Rex Bloomstein
Excerpts from “Traitors to Hitler”, his Film About the 20th July, 1944 Plot

Rex Bloomstein | Excerpts From “Traitors to Hitler,” a Film About the 20th July 1944 Plot | 07.19.22

Visuals displayed throughout the presentation.

• Good evening, everybody. And welcome to this lecture that I’m doing called “Traitors to Hitler, the German Resistance.” Along with the development of modernity and the growth of the modern state is the recognition that the flow of information is a major lever in the exercise of power and control. The use of propaganda is another side of this coin, especially when harnessed by a dictatorship, shaping and controlling all aspects of media, print, film, spectacle, as well as harnessing the technology of the time to present a vision of society designed to dominate the public discourse. Inevitably, this leads to freedom of expression being crushed. The Third Reich is a profound example of this. What is also crucial to the workings of such a dictatorship is how the rule of law itself is similarly harnessed in the interest of the state. Again, we see this played out in Hitler’s Germany, where, I quote, “The German judiciary played a crucial role in creating laws, decrees, judgments that betrayed fundamental principles of justice.” These well-educated professionals who crafted and enacted the new Nazi laws, who stood behind the storm troopers and the SS, who not only accepted the tacit brutality and mass murder of the Nazis, but actively supported it and encouraged the genocidal nature of the regime. This was judicial murder.

These thoughts about propaganda and the rule of law came to me whilst developing a project at the BBC in the late 1970s. A colleague alerted me to an intriguing feature documentary produced by a German film company and shown at the Berlin Film Festival. I acquired a copy of , “Secret State Trial,” which had three main elements, appropriate history of the Second World War, the story of the German resistance to Hitler, and by far the most compelling, in fact, remarkable, was actual footage with synchronous sound of the trials of the men behind the conspiracy to overthrow the Fuhrer on the 20th of July, 1944, the famous July plot. I’d never seen anything like it. I learned from the German film company there were hours of footage that hadn’t been used. I went to Berlin, saw it, and obtained the rights to make a different version for the BBC. What was so interesting to me was the detail that emerged from this unused material. I felt it gave greater insight into the conspirators, the workings of the plot, and an extraordinary example of the perversion of justice in the interest of the state. I decided to mainly use this footage to tell the story of this attempted coup d'etat, adding only my own commentary and some extra filming to give visual context to the story. So on this very day, 78 years ago, this tragic scenario played out. This is how I began my version for the BBC.

[Clip plays]

• [Narrator] Operations Room, Hitler’s headquarters, following the attempt on the Fuhrer’s life. Conjecture runs high as to whether, in fact, he did escape at the time or succumbed later to his injuries. These are the German newsreel pictures put out to dispel rumour in the Reich. Rumour which, if anything, has grown over the weeks of his continued silence. According to Goebbels, everyone at the conference, with the exception of General Korten and the Fuhrer was blown out of the windows by the bomb. A black cloaked Hitler stands on the platform to welcome the deflated Duce. From beneath concealing folds, he extends left hand in greeting. Marvellous how he got away with such minor injury when shot. Graziani, Mussolini’s sidekick, also joins in the chorus of heils. “A mighty providence saved our leader,” says Goebbels. And loyal Nazis shriek, “Heil.” Even so, their lord and master looked aged and weighed down. Propaganda minister Dr. Goebbels does some overtime thinking to appear convincing in his pronouncements on this tour of intrigue where Prussian generals plot against the man they once put into power. Make no mistake, there are plenty of those goosestepping professional killers in Germany yet. Whether they hold allegiance to Hitler or the Prussian generals makes no odds. The German is always a German, a seeker after world domination.

• [Narrator] Wolfsschanze, the Wolf’s Lair, Hitler’s former headquarters in East Prussia, now preserved in Poland. It was here 35 years ago, on the 20th of July, 1944, the attempt by Claus von Stauffenberg took place to put an end to the Nazi tyranny. If Stauffenberg’s bomb had achieved its aim, who knows how many lives might have been saved, how much destruction might have been avoided. But in its crude way, the propaganda of that time reflected a truth, the failure of the German resistance to convince the allies there were other Germans besides Nazis. These were men on whom the regime was to wreak its terrible revenge, men who had become traitors to Hitler.

