist,
Goerdeler, Kordt,

and others were ignored.

The best opportunity
for a coup had been lost.

[crowd cheering]

- Some of you perhaps have
already heard what it contains,

but I would just like
to read it to you.

"We regard the agreement
signed last night

"and the Anglo-German
naval agreement

"as symbolic of the desire
of our two peoples

never to go to war
with one another again."

[crowd cheering]

- The one really good
opportunity was before Munich.

At that time,
there was the ideal conditions

in that there was
great doubt in Germany

that Hitler wouldn't get them
into trouble

if he went on
into the Sudetenland.

The army was poised
to do something about it,

and all Britain had to do
was to not agree,

and had that happened,

there was a good chance
that it would have brought

about the downfall
of the regime.

After that, there wasn't
such an opportunity.

- Abandoned by the French
and the British,

the Czechs put up
no resistance to Hitler.

The Sudetenland was annexed
to the Reich without war.

Hitler had won his gamble.

Failing to stop Hitler's
progression towards war,

General Beck resigned from
the army on August 19, 1938.

- At that time, there was
a great fear in Germany

of going into a war.

I mean, I do know that 'cause
I went there at that time,

and it was very evident
that people thought,

"Is this man mad?
Where is he taking us?"

But when he got away with that
and there was no reaction

to him... to him
not only taking the Sudetenland

but later on going into Prague
and taking that,

well, then it became
almost impossible

to say... for the army
to move in and say,

"Oh, this man
doesn't estimate rightly.

He's gonna land you
in a world war,"

'cause he did estimate rightly

and he got away
with these things.

[glass shattering]

- Kristallnacht,
the Night of Broken Glass.

On November 9, 1938,

less than two months
after the Munich conference,

Nazi troopers were sent on
a nationwide window-smashing,

fire-setting rampage
against the Jews.

- [speaking German]

- After Kristallnacht,
Count von der Schulenburg's

resistance activities
intensified.

Through his contacts
with the Gestapo,

he managed to help
Jewish people to leave Berlin.

In 1940, he joined
the Ninth Infantry Regiment,

in which Axel von dem Bussche
was a lieutenant.

- It's a strange regiment,
Ninth Infantry in Potsdam.

After the war,
it went... it was on record

and still is, of course,
of having produced

more officers hung, killed,

shot by Hitler
and his legal machine

than any other unit of the army.

So there was some sort of thing
in that regiment.

There was some sort
of proportion still left

what could be done and not.

To give you an example,

this regiment was
part of the 23rd division

around Berlin.

The commanding general

was a man called
Brockdorff-Ahlefeldt.

His nickname in the troop
was Bonnie Charles.

And Bonnie Charles,

when he heard
what was going on in Berlin

with regard to synagogues
and more than Jew-baiting,

Jew-chasing and Jew...

chasing,
that's an understatement.

So he put the whole division
under alert...

Thinking and believing he would
get orders to march to pacify

what he still thought
was a genuine mob pogrom.

So we couldn't get out,

and the next day,
the alert was stopped,

and gradually over the years,
we heard

why he had put
the division under alert.

He had thought he would
get orders to march into Berlin

and stop this.

And the supreme commander

of the army
stood by with silence,

as they had on June 30, 1934.

They could easily
have squashed it,

but nobody gave the orders,

and an army will only march
if it gets orders.

Next morning, my colleague,
Heinrich Borgmann,

said, "Well, it was all staged,"

and I said, "What exactly
do you mean by staged?"

"Well," he said, "The police
were ordered to stand by,

"and the fire brigades
were ordered to stand by,

"and these Storm Troopers
were allowed to put fire

and... and smash the windows
of Jewish shops."

And it's perhaps
an interesting point

to note that '37 in November,
a man with my background

wouldn't think that is
conceivable, couldn't imagine.

It sort of started
to fall into focus.

The pattern became
gradually clear,

but every time something
like that happened,

one had to adjust one's insight

into the possibility
of human beings.

'37, I was 18 years of age,

and I suppose I came

from a more or less
coddled background,

but the dimension of organized,

stimulated crime is something
which sinks very slowly

into a brain
of a 18- or 19-year-old boy.

It just... you can't...
you can't believe it.

You've got to open some new
dimensions of understanding.

[militaristic music]

- In March 1939, the German
army marched into Prague,

and the Czech part
of free Czechoslovakia

was incorporated
into the Nazi empire.

