“A man who can keep his childhood dreams in all their purity,
Preserving them in his naked and defenceless breast,
Who, despite the laughter of this world, dares to live as he had dreamed in his childhood,
Down to his last day: yes, that is a man, a man in all he is.”
This was a poem that came in a newspaper, the clipping of which was sent by Henning Von Tresckow to his wife Erika a few days before he sent her a disguised farewell letter.
Henning Von Tresckow was a Major General in the German military and one of the principal organizers of German resistance against Adolf Hitler. Tresckow was a veteran who had volunteered for the army at the age of sixteen and became the youngest lieutenant in the army in 1918. He served in the first world and was awarded the Iron Cross 1st class for exemplary courage and independent action against enemy forces.
Though a die hard patriot, he was appalled by the atrocities done under Hitler’s orders such as the mass shootings of Jewish women and children, the treatment of prisoners of war, the Commissar order, etc. After Tresckow witnessed the killing of captured soldiers in 1941, he decided that Hitler’s government had to be overthrown. He organized several failed attempts on Hitler’s life, the last and most famous being the July 20th, 1944 plot carried out by Clauss von Stauffenberg, whom he had recruited in 1942. Stauffenberg planted a bomb at a meeting attended by Hitler on July 20th, however due to some unexpected problems, Hitler survived the bomb blast even though his right arm was badly injured. The bomb killed four other men in the hut and would have succeeded in killing Hitler if the conference table leg hadn’t shielded him from the impact. If the assassination attempt and the following coup had succeeded, the war may have been over in 1944. The July 20th plot was depicted in the popular movie ‘Valkyrie’, although the character of Tresckow wasn’t given the deserved importance in the movie.
A few days before the assassination attempt, when asked by Stauffenberg why they should risk their lives so blatantly when the military situation suggested that the Allies would end the dictatorship soon enough, Tresckow replied
“The assassination has to take place, whatever the cost. Even if it doesn’t succeed, we have to try. Now it is no longer the object of the assassination that matters, but rather to show the whole world and history that the German resistance movement dared to gamble everything, even at the risk of its own life. All the rest, in the end, is merely secondary”.
In this, they succeeded. Even though the world will by and large remember Hitler whenever they talk about pre-WW II Germany, Tresckow and his men ensured that history records, at least in the footnotes that there were men in Germany who resisted Hitler and that they died for their principles.
On hearing about the failure of the attempt on Hitler’s life, Tresckow decided to commit suicide saying he wont let their enemies have the satisfaction of taking his life as well. However to protect his co-conspirators towards whom investigations may lead if he committed suicide, he carefully faked an enemy ambush giving attention to details such as the submachine gun he was holding and the grenade he pressed against his belly and resulted in his death. For a while. people believed he died in a lethal skirmish and his body was taken back to Germany and buried on his family estate with military honours. However a month later. investigations pointed at his involvement in the conspiracy and the SS came to dig up and dispose of his body. His wife was arrested and his children placed in foster homes, however she was later released and survived the war.
Henning von Tresckow’s parting words to his cousin and co-conspirator Fabian von Schlabrendorff were
"The whole world will vilify us now, but I am still totally convinced that we did the right thing. Hitler is the archenemy not only of Germany but of the world. When, in few hours' time, I go before God to account for what I have done and left undone, I know I will be able to justify what I did in the struggle against Hitler. God promised Abraham that He would not destroy Sodom if just ten righteous men could be found in the city, and so I hope that for our sake God will not destroy Germany. No one among us can complain about his death, for whoever joined our ranks put on the shirt of Nessus*. A man's moral worth is established only at the point where he is ready to give up his life in defence of his convictions."
* The shirt of Nessus was the poisoned shirt that killed Heracles in Greek mythology.
References:
Preserving them in his naked and defenceless breast,
Who, despite the laughter of this world, dares to live as he had dreamed in his childhood,
Down to his last day: yes, that is a man, a man in all he is.”
This was a poem that came in a newspaper, the clipping of which was sent by Henning Von Tresckow to his wife Erika a few days before he sent her a disguised farewell letter.
Henning Von Tresckow was a Major General in the German military and one of the principal organizers of German resistance against Adolf Hitler. Tresckow was a veteran who had volunteered for the army at the age of sixteen and became the youngest lieutenant in the army in 1918. He served in the first world and was awarded the Iron Cross 1st class for exemplary courage and independent action against enemy forces.
Though a die hard patriot, he was appalled by the atrocities done under Hitler’s orders such as the mass shootings of Jewish women and children, the treatment of prisoners of war, the Commissar order, etc. After Tresckow witnessed the killing of captured soldiers in 1941, he decided that Hitler’s government had to be overthrown. He organized several failed attempts on Hitler’s life, the last and most famous being the July 20th, 1944 plot carried out by Clauss von Stauffenberg, whom he had recruited in 1942. Stauffenberg planted a bomb at a meeting attended by Hitler on July 20th, however due to some unexpected problems, Hitler survived the bomb blast even though his right arm was badly injured. The bomb killed four other men in the hut and would have succeeded in killing Hitler if the conference table leg hadn’t shielded him from the impact. If the assassination attempt and the following coup had succeeded, the war may have been over in 1944. The July 20th plot was depicted in the popular movie ‘Valkyrie’, although the character of Tresckow wasn’t given the deserved importance in the movie.
A few days before the assassination attempt, when asked by Stauffenberg why they should risk their lives so blatantly when the military situation suggested that the Allies would end the dictatorship soon enough, Tresckow replied
“The assassination has to take place, whatever the cost. Even if it doesn’t succeed, we have to try. Now it is no longer the object of the assassination that matters, but rather to show the whole world and history that the German resistance movement dared to gamble everything, even at the risk of its own life. All the rest, in the end, is merely secondary”.
In this, they succeeded. Even though the world will by and large remember Hitler whenever they talk about pre-WW II Germany, Tresckow and his men ensured that history records, at least in the footnotes that there were men in Germany who resisted Hitler and that they died for their principles.
On hearing about the failure of the attempt on Hitler’s life, Tresckow decided to commit suicide saying he wont let their enemies have the satisfaction of taking his life as well. However to protect his co-conspirators towards whom investigations may lead if he committed suicide, he carefully faked an enemy ambush giving attention to details such as the submachine gun he was holding and the grenade he pressed against his belly and resulted in his death. For a while. people believed he died in a lethal skirmish and his body was taken back to Germany and buried on his family estate with military honours. However a month later. investigations pointed at his involvement in the conspiracy and the SS came to dig up and dispose of his body. His wife was arrested and his children placed in foster homes, however she was later released and survived the war.
Henning von Tresckow’s parting words to his cousin and co-conspirator Fabian von Schlabrendorff were
"The whole world will vilify us now, but I am still totally convinced that we did the right thing. Hitler is the archenemy not only of Germany but of the world. When, in few hours' time, I go before God to account for what I have done and left undone, I know I will be able to justify what I did in the struggle against Hitler. God promised Abraham that He would not destroy Sodom if just ten righteous men could be found in the city, and so I hope that for our sake God will not destroy Germany. No one among us can complain about his death, for whoever joined our ranks put on the shirt of Nessus*. A man's moral worth is established only at the point where he is ready to give up his life in defence of his convictions."
* The shirt of Nessus was the poisoned shirt that killed Heracles in Greek mythology.
References:
- Valkyrie: the Plot to Kill Hitler: by Philipp von Boeselager, a memoir by the last survivor of the conspiracy.
- http://www.gdw-berlin.de/bio/ausgabe_mit-e.php?id=13
- http://www.wikipedia.org/
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