[Clip ends] - There had already been a number of attempts on Hitler’s life. And fearing further plots, Joseph Goebbels, the Reich propaganda minister, ordered the actual trials of the plotters to be filmed and usuals made to show the public and armed forces as a warning of what would happen to any other potential conspirators should any further insurrections be planned. Thousands have been arrested and interrogated to be brought before what was known as the Special People’s Court to dispense its brand of so-called justice on behalf of the Nazi dictatorship. Thank you, Lauren.

[Clip plays] - [Narrator] The president of the People’s Court is the infamous Roland Freisler. Hitler said that the traitors should not be allowed to make long speeches, that “Freisler, our Vyshinsky, would see to that.” Vyshinsky was Stalin’s notorious prosecutor in the Russian treason trials in the 1930s. Hitler added that these traitors should suffer death by slow hanging within two hours of the sentence being passed.

[Clip ends] - So here we have a full-blown Nazi show trial whose primary purpose was to publicly destroy the opposition and to use the power of film to that end. But it appears that these devastating scenes, with Roland Freisler acting as the vengeful puppet pastor, were bitterly resented by those members of the German armed forces made to see it. And in the end, footage of the trials were withdrawn. Nevertheless, thousands of German lawyers had pledged their loyalty to Hitler, Freisler foremost amongst them. It was said that the dagger of the assassin was concealed beneath the robe of the jurist. Who then was the man presiding over this example of Nazi justice and doing Hitler’s bidding? Who was Roland Freisler? Lauren.

[Clip plays]

• [Narrator] What better man to avenge this attempt on the life of the Fuhrer than the cruel, cynical and eloquent Roland Freisler. Thwarted in his ambition to become minister of justice, from 1937 to 1944, he sentenced over 5,000 people to death as the red-robed president of the People’s Court. He subordinated all human feeling to the dogma of national socialism and vehemently followed the line that individuals must not only be punished for treasonable acts, but also for seditious thoughts. He became known as the Robespierre of the Nazi revolution. This trial is a complete mockery of justice. Freisler is flanked on his right by General Reinecke, representing the army, who is reported throughout the whole trial to have said nothing, and on his left by his equally silent partner, counsellor Lenley, symbolically representing the people. There are lawyers for the defence who do not defend but vie with each other to present their client’s guilt and complicity. There are stenographers, journalists, and representing the Reich, state prosecutor Lenz. The audience consists of handpicked Nazis and representatives of the SS. The trials were filmed in synchronous sound.

These two sound mics are evidence of the source of the original 35 millimetre soundtrack. In a macabre sense, Freisler is communicating directly with Adolf Hitler. He knew the Fuhrer would be judging his performance on film. It is said Freisler gave hand signals when the camera should begin. There were two main camera positions. One is concealed behind a flap in the swastika. The other camera position is behind a door in the back of the hall. A third camera can be seen here on the right of the picture. The point of the trials was not to establish guilt. Most had pleaded guilty. Freisler’s task was to ridicule, humiliate and destroy the conspirators psychologically. They were to be stripped of honourable intentions in order to satisfy Hitler’s sadistic vindictiveness. Nearly all the conspirators had been manacled, deprived of sleep and tortured to reveal the extent of the plot. All the excerpts we shall see have been selected and edited by Dr. Goebbels’ propaganda ministry. We shall not see any film of socialists or labour leaders who participated in the conspiracy for Dr. Goebbels was determined to make it appear that only a small clique of traitors were involved. But despite the editing, which is designed to present the conspirators as contemptible objects, we shall see evidence of dignity and courage.

[Clip ends]

• Sometimes when you make a film, things happen that shake, alter your thinking about it, and it happened to me on this film. You may have noticed the trial was held in a great hall with large windows, busts of Hitler, pillars and walls adorned with Nazi regalia. I’d assume this was the Special People’s Court, but whilst viewing these hours of material in Berlin, I noticed that the original editing notes described the footage of the trials as being shot in the Berlin Supreme Court, not the People’s Court. What then was the Berlin Supreme Court? Where was it? Did it by any chance exist? Now, Berlin in 1979 was still divided into the British, American, Russian and French sectors. I was advised to ring the Americans and got through to an officer known as the historian. We spoke. I told him about the project. He listened, then said, “Meet me tomorrow at the allied control building. You can’t miss it. It’s in the centre of Berlin. Don’t say who you are and what you want to do. Just follow me.” We met the following day, entered the building, went past the French, the English, the Russians. It was a bit like a scene from “The Third Man.” And halted by a huge staircase.