A Second World War was now
imminent, and in time of war,

those who chose
loyalty to conscience

over loyalty to their government

would be branded as traitors.

- Now, Adam, at that time,
was thinking.

He was looking at the situation
from the outside.

He was wondering, is there
any international combination

that could do anything
to prevent a war?

- Trott became an emissary
for the resistance

and traveled to England in 1939.

- Adam, he wanted me

to help him when he reached
the British government,

and he met Halifax
at my parents' house,

and Halifax encouraged
Trott to talk.

And there was
a roomful of people,

and so he had to be
fairly circumspect,

but he did talk, and he said,

"There is a great unwillingness

"to go into a world war
for Hitler

"amongst many people,
army officers,

"people in the foreign office

"who... but they have no means
of stopping it now,

and they... they need some
sort of leader outside."

- People who didn't know him
really well, intimately,

wouldn't know what
he would really stand for

and would have doubts
what he would be standing for,

and as a result of that,
he hereafter

have been misinterpreted
in Oxford,

particularly at his last meeting

with his friends in Oxford,

when he, in fact,
couldn't tell them

what he thought his job was,

because Oxford
is a talking shop,

and it would find its way back

to the knowledge
of the wrong people in Germany.

- In 1940, Adam von Trott
joined the Foreign Office,

a position which he used
as a cover

for his continuing
resistance activities.

In order to get the appointment,

he had to join the Nazi Party.

- Trott had an especially
difficult task

because he had always
outwardly to pretend

that he was positive
about the regime

because he couldn't have
traveled otherwise,

and so the people here
thought he was a Nazi,

and he couldn't... and this all
comes out of the difficulty

to understand what it is like
to live in a dictatorship,

a dictatorship of that kind
or how you cannot disagree,

how in a... in a totalitarian
state like that,

disagreement, legal
disagreement is not possible,

and that was not understood.

- Trott went to Washington
and again met with mistrust.

The FBI followed him everywhere.

President Roosevelt
would not meet with him

after he received
a report from Britain

that Trott was not
to be trusted.

- They did not recognize
that there were other Germans,

and this was Adam's mission,
which he took with him

wherever... at risk of his life,
wherever he went,

to Sweden or to America,
to Sweden, to Switzerland,

but his messages
were continuously coming out

from all directions
at danger to his life,

"There are other Germans.
There is another Germany."

- Just as World War II
was about to erupt,

the Dutch military attaché
in Berlin,

Colonel GJ Sas,
received a message

from a member of German
military intelligence,

Lieutenant Colonel Hans Oster.

- We got information from Oster,

who told us that there were...

attempts afoot
to overthrow the Nazi regime.

Colonel Oster provided Sas

with almost
daily day-to-day information

about Hitler's plans to attack,

to attack first Poland,

then Holland,
Belgium, and France,

and subsequently Denmark,
Norway, and England.

- [speaking German]

- Colonel Oster risked his life,

because if it had been known
what he was doing

and what secrecy
he was betraying,

it certainly would have
been the end of him.

They said, "I cannot believe
that a high German officer

gives away such valuable
secrets to a potential enemy,"

and in the end,

the people who received
the messages laughed about it,

but when the attack came,
it was too late.

They were not
sufficiently prepared.

[militaristic music]

[airplanes droning]

♪ ♪

[explosion]

[intense music]

♪ ♪

[triumphant military music]

♪ ♪

[fire roaring and crackling]

[bells tolling]

[solemn music]

♪ ♪

[crowd cheering]

[somber music]

[crowd cheering]

- [speaking German]

- With the fall of France,

many army officers who might
once have opposed Hitler

were caught up in the pressure
of wartime duties

and the elation of easy victory.

Only the few
with deep convictions

remained committed
to resistance,

which now seemed
more difficult than ever.

- I recall the very desperate
expressions and words

of my father on the very day
on which Paris was conquered:

"To swim against public opinion
in your own country

in times of victory
is a difficult thing to do."

- [speaking German]

- Helmuth had
a terrific depression

when France was taken and when
Hitler was really at the top.

He had a depression
that he felt ill,

and he... I mean, he didn't
think of committing suicide,

but he was... he felt,
what was... was it

all good to live for
if this was it?

