Retribution against Germans after the war,graphic,not for everone

[stona]

It can be fun working abroad.

I know I do it all the time

Incidentally whilst it is true that a significant percentage of the German electorate (which didn't include children) voted for the NSDAP it would be wrong to think that it gained power in a normal way. It was a revolution and in 1933/34 alone nearly 200,000 opponents of the regime found themselves in one of the many concentration camps. This was under the guise of so called 'protective custody' and many were released after a short period and a good beating by the SA (the SS gained control of the camps later, but that's another story). Not all though, and some of this initial intake would go on to die in the camps when they became much more lethal, a few years later.

Cheers

Steve

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I know I do it all the time

Incidentally whilst it is true that a significant percentage of the German electorate (which didn't include children) voted for the NSDAP it would be wrong to think that it gained power in a normal way. It was a revolution and in 1933/34 alone nearly 200,000 opponents of the regime found themselves in one of the many concentration camps. This was under the guise of so called 'protective custody' and many were released after a short period and a good beating by the SA (the SS gained control of the camps later, but that's another story). Not all though, and some of this initial intake would go on to die in the camps when they became much more lethal, a few years later.

Cheers

Steve

The thing though is that not a single person here is saying that Germany was not responsible for the horrors of WW2, or the death, pain and suffering that was inflicted on millions of people world wide including the German people themselves. There is a difference however with national blame and personal blame. Which I why I have a problem with the ignorance of saying that ALL were to blame and there was no innocence. I will never stand down on this belief. I don't give two shits if it ruined an "internet friendship".

It is also real easy for someone sitting behind their computer 70+ year later to hold a moral high ground and say that they would have prevented it from happening.

 

[parsifal]

Wow...

So lets get this straight then. The 3 year old twin kids of a drunk driver who killed someone are guilty because of association as well. But it is only a "diminished responsibility".

That is your logic...

No, they are not. You cannot apply the tests applicable to the war crimes tribunals to a civil matter. And in a civil matter, it depends entirely on the wording of that nations criminal code. in my country there would be no case for those children to answer. For other countries thats a matter for those countries. in 1945, in Germany, many of the crimes under the international code were not crimes under the National German code. That issue alone had to be dealt with before any german national guilty or suspected of a crime could be brought to justice. .

Its not my logic. It is the logic that underpins the Nuremberg trials. The alternatives were either shoot or imprison an arbitrary number of germans as Stalin wanted, and enslavement of the remainder, something the Soviets did in their zone anyway....or let everyone go free without trial.

Getting war criminals to trial, with a degree of fairness in that system required tricky legal footwork. Basically an entirely new code needed to be adopted and agreed upon by the victorious allies, all of whom had vastly different legal systems and perogatives. This was the only way to bring the perpetrators to international justice, sidestepping the argument of superior orders and the internal german legal code applicable at the time.

There is nothing hard about this if you think about it. There is no comparison to what you are trying to accuse me of, and what im actually saying. I dont think there is anything more i can do to help you understand how the justice system was made to be served in 1945. I get the feeling you dont want to know either. I believe you think it all so unfair, so, Im open to any suggestion you believe might work better given the legal complexities facing the allies in 1945. Id be interested to hear how you would have made it work.

As ive stated just about every time youve commented on this, war guilt was established by nationality, on the basis of what that nation did. By its own written confession, Germany admitted war guilt, and even though that confession was extracted under the highest duress, I think Im on safe ground to say it was a fair confession in what it established. That doesnt mean all the nationals of germany are necessarily guilty of anything else, just that they are a national of a nation that itself was guilty of waging an aggressive war.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

No, they are not. You cannot apply the tests applicable to the war crimes tribunals to a civil matter. And in a civil matter, it depends entirely on the wording of that nations criminal code. in my country there would be no case for those children to answer. For other countries thats a matter for those countries. in 1945, in Germany, many of the crimes under the international code were not crimes under the National German code. That issue alone had to be dealt with before any german national guilty or suspected of a crime could be brought to justice. .

Its not my logic. It is the logic that underpins the Nuremberg trials. The alternatives were either shoot or imprison an arbitrary number of germans as Stalin wanted, and enslavement of the remainder, something the Soviets did in their zone anyway....or let everyone go free without trial.

Getting war criminals to trial, with a degree of fairness in that system required tricky legal footwork. Basically an entirely new code needed to be adopted and agreed upon by the victorious allies, all of whom had vastly different legal systems and perogatives. This was the only way to bring the perpetrators to international justice, sidestepping the argument of superior orders and the internal german legal code applicable at the time.

There is nothing hard about this if you think about it. There is no comparison to what you are trying to accuse me of, and what im actually saying. I dont think there is anything more i can do to help you understand how the justice system was made to be served in 1945. I get the feeling you dont want to know either. I believe you think it all so unfair, so, Im open to any suggestion you believe might work better given the legal complexities facing the allies in 1945. Id be interested to hear how you would have made it work.

As ive stated just about every time youve commented on this, war guilt was established by nationality, on the basis of what that nation did. By its own written confession, Germany admitted war guilt, and even though that confession was extracted under the highest duress, I think Im on safe ground to say it was a fair confession in what it established. That doesnt mean all the nationals of germany are necessarily guilty of anything else, just that they are a national of a nation that itself was guilty of waging an aggressive war.

You still have not explained how any of that makes a child guilty, or how it is justified what happened to them.