Our historian put his fingers to his mouth. We climbed the stairs. He unlocked the doors, and there it was. It was the very same room I’d been looking at for weeks. The Nazi flags, busts of Hitler had gone, but there were the great windows, the marble columns. And when we checked, the holes in the doors where the cameras were positioned. The same room where Roland Freisler condemned so many of the conspirators to death. With the help of the historian, we came back that night, cleared the piles of dust from the floor, and the following day, filmed this room, unused since the end of the war. This building is now, I’m told, the ministry of justice. He was Count Claus von Stauffenberg, an army officer who had lost his left eye, his right hand and two fingers on his left hand, was the central figure in the plot whose name dominates the trials. From the beginning of September ‘43 until the 20th of July, 1944, Stauffenberg was the driving force behind the conspiracy.

His resolve, organisational abilities and radical approach put an end to inactivity caused by doubts and long discussions. Stauffenberg was aware that under German law he was committing high treason. He’s quoted as saying, “It was the right under natural law to defend millions of people’s lives from the criminal aggressions of Hitler.” According to the plan, after Hitler, Goring and Heinrich Himmler were assassinated, the resistance would take control of the German army and seize key government buildings, telephone and signal centres, radio stations. Stauffenberg was to become secretary of state for war in a post-coup government. In June 1944, Stauffenberg was promoted to colonel and appointed to chief of staff to the home army commander general. This gave him direct access to Hitler’s briefing sessions at the Wolf’s Lair in East Prussia. In the end, he was the only one who could carry out the assassination. Thank you, Lauren.

[Clip plays]

• [Narrator] In this remarkable photograph taken on the 15th of July, 1944, the main characters of this story are seen together for the first and last time. Count von Stauffenberg, the assassin, and the Fuhrer of Germany, Adolf Hitler. They’re outside the briefing hut in the Wolf’s Lair where the explosion was to take place five days later. It is probable that on the 11th of July and on this day, the 15th, Stauffenberg had the bomb with him in his briefcase but could not find the opportunity and pretext to fuse it. What of his nerves? His state of mind? The colossal task that he faced? Having left his bomb in the briefing hut in the Wolf’s Lair and witnessed the explosion from a distance, Stauffenberg was convinced of the death of the tyrant. He drove along this road to the airport to fly to Berlin, unaware that the Fuhrer’s life had been saved from the full force of the explosion by the massive oak legs of the map table. While Stauffenberg was flying back, a message from the Wolf’s Lair was sent to the conspirators in Berlin saying, “Something fearful has happened. The Fuhrer is alive.”

By the evening with countermeasures complete and the army headquarters surrounded, the coup d'etat had collapsed completely, and so went with it the hopes of Stauffenberg and his fellow conspirators. His aide, Werner von Haeften, his deputy, Mertz von Quirnheim, General Olbricht, and the man who might have become Germany’s head of state, General Ludwig Beck. Their final, tragic end is described by a fellow conspirator and eyewitness, Colonel-General Haeften. “Now humiliated by being stripped of his uniform and dressed in an old cardigan.” All four were shot here on this spot. Stauffenberg assumed responsibility for everything, and before he was shot, shouted, “Long live holy Germany.”

[Clip ends]

• Von Stauffenberg has become the symbol of the plot. The conspiracy to remove Hitler had been going on even before the war amongst elements and groups, including the general staff. One of the most significant figures to emerge, who was designated to become commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht in a post-Nazi regime had the plot succeeded, was no less than a field marshal, Erwin von Witzleben. He’s the senior figure in the plot who was to attract the greatest contempt from Freisler. There’s no doubt that Hitler himself would have particularly watched this sequence. Thank you, Lauren.