And then... and that point
I always make,

because it played a big role
in that group,

he sort of pulled himself
out of this depression

by making a point
of talking to other people

who were anti-Nazis about
what would happen in the future

when the Nazis were gone,

and then they beca...
he became quite systematic,

and the person
who helped him there,

become systematic,
was Peter Yorck.

Peter brought in the ones that
were in the foreign office.

There were two that...
Adam von Trott zu Solz

and Hans-Bernd von Haeften,
and Hans-Bernd von Haeften

also... he brought
in the element

of civil service
and Christianity.

Then we had a man
called Schulenburg,

Fritz Schulenburg.

He was a civil servant
under the Nazis

and changed his mind,
and he was very much

for getting the military
to act against Hitler.

Helmuth made that great effort
to get socialists in,

and, of course,
that he only could do

because of his own leanings,
and one of the socialists

who were very much anti-Hitler
was Julius Leber,

who had been in
concentration camp for years

and then came out, and he knew
about the Kreisau.

But first of all,
Helmuth got Reichwein,

and he brought other
socialists to the group.

- [speaking German]

- There were differences
of opinion.

There were people thinking
more along

traditional, conservative lines,

others who would concentrate,
including Moltke and Leber,

concentrating very much
on the idea of a united Europe,

especially Western Europe,

but they also thought
that there might be chances

for some larger
European cooperation,

including large changes
in Russia

and in Eastern Europe.

- [speaking German]

- This loose alliance
of socialists,

conservatives, army officers,
civil servants,

and clergymen
met frequently to lay plans

for their vision
of a post-war Germany,

a constitutional state within
a federated European Union.

Because they sometimes
met at Kreisau,

von Moltke's estate in Silesia,

the Gestapo would name them
the Kreisau Circle.

[train whistle blowing]

In autumn of 1940,
the Ninth Infantry Regiment,

which had participated
in the invasion of France,

was moved back to Poland.

- We were moved
with occupation troops

in the industrial rural city
on the Vistula

between Warsaw and Danzig,

and all the civil servants
of the civil government

were out in their brown uniforms

and chasing the Jews
out of their dwellings

into a prepared part of
the city which was a ghetto,

but, again, there was no mob.

This was an organized action.

[ominous music]

♪ ♪

You've seen things
like Jew baiting

on November the 9th, '40,

or whether you're here
at the same time

that there is
a planned extermination

of an intellectual
middle and upper class

of a formerly
sovereign neighbor nation,

you couldn't believe it.

I mean, conceptually,
you want to follow,

even if you are very young.

Conceptually,
you want to follow,

and you can't... you can't
get at the concept.

What... what philosophy is that?

And what good does it do?

[sighs]

No.

One went and did
one's day-to-day duty

to get the food up

and... and the battalions fed
and exercises planned,

and... and one just started

with keeping a curtain down.

One started to keep a curtain
down towards these news.

[train engine chugging,
whistle blowing]

- Throughout the war,
a number of Jews

were enabled to leave Germany,
aided by a group of resisters

working within the Nazi
military intelligence service,

the Abwehr.

The Abwehr was headed
by the chief

of military intelligence,
Admiral Wilhelm Canaris,

who continued to work
for the Nazi regime

while providing cover
and assistance

for the resisters
within his organization.

Colonel Oster was Canaris'
chief of staff.

- [speaking German]

[train engine chugging]

[train whistle blowing]

- One initiative of the Abwehr
was Operation U7,

which sent some Jews
out of the country

on the pretext that they were
intelligence agents.

Dr. Fleiss and his family
were included

in one of these rescue efforts.

- He had to wear the star.

That began in '41, in September,

and the first deportation
started around September

and October '41,
and then we got that letter

that we had to be prepared
for deportation,

and then Dohnanyi said,
"Look, Herr,

"I have decided
we would do something

"to help you and your family.

It will be too dangerous.
You won't survive."

He was quite clear about that.

It took us half a year,
even more, to go out.

We only left
on the 30th of September.

Took quite some time.

It was very complicated,

all these preparations,
probably,

the money, everything,
and to get the passports.

I never knew how Dohnanyi
managed to do that.

It's incredible.

And Dohnanyi
was terribly depressed

because of his country,

and then I remember that my
father tried to cheer him up

and said, "Look,
there are other people,

"not all of them are like
that, and that will pass,

and then we'll all
talk about it."

- The Canaris organization
had recruited the young jurist

Hans von Dohnanyi

and the pastor
Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

- Dietrich was given a passport
by the Canaris organization

and went three,
four times to Switzerland.

