The Woman from Hamburg Read Online Free PDF Page B

Stalingrad the three of them were rarely seen together, so this was an exceptional occasion.
    Axel von dem B. was splendidly equipped to act as model.
    He knew the Eastern front and he could provide Hitler with essential explanations. He had been decorated with orders and battle crosses. He was tall, handsome, and represented the Nordic type.
    Axel von dem B. told Fritz Schulenberg that he agreed.
    All the books on the anti-Hitler opposition in the Third Reich mention Axel von dem B.’s agreement. In 1943 “no other German officer, even in opposition circles, was in a position to raise his hand against the Führer.” Some men referred to the will of the nation, which continued to be enchanted with Hitler. Others spoke of their Christian principles. Still others, known at one time for theircourage, “were in no position to do something like this.” (They would not have been in a position, to use Richard von Weizsaecker’s words, to abandon the straight and narrow human path of Christian orthodoxy to seek a road cutting across the labyrinth.)
    After the war, Axel von dem B., a student of law at the University of Göttingen, lectured to his colleagues. The Nuremberg trial was in process and his colleagues did not believe what was written in the newspapers; they thought it was an error or propaganda. Axel von dem B. told them about Dubno.
    “And you saw this?”
    “I did.”
    “It was Germans who did that?”
    “Germans.”
    The lecture appeared in the university newspaper. It bore the title, “An Oath and Guilt.” Axel von dem B. explained why he decided to attempt the assassination. He spoke about the oath he had taken to his leaders. He said that this oath is an agreement between two free people in the presence of God, but it was permissible not to adhere to it if the leader himself breaks it. And the leaders of the Third Reich had profaned and betrayed the oath.
    Therefore, Axel von dem B. told Fritz Schulenberg that he agreed.
    Richard, as the regimental adjutant, made out a
Marschbefehl
for him, a pass to Berlin.
    (Fifty years later Richard von Weizsaecker said that Axel von dem B.’s decision was made for him, too. After the action at the airfield none of them, none of the German officers in the Dubno
shtetl
, could say that he DID NOT KNOW. They already knew. And they continued to pass on orders from their leaders to their subordinates. They participated in crimes themselves and drew their soldiers into crimes.
    Every day we asked ourselves anew what we should do with all this, Richard von Weizsaecker said fifty years later. Axel gave us the answer. It did not shock or surprise me. We were at the front and every day might be our last. And since that was the case, why shouldn’t we decide for ourselves which would be our last day? The death of Axel, should he kill the Führer of the Reich, would have been much more meaningful than a death on the Eastern front.)
    Therefore, Richard made out the pass and Axel von dem B. set off for Berlin.
    He met up with Stauffenberg.
    Claus Stauffenberg, wounded in Africa, had lost his right hand, and his left had only three fingers. His missing eye was covered with a black eye patch. He was decisive, by no means pathetic, and even-tempered.
    He asked Axel von dem B. why he wanted to kill Adolf Hitler.
    “Do you know what he is doing to the Jews?” Axel von dem B. answered with a question, and then corrected himself. “What WE are doing to the Jews?”
    Stauffenberg knew. He then asked if Axel von dem B., as a Protestant, had moral scruples. Catholics understand that it is permitted to kill a tyrant, but Luther wrote in one of his essays … Obviously, he had prepared theological arguments for Axel von dem B. and, perhaps, for himself.
    “Please think this over one more time,” he ended their conversation. “After dinner you will inform me of your decision.”
    After dinner Axel von dem B. informed Claus Stauffenberg that his decision was final. They turned to