[Clip plays]

• [Narrator] In this news reel, Hitler is presenting a field marshal’s baton to a traitor, Field Marshall Erwin von Witzleben. Two years before in 1938, Witzleben had been ready to lead an assault on the Reich Chancellery in order to arrest the Fuhrer. But the opposition of the generals had been paralysed by Neville Chamberlain and the Munich Agreement. Witzleben had been retired in 1942, but he had remained an active conspirator. If the coup had succeeded, he would have become chief of the armed services. Now Freisler is ready to humiliate Witzleben, the highest ranking officer on trial. His teeth and braces have been removed. He has to hold his trousers up with his hands. He has been interrogated ceaselessly and brutally by the Gestapo since his arrest. It is certain that he expected to be shot like a soldier and not hanged by thin cord from a butcher’s hook. What Field Marshall Erwin von Witzleben means is that he would’ve preferred to put Hitler on trial for war crimes to avoid the Fuhrer becoming a martyr.

[Clip ends]

• Let me quote this, “The German opposition and resistance movements consisted of disparate political and ideological strands which represented different classes of German society and were seldom able to work together. The army was the only real organisation with a capacity to overthrow the government and from within it, a few officers came to present the most serious threat posed to the Nazi regime.” The foreign office and the Abwehr, military intelligence, also provided vital support to the conspiracy. But many of those in the military who ultimately chose to overthrow Adolf Hitler had initially supported the regime if not all of its methods. Hitler’s 1938 purge of the military was accompanied by increased militancy in the nazification of Germany, a sharp intensification of the persecution of Jews, homosexuals and trade union leaders, and an aggressive foreign policy bringing Germany to the brink of war.

It was at this time that the German resistance emerged. I must stress that the plotters were from different social and political circles, representing often conflicting interests and ideas. Many of them, including Stauffenberg, were anti-Nazi conservatives who believed that Hitler’s foreign policy goal of making Germany into Europe’s number one power was the correct one, but was doing it in such a reckless, adventurous way. They believed only Germany’s traditional elites who were committed to conservative values could ensure the rule of law to create a truly just society. These are not democrats. The man you are about to see represented such conservative nationalism and on several occasions had travelled to Britain, the US and other countries to persuade officials there was a German opposition to prevent a war. Thank you, Lauren.

[Clip plays]

• [Narrator] Adam von Trott zu Solz, counsellor in the foreign office, Rhodes scholar, and the most brilliant representative of the younger generation of conspirators.

• [Narrator] Unlike the generals, he and his supporters, a group of idealists known as the Kreisau Circle, did not shirk the central dilemma. Adam Von Trott knew that with Hitler hurtling Germany to catastrophe, there was no alternative but assassination.

[Clip ends]

• Adam von Trott was hanged within a few days. Friends had warned him not to return to Germany, but his conviction that he had to do something to stop the madness of Hitler and his henchman led him to return. It seems that von Trott believed that both capitalist democracy and communism were flawed systems that dehumanise society, and Germany should follow neither. Despite his reputation as someone drawn to Western values based on his education at Oxford and having Anglo-American friends, Trott was in fact deeply hostile towards the American pioneer ideal, believing that such individualism promoted selfishness, greed, and amorality. What also became clear in viewing the material was the importance of what was known as the oath of allegiance. Thank you, Lauren.

[Clip plays]

• [Narrator] Always fearful of conspiracy within the army, Hitler in 1934 had forced all officers and men to swear a personal oath of allegiance to him. This oath of loyalty provided Freisler with a powerful weapon to be used against even minor figures in the conspiracy.

• Lieutenant colonel (indistinct).

• Here is a further and devastating response by the foreign office official, Hans von Haeften, who delivers perhaps the clearest statement of another ideal of loyalty and his view of how history would judge the Fuhrer. Lauren.

[Clip plays]

• [Narrator] Hans von Haeften, the brother of von Stauffenberg’s aide, shows that loyalty is a two-edged sword and in the process, with astonishing courage, clearly signs his own death warrant. [Clip ends]
• Most of the army conspirators were religious men. Indeed, almost all Germans were Christian, either Roman Catholic or Protestant at the time. The German Evangelical Church was the largest of the Protestant churches and itself became bitterly divided once the Nazis gained power. There were these Protestants, who identified themselves as Deutsche Christian or German Christians, who embraced aspects of Nazi ideology with its nationalism and fanatical racism and who wanted to build a National Reich church, a nazified version of Christianity. There were other Protestants profoundly opposed to these views and instead created the Confessing Church, declaring an allegiance to God and scripture not the Fuhrer. Both the Confessing Church and the German Christians remained under the umbrella of the German Evangelical Church in the struggle for control. There were also individual Catholics and Protestants, who spoke out on behalf of Jews and smaller groups within both churches who became involved in rescue and resistance activities.