He went to Norway and to Sweden

to meet the Bishop
of Chichester,

in those days,
Bishop George Bell,

who, in the name
of the... of the conspiracy,

even visited Anthony Eden,
those days, foreign minister,

and reported him
what he had... had heard

from Schoenfeld and especially
from Dietrich Bonhoeffer

and how credible he was.

Of course, Anthony Eden
remained suspicious.

- "My dear bishop, without
casting any reflection

"on the bona fides
of your informants,

"I am satisfied that it would

"not be in the national interest

"for any reply
whatever to be sent to them.

"I realize that this decision

"may cause you
some disappointment,

"but in view of the delicacy
of the issues involved,

"I feel that I must
ask you to accept it.

Yours sincerely,
Anthony Eden."

- And to me, it always seemed
extraordinarily strange

that the British
recognized the Maquis,

the Yugoslavs, the Greeks.

They recognized opposition
everywhere

but never recognized that there
was a German opposition.

- Helmuth von Moltke
also found cover

in the Abwehr under Canaris
and traveled to seek support

and recognition
for the resistance.

- Moltke particularly wanted
very badly

for us to help him establish
contacts with London.

- He did try quite
systematically to get in touch

with the resistance
in other countries

because he felt, again,
that this was the same issue

and that one had to try
and get to know them

because they would be
the people who later on

would govern those countries,

and he had some success
in... he had quite

a lot of success in Holland
and in Scandinavia and Norway.

- He brought us documents
about the...

about things
particularly pertaining

to the resistance in Germany,

and as I believe
I mentioned earlier,

the whole material

from the White Rose.

- In February 1943, a student
resistance movement

surfaced briefly in Munich,
calling itself the White Rose.

Inspired by the sermons of
the Catholic Bishop von Galen,

Hans Scholl
and his sister, Sophie,

and a small circle
of Munich University students

printed and distributed leaflets

calling on the German people

to resist the Nazi government
and the war.

The British constantly
demanded concrete evidence

that a German
resistance existed.

Helmuth von Moltke
sent the proclamations

of the White Rose to London

through the Norwegian
underground movement.

Hans and Sophie Scholl

and the others were quickly
caught and arrested.

They were tried,
sentenced to death,

and decapitated.

The evidence of their
resistance was ignored

by the Allies,
despite Moltke's efforts.

- Count Moltke,
also he'd warn us

against the action
against the Jews.

He had been in touch
with an officer

who was stationed at a place

near a concentration camp,

and this officer had told him,
and he said,

"I'm absolutely certain
that this is true.

"At this concentration camp,
people were killed

at the rate of 6,000 per day."

- When Dietrich Bonhoeffer
in September of '41

saw Dr. Willem Visser 't Hooft,
the general secretary

of the World Council
of Churches, in Geneva,

Visser 't Hooft asked him
what he was just praying now,

and he said,
and answered clearly,

"I pray for the defeat
of my country

"because that's the only way
we can pay

for all the atrocities
that we did in the world."

- [speaking German]

- And the actual act
of getting rid of Hitler

was certainly, to my mind,
amongst all those conspirators,

a matter of great doubt
as to how it should happen.

Should... in fact,
should it happen?

'Cause Moltke was not...

was very much against
anything of that kind,

and Adam himself
was very, very doubtful

to actually order somebody
or collaborate

with somebody
who would shoot the man.

- [speaking German]

- And it was actually this fear,

this impression
of the imminent danger

for so many people
that led my father

to try to... to do things
which are not easy to do.

I mean, to make a decision
to kill...

to kill somebody
is a difficult decision,

by a political... by
political assassination.

- [speaking German]

- Of course it's true
you shall not kill,

but you had killed already.

You had killed since '33.

In your name,
Jews were being killed,

and you had to stop
the murderer.

You have to be prepared
to accept the guilt

of... because you,
much earlier, have failed.

The failure
was not killing Hitler.

The failure was accepting '33

anti-Jewish legislation
and Nazism.

That was the real guilt against
which now stopping that man

who in your name
killed thousands

and millions of co-citizens,

yeah, that was the guilt
you had to take on you

and ask for forgiveness,
but you have to do it.

- [speaking German]

[somber trumpet music]

- In June 1941, the German
army invaded the Soviet Union,

violating their mutual
nonaggression pact.

The Ninth Infantry Regiment
moved with other army units

from Poland into the Ukraine.

At first, the Ukrainians

welcomed the German army
as liberators.

But then Hitler
gave administrative control

of all captured territories
in the East

to the Nazi party-run
Commissariat East

and to the black-uniformed SS,

and the stage was set
for the bloodiest,

most vicious campaign
of the war.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

Captain Bussche
was stationed in Dubno

training soldiers
near an unused airport.

- The airport was about
200 yards away

through some shrubbery,
so I walked out,

and there was
this fantastic moment

where I collected my wits,
to understand

there were these big holes
which we couldn't... which

I never understood,

and there was these... this one
enormously long queue

of naked human beings
queuing up to that hole,

and at the end of the queue,

trucks came
and loaded human beings.

They obviously undressed there,
and the clothes were put

in the... in the trucks again
and drove off.

And these... this queue of naked
people sort of went

step after step
nearer to these holes,

and then I saw that
on the edges of the holes,

there were some types
sitting in black uniforms

and shooting into the holes.

And it took me some time
to get that together

to see... to understand that here
was extermination going on,

extermination of Jews.

It takes some time.

You don't understand at first.

So I turned around and went
to the colonel and said,

"Colonel, we've got
to do something,"

and he said,
"I have to see first."

So we went out again,

and he saw it
and came to the conclusion

that if we marched in,

we would be shot down
the next day as mutineers

by some very modern equipped
battalion in Vinnytsia,

the headquarters
of Adolf Hitler.

This went on for two days.

They shot approximately
1,800 human beings out there

in that circumstance,

and no... no interference
from our side.

It's a moment where the bottom
of everything falls out

and keeps away...
you know, keeps away.

If we German soldiers,

looking at
this mass extermination,

had concluded quickly
that undressing

and queuing up voluntarily
in this queue of naked people...

men, children, young women,

old women, young men, old men...

I believe
we would have stopped it.

If the whole army
had walked in like that,

it would not have happened.

Therefore, there is a element
of self-blame

that it didn't occur to me.

It occurred to me after the war

that the only feasible solution
in the moment

is putting yourself
into the same situation

and seeing what happens.

Didn't occur to me.

And instinctively I knew,

and all of them
who watched it knew,

some kind of traditional,
accepted harmony

has been destroyed here,
and we've been witness.

We've seen it, but we were
not able to put it in words.

We were not able to put it
in words nor in thoughts

nor in logical deduction.

This is what we have to do.

Something was shattered there.

We have to start from scratch.

You can repair
political affairs...

repair,

but you cannot repair once
that innocence has gone,

that self-understood innocence
about interhuman manners.

That is gone.

And I can only repeat

what that bishop said
a couple of days ago.

It is my responsibility
and guilt

that I am still alive, period.

- By winter of 1942, the
resisters within the military,

the Abwehr, and the civilian
circles in Berlin

made plans
to assassinate Hitler,

believing this to be
the only means

of stopping the war
and the atrocities.

Throughout '42 and '43,
one of the focal points

for all active resistance
within the military

was the Army Group Centre in
Smolensk on the eastern front.

It was led by
Colonel Henning von Tresckow,

who had filled the command
staff with anti-Nazis.

All Tresckow's attempts to
involve his superior officers

in the conspiracy had failed.

Generals Field Marshal von Bock,

Field Marshal von Kluge,
and Field Marshal von Manstein

increasingly took refuge
in strict military duty,

thereby ignoring the atrocities

which were being committed.

- [speaking German]

- By the end of 1942,

Tresckow and his group
were the only ones

with the capacity
or resolve to kill Hitler.

- [speaking German]

- The conspirators
made their first

coordinated attempt on
Hitler's life in March 1943.

Admiral Canaris flew from
Berlin to Smolensk in advance,

carrying a box of explosives,

a commodity difficult
to acquire in wartime Germany.

The admiral was accompanies
by Colonel Oster

and Hans von Dohnanyi
of the Abwehr group.

The conspirators agreed
that Tresckow

would carry out
the assassination in Smolensk

and then send the code word
"flash" to Dohnanyi in Berlin

as a signal
for the coup to begin.

- [speaking German]

- Just as Hitler's plane
was departing Smolensk

after his meeting with Tresckow,

Schlabrendorff gave the
bottles to a Hitler aide,

saying they were meant
for a friend in Berlin.

The bombs were set to go off
in half an hour.