The most famous members of the Confessing Church included the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who would be executed for his role in the conspiracy, and Pastor Martin Niemoller, who would spend seven years in concentration camps for criticising Hitler. Catholic and Protestant leaders were not publicly opposed to the Nazi regime on the issues of antisemitism and state-sanctioned violence against the Jews. After 1945, the silence of the church leadership, including that of Pius XII, and the widespread complicity of ordinary Christians, compelled leaders of both churches to address issues of guilt and complicity during the Holocaust, a process that continues internationally to this day. Here, then, the final sequences of our film and its theme is a religious one played out in front of Goebbels’ cameras. It was, again, footage that had not been used. He shall watch Freisler sense blood like the predator he was. When the question is asked, “How does one act in the face of tyranny, What is God’s will when your life is at stake?” This is how I introduced it. Thank you, Lauren.

[Clip plays] - [Narrator] There is no film of the most famous of the many priests who appeared before Freisler, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Hitler often referred to those of the black cloth who incite people from their confessionals as amongst the most dangerous of his enemies. There is one priest on film before the People’s Court in the most complete sequence, and perhaps the most painful, for it is a portrayal. Major von Leonrod had, during interrogation and perhaps under torture, implicated his priest, the army chaplain, Hermann Wehrle. Leonrod had followed the priest’s advice that one’s final duty is not to man but to God.

[Clip ends]

• We must remember at this stage that Hermann Wehrle, the priest, had been called only as a witness to testify on the question that Leonrod put to him on the ethics of killing a tyrant, tyrannicide. Perhaps von Leonrod’s betrayal is only comprehensible in terms of the torture he undoubtedly suffered before his appearance in court.

• Nevertheless, he did not escape. He was hanged on the same day as he was sentenced. Freisler is a predator in search of a victim. With von Leonrod already dead. Herman Wehlre, the priest, is no longer a witness but a defendant on trial for his life.

• Well. Do carry on, please carry on.

[Clip plays]

• [Narrator] Despite hesitancy, mismanagement, and desperate bad luck, the plot nearly succeeded. If it had done, the course of history would undoubtedly have changed. For in the nine months following July the 20th, 1944, there was more destruction and carnage than in all the preceding years of the war. These opponents of Hitler’s regime were taken to this infamous place of execution, Plotzensee, to be beheaded or hanged from butcher’s hooks. One of the conspirators wrote in a letter smuggled to his wife shortly before his execution, “I hope my death will be accepted as an atonement for all my sins. By this sacrifice, our times distance from God may be shortened by some small measure. We want to kindle the torch of life. A sea of flames surrounds us.”

[Clip ends]

• Well, what then is the final verdict of history on the German resistance? Its controversies will go on. It’s perhaps summed up in a few words, too little, too late. Thanks for watching and happy to answer any questions if there are any.

Q&A and Comments

• [Lauren] We do. We have a couple of questions.

Q: The first is, where can we watch the entire film, “Traitors to Hitler?” A: You can’t, unfortunately. It’s owned by the BBC, and it’s not been made available like so many documentaries, hundreds, thousands of programmes. You know, that process will continue, I hope. So it’s not available. What you’ve seen tonight hasn’t been seen since I made it, and it was broadcast in 1979. You can get some of the material, I think, from the Imperial War Museum in London, and probably ways that one can acquire the material. But it isn’t available as a film. Thank you for asking.

Q: [Lauren] And our other question is how was Hitler saved in the bombing? A: By the massive leg of this map table where Stauffenberg planted the bomb. It’s terribly unfortunate. By God, what lives it might have saved, as I say in the film. And it literally was this accident. Providence, as he always ascribed to, prevented that bomb to really kill him and the rest of them there. It did kill several people. But, of course, the damage which you saw perhaps if you remember you saw at the beginning of the film. And that was it, an accident.