- [speaking German]

[airplane droning]

[triumphant music]

♪ ♪

- A week later, Tresckow
organized another attempt,

this time to take place in
Berlin on Heroes Memorial Day.

[man speaking German]

♪ ♪

[man speaking German]

- As part of the ceremony,
Hitler was to view

an exhibition
of captured war material

in the Zeughaus accompanied
by Colonel von Gersdorff.

As he waited for Hitler,

Gersdorff activated two bombs
he had in his pockets,

setting them to explode
in less than ten minutes.

Contrary to expectations,

Hitler raced through
the exhibition

and did not stop
for explanations.

He continued to walk briskly
and left the exhibit

after a few minutes.

Another attempt had failed.

[militaristic music playing]

[man speaking German]

- Yet another assassination
was attempted

by Lieutenant von dem Bussche,

who witnessed
the massacre in Dubno

and now volunteered
to kill himself

and carry Hitler with him.

- I knew what is commonly
called conspirators

in that regiment,

and I went up as soon as I could

and reported this and said,

"Now we've got to shoot him,
because unless that army

"and this government gets free
from this bondage of this oath

"they think they are...

"linked to like in a lasso

"to that government,
unless we kill number one,

"we can't start
even reorganizing...

and stopping this."

And I went to
Fritzy Schulenburg,

and Schulenburg said,
"There is a man whom I consider

"the most gifted general
staff officer I've ever seen,

and he wants to see
a type like you."

And he brought me to
Stauffenberg, to his office.

Then he says,
"Well, you are infantry.

"You've got battle experience.

We need a man
to blow the man up."

He was quite frank.

And I was picked up
to introduce new uniforms

to Adolf Hitler,
Goering, and Himmler,

who didn't come together
very often, and blow them up.

And then one of these things
happened which do happen

if a man is supposed to live

to his end like Hitler.

The uniforms ready to be shown
in general headquarters

in East Prussia

were destroyed
or partly destroyed

by British bombing
in Berlin in the night,

and we couldn't go ahead

with presenting
this half burnt-out material,

so it didn't take place

in November '43.

It was postponed to early '44,

and, meanwhile, they had shot
my leg into pieces in Russia

and I couldn't partake,
so there I am.

- Ever hopeful, Schulenburg
and Stauffenberg

approached Lieutenant von Kleist

and asked him
if he would volunteer

to blow himself up with Hitler.

- I found it
a very difficult decision,

I must say, and that
was... I said to Stauffenberg,

"I would like to think
24 hours about it."

From Berlin,
I took again a train,

went home, and arrived
the next morning,

and my father said,
"Why are you here again?"

And I said, "Well, there are
difficult decisions

I have to make."

And he said, "What is it?"

And I told him,

and he said at once, "Yes,
of course you have to do it,"

And I said, "Yes, but I have
to blow up with Hitler."

And he got up from his chair,
went to the window,

looked out of the window
for a moment,

and then he turned and said,
"Yes, you have to do that.

"A man who doesn't take
such a chance

will never be happy again
in his life."

[man speaking German]

- Kleist's plan failed,
as had other attempts,

due to Hitler's habit
of changing his schedule

at the last minute.

There was not much time left
in which to act.

Himmler's SS security police

were closing in
on the conspiracy.

[dog barking]

Helmuth von Moltke had just
been arrested after his name

had been divulged
by a fellow resister

who was tortured by the Gestapo.

In April of 1943,
the rescue operation of Jews

conducted by the resistance
network within the Abwehr

had been uncovered, and Canaris,

Oster, Dohnanyi, and
Bonhoeffer had been arrested.

In early summer of 1944,

Julius Leber and
Adolf Reichwein were picked up

after meeting with members
of the Communist Party,

which was heavily
infiltrated by informers.

With so many conspirators
in the hands of the Gestapo,

the remainder were in imminent
danger of exposure and death.

At this point, when so little
time was left to them,

Stauffenberg was appointed
chief of staff

to General Fromm,

commander in chief
of the home army.

This gave the increasingly
vulnerable conspirators

another chance
to assassinate Hitler.

For the first time,
the resistance

had a man with
personal access to Hitler,

and the stage was set
for the attempt

in the Fuehrer's headquarters,
Wolfsschanze.

A few days before the 20th
of July, Stauffenberg said,

"It is now time
that something was done,

"but he who has the courage
to do something

"must do it in the knowledge

"that he will go down in
German history as a traitor.

"If he does not do it, however,

he will be a traitor
to his own conscience."

- Stauffenberg was
a fascinating personality.

Maybe he had a burning heart,

if you would permit me
this expression.

On the other hand,

he was very cool in his plans

and personally charming,
really friendly,

and it was nice
to make jokes with him,

and I was extremely fond
of him, I must say,

not only fond
but also impressed,

and I had the feeling
that he really was the best man

we could have had to...

make the thing go.

- He had a brilliant mind
and a shattering laughter.

He could laugh,

and I've never heard anybody
laugh like that.

- [speaking German]

- At that time, Stauffenberg

was working
closely with Schulenburg

preparing
the assassination attempt

at Hitler's headquarters.

Before the attempt,

Schulenburg went home once more.

- [speaking German]

- In the early morning
of July 20th,

Stauffenberg and
Lieutenant Werner von Haeften

flew to Hitler's headquarters
in East Prussia

for a conference.

In his briefcase, Stauffenberg
carried two bombs.

- [speaking German]

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

[man speaking German]

- Before joining
Hitler's conference,

Stauffenberg retired
to the lavatory

to fuse the two bombs
in his briefcase.

Hampered by severe wounds...

he had lost an eye and a hand

and two fingers
of the other hand...

and being interrupted by a
call to join the conference,

he managed to fuse
only one bomb,

thereby reducing the force
of the explosion by half.

Stauffenberg entered
the briefing room,

inching his way as close
as he could to Hitler.

He put his briefcase
with the bomb

next to the map table's leg
and, shortly after,

left under a pretext
of making a phone call.

Stauffenberg and Haeften
saw the explosion

as they were leaving
for the airport.

Four people were killed.
Others were wounded.

Hitler received
only minor injuries.

- [speaking German]

- Walkuere was
an emergency order

prepared
for the Hitler government.

Kept locked in a vault
in the Bendlerstrasse,

army headquarters in Berlin,

the order had been
secretly tailored

by the conspirators
to launch their coup.

It called on army units
to march on Berlin,

ordered that Nazi
government ministers

be relieved of their duties,
SS and Gestapo officers

and concentration camp
commandants to be arrested,

and the camps
immediately opened.

At 1:15 p.m., Stauffenberg

and Lieutenant
Werner von Haeften

boarded a plane for Berlin

convinced that Hitler was dead.

Within the first hour
after the explosion,

the chief of the Central
Department for Capital Crimes,

Dr. Bernd Wehner,

was summoned to go on a mission.

- [speaking German]

- When Stauffenberg
and Werner von Haeften

arrived at last
at the Bendlerstrasse,

they found that the Walkuere
orders had not been issued.

Precious hours had been lost.

General Beck was already there
with Fritz von der Schulenburg

and Peter Yorck.

Dr. Eugen Gerstenmaier

arrived shortly afterwards.

Hans Bernd von Haeften,
Werner's brother,

was waiting for orders
with Adam von Trott

at the Foreign Office.

The young officers
of the Ninth Infantry Regiment

were waiting
at the Esplanade Hotel

to be called into action,

among them Hammerstein, Kleist,

and Georg von Oppen.

Stauffenberg, meanwhile,
was constantly on the phone

trying to move the coup forward.

- Normally, I think,
there is a certain weight

on the skin through the air.

I don't know why, but it's
physical, medical to me,

but, anyhow, its... its effect.

On such a day,
you have the impression

that it's 100,000 times
the weight

which you normally carry.

It's a fantastic atmosphere
when the history of Berlin

on the edge of the knife,
extremely difficult to describe

and interesting
to watch the people

who act on such a day
according to their characters

and to their abilities.

And here, again,
I must mention Stauffenberg.

Nobody was cooler
and concentrated,

more concentrated than him.

And everybody came and asked him

about every decision.

He was fantastic on that day.

[speaking German]

- [speaking German]

- But then pretty soon,

I was listening to
the telephone conversation,

which... Fromm,
General Colonel Fromm,

the commanding general
of the Ersatzheer,

had with Keitel, and the end
was that he said,

"So, Herr Feldmarschall,
I can rely Hitler is alive?"

And Keitel must have said yes,

and I put the receiver
back to the telephone,

and that, of course, made
a very bad impression to me,

a very, very bad impression,

and I went back
to look for Haeften,

and I said, "Now, listen, we
will get on top of it because

"Fromm has talked with Keitel,

and he... Keitel said
that Hitler's alive."