Q: [Lauren] Thank you. And a lot of people are asking what happened to Freisler, the Nazi prosecutor. What happened to him after the war? A: Well, amazingly, I mean, Freisler, if he had survived the war, which he didn’t, would’ve literally been torn from limb to limb by those people out to get him. But it seems he was killed, believe it or not, in an air raid which destroyed the original People’s Court where he was presiding. So he escaped justice and was killed by an allied bomb. I suppose there’s some justice in that. But I must say I’d never seen a portrait of such a diabolical man who, as I was talking about at the beginning, was, you know, professional lawyer, the ethics, the rules, you know, justice itself was so perverted. And Freisler exemplifies that extraordinarily. I suppose in dictatorships and regimes all over the world, there’ll be those people who have practised law, who will suborn their ethics in carrying out the rules of a ruling class, either through fear or through acceptance. And I think it makes you question, doesn’t it, that those you somehow point to is, you know, the very advocates of justice, they themselves can be perverted by what is happening. So none of us are free of that possibility. So Freisler, an allied bomb.

• [Lauren] Thank you. Someone’s asking,

Q: “Were the families of these traitors spared retribution?” A: That’s a very interesting question. I do know the daughter, personally, of one of the conspirators who wasn’t filmed and a number of the families, including Stauffenberg’s, survived, either through luck at the end, or they were spirited away or they hid. But many of the relatives did survive and they talked in other documentaries and films. But that was one of the few good things about it. So yes, they did survive, no problem.

• [Lauren] Thank you. Someone’s asking,

Q: “How do you think history has viewed this conspiracy plot?” A: Well, isn’t that interesting? Too little, too late was often the verdict I heard. Many complex reasons. I think it was a tragic example of their involvement with the regime, their reluctance, the problems and complexities of persuading intelligence services and the foreign offices, the foreign office here in the UK and America, that there was a genuine resistance and that they could take over if given help and so on. But they weren’t taken seriously enough. They weren’t considered a viable alternative. They just didn’t think. They didn’t convince, you see, enough people that they could do this and carry this through. And of course their luck played its terrible role. So, I mean, it’s a complex history. There are, you know, many books on it worth reading, worth thinking about. It raises so many issues that I think are interesting. Final verdicts of history will always be, I suppose, discussed. But a sort of tragic betrayal of those often good men. And I think their courage does come over, and I admired that when I was looking at all the material. But what, in the end, did they achieve and what could they have achieved? It leaves you with these, you know, very compelling thoughts about what might have happened.

• [Lauren] Thank you. And we’ll just take a couple more.

Q: Some people are asking, was Rommel in on the plot? And if so, what happened to him? A: Yes, Rommel was, I think. He certainly was aware of the plot. Rommel was, I think, given a ultimatum and in the end took poison. I don’t know how significant a figure Rommel was, but he’s, you know, so famous, of course. And I think if the plotters succeeded, Rommel would’ve played probably a significant role. But it wasn’t to be. And, you know, he was, in the end, given alternative. I think poison or being taken in front of the People’s Court. He knew what the end would be and chose poison.

• [Lauren] Thank you.

Q: And last question, is there footage of von Stauffenberg’s trial? A: Stauffenberg wasn’t on trial. As the conspiracy, as the day of the conspiracy, as the bomb failed to kill Hitler, as the whole thing collapses, there was the scene one of the excerpts I showed where Stauffenberg is cornered with several other of the leading conspirators and shot. So there was never a trial. They killed him, literally, on the day, on the 20th of July. It’s in a place in the headquarters there called Bendlerstrasse. And there, you know, every year on this day, I think there are commemorations in Germany. And there’s a plaque where I filmed where he was shot. So Stauffenberg never made it. But a most remarkable man. Of that, there’s no doubt.

• [Lauren] Thank you, and we have one last question.

Q: What did Freisler want to get from Hitler from all of this? A: An interesting question, recognition. I mean, his adoration of Hitler is there. His ambition is. I mean, he is the devil incarnate. He’s there as Hitler’s vengeance in a robe in a courtroom. So he is the arch National Socialist. The law, to him, is totally perverted and made to serve the interests of the state. So it just shows you, doesn’t it, how vulnerable even state institutions, you know, and the law itself, which is so vital to the running of a decent society. It just shows you that Freisler became its extraordinary angel of death. What happened to his ethics? What happened to his jurisprudence? What happened to him as a lawyer? And there he was, acting out Hitler’s vengeance. Thanks for the question.

• [Lauren] Thank you so much and thank you for your time, and we will see you and everyone else shortly. Thank you.

• Thank you all for watching.