So then Stauffenberg
came into all these stories

which are well known,
and they arrested Fromm.

- [speaking German]

[militaristic music]

- Within hours of the explosion,

despite his injuries,
Hitler was able to meet

Mussolini's special train
as scheduled.

- [speaking German]

- Shortly before midnight,
General Fromm

arrested the military leaders
of the conspiracy

inside the Bendlerstrasse.

Stauffenberg assumed
complete responsibility.

General Beck was allowed
to shoot himself.

The others were led
downstairs to the courtyard.

General Olbricht was shot first.

Stauffenberg was to be next,
but Lieutenant von Haeften

threw himself
in front of the count

and was shot instead.

Only then was
Stauffenberg killed.

Colonel Mertz von Quirnheim
was the last to die.

It was about half past midnight.

The collapse of
the 20th of July coup d'etat

uncovered trails
leading to the capture

and arrest
of other conspirators,

who, after August 1944,

were put on a series of
widely publicized show trials.

[man speaking German]

- The resisters condemned
to death were hanged

with thin cords from meat hooks

in the Ploetzensee Prison.

- [speaking German]

- He died at the 21st of July,

and we had a funeral
in Battenberg,

but at this time,
even my mother believed

that he was fallen in battle.

It was a suicide.

[woman speaking German]

- Goerdeler went into hiding.

An award of 1 million marks
was offered for his capture.

He was subsequently betrayed
to the police

and tried in the People's Court.

- [speaking German]

- Aha!

- He had said to me,
and I remember

one of his last words were,

"We've got to do it ourselves.
It will happen.

"We've got to do it ourselves
before the Allies

have to do it for us."

Before the 20th of July,

his health
had suffered a great deal.

He was...

oh, he was gay enough,
but though I think he knew

exactly what he was heading
for if it didn't succeed.

- [speaking German]

[man speaking German]

- [speaking German]

- We went up to Berlin,
Charlotta and I,

because she said,
"I must be near him.

Maybe I can see him."

I went to
the Gestapo hauptquartier

and asked if I could deliver
a letter or anything,

and they just said,
"Would you please go? Just go.

We don't want
to see you here. Go."

Later on, I realized
that he had been there

until 8:00 in the morning
in this Gestapo quartier

and had then being led
to the Werkstattofen

and then to his death.

Charlotta got a bill

about two months later.

I've forgotten if it was
150 marks for the execution.

That was all.

- [speaking German]

- Well, I have seen a great
deal of him in the prison,

and he was very impressive,
cool, friendly.

He behaved excellent
as a prisoner.

- I saw him once more
after the trial

on the 18th of January...

And I went to back Kreuzau
for the weekend,

where I always fetched food,

and then I came back again
and was again in Berlin

and just had written a letter
saying that I had returned.

He got that letter
in the morning.

That was the day he was killed,

the 23rd of January.

And I, of course,
did not expect him to...

I didn't know what would happen
in the circumstances

if the Allies had just come,

but the Allies were so slow
in coming, so...

We hoped
they would come in time.

Of course, that kind of thing,
you know,

that goes without saying.

- And he was prepared to pay.

He was a human being
who tried to escape,

as late as possible,
execution or death.

He wanted to live, but when
it was unavoidable, he knew.

That was the great thing
in his letters and poems,

and he knows from the beginning
up to the end.

The more spiritual you are,

the more politically
you must be again,

and he once put that... that
little sentence together:

"Only if you cry for the Jews,

you are permitted
to sing Gregorian chants."

- The Abwehr resistance group
had been moved from one prison

or concentration camp
to another since 1943.

Hans von Dohnanyi

was eventually executed
in Sachsenhausen.

On April 9, 1945,
one month before V-E Day,

Admiral Wilhelm Canaris,

Colonel Hans Oster,

and Dietrich Bonhoeffer

were hanged in Flossenbuerg
concentration camp.

"I am of the rock-firm
conviction, now as before,

"that we have acted rightly.

"I consider Hitler not only
as the archenemy of Germany

"but as the archenemy
of the world.

"Not one of us can complain
about his own death.

"Whoever entered our circle

"thereby put on
the Shirt of Nessus.

"The moral worth of a human
being begins only then,

"when he is ready to lay down
his own life

for his convictions."