Don't bother and answer though. I won't be reading.

Over and out...

 

[pbehn]

I find the concept of a nation being guilty of war crimes about as sensible as Detroit being found guilty of rioting. If the invasion of Iraq is declared a war crime, Britain could be found guilty, despite 2 million protesting against it and almost nobody supporting it.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I find the concept of a nation being guilty of war crimes about as sensible as Detroit being found guilty of rioting. If the invasion of Iraq is declared a war crime, Britain could be found guilty, despite 2 million protesting against it and almost nobody supporting it.

Careful though, you might be called out as bad as a holocaust denier...

I agree to an extent that you can not blame a whole population simply because there are innocence regardless of what a piece of paper in a post war trial says. Having said that though, the German govt represented the German people and in those regards the national was guilty.

 

[pbehn]

Careful though, you might be called out as bad as a holocaust denier...

I agree to an extent that you can not blame a whole population simply because there are innocence regardless of what a piece of paper in a post war trial says. Having said that though, the German govt represented the German people and in those regards the national was guilty.

Churchill had more reason than most to whip up hate, from what I remember he was very careful to make it clear that The UK and commonwealth were at war to get rid of Hitler and his Nazi regime which was in government.

 

[parsifal]

What ive tried to clarify is the process that needed to be devised in order to bring a degree of justice to the crimes committed by some Germans during the war. It is not a process of trying to state little children or old women are guilty of anything, other than being german, and the nation of germany was held responsible for the war in the first place. Im glad no-one is arguing that point, but it is necessary to get to that point for anythng else to have been possible. Its one thing to get to that point, and then another to get to some point of getting some justice as well. It wasnt easy to set up the the conditions that could get even a nuremberg style result. The alternatives were either to kill an arbitrary number of Germans and enslave the rest, or, let em all go. Collective war guilt was an absolute necessity to get anything moving at all, and if nothing was done, Stalin was waiting in the wings with his solution.

There are no Romans, or rats, or irishmen involved in this line of thinking. There were, however massive legal obstacles to be overcome, if the firing squads for a ton of germans was to be avoided.

If Ive got any sense, Im not going to waste any more time on this. I am not saying every German was a war criminal. I am not saying a little child is guilty of anything as an individual. I am saying that the nation of Germany was guilty of waging aggressive war, and a nation in part consists of its entire population. By saying the nation of Germany was responsible, however distasteful you lot find this, you have to say every man woman and child in Germany at that time was guilty of waging an aggresive war (that is not, I repeat, not, a accusation of individual culpability, but it is, or should be, an agreed basic fact that Germany was held collectively responsible at the end of the war, and that, unfotunately means everyone carries a modicum of guilt if they were borne before 1945. by going through a distasteful excercise like that, Jackson was able to actually save thousands of innocent Germsans from the firing squads). If this collective culpability process was not followed, you have to understand that a viable legal process would have to be abandoned and let loose stalin and his ideas. Once that was established, other things could follow, leading to the indictments you guys say you are happy to occur. Without that admission (of collective guilt), the only real alternative was stallins firing squad, or let them all go.

Not a single person born after 1945 was guilty of anything. and not a single person not found guilty under the indictments should be persecuted because of that legal positioning. none of that is the fault of the Nuremberg principles. The prejudices you talk about are the product of our own personal failings

nuremberg had weaknesses, big ones. none of you have bothered to even consider them. But nuremberg was a far better option than anything else possible at the time

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Churchill had more reason than most to whip up hate, from what I remember he was very careful to make it clear that The UK and commonwealth were at war to get rid of Hitler and his Nazi regime which was in government.

He certainly was the right man for the right time. Historically one of the greatest men of all time.

Hopefully we as a human race will never have to see these kind of horrors again. No one regardless of nationality deserved what was brought up them.

 

[stona]

I'll just say that the trials for war crimes were arranged and carried out by the victors. It was the victors who decided what did and didn't constitute a war crime. There is a reason why no indictment of any defendant at Nuremberg made any mention of bombing for example. There was nothing like a supposedly impartial body as exists today. Had the Germans prevailed who knows who might have ended up in front of a panel of judges selected by the Nazi regime, rather than those of The US, UK, France and the USSR.

The atrocities committed by Soviet forces as the invaded they Reich were war crimes by any definition. Nobody got tried for them because the Soviet Union was on the winning side. The idea that somehow the Germans brought this on themselves or were somehow deserving of such retribution is, frankly, revolting.

Cheers

Steve

 

[parsifal]

You still have not explained how any of that makes a child guilty, or how it is justified what happened to them.

Don't bother and answer though. I won't be reading.

Over and out..

.

This is not for Adler, it is for the thread.

I have actually explained this several times now.

Because the child is part of the nation, and the nation was found to carry collective war guilt (Im abbreviating the terminology here), the child borne prior to 1945 has the unenvious burden of being assigned collective war guilt like every other person in Germany at that time. I wish ther could be another way of getting to where things had to be. However, on the basis of massively diminished responsibility, and the fact that they personally did nothing wrong, as was the case for many Germans, they are not guilty of anything personally. Ive said repeatedly as well, but unfortunately thats not getting through either....

Collective war guilt was part of the process in achieving some level of justice. Assigning war guilt to the entire nation of germany was appropriate, and in itself some form of appropriate punishment (albeit warped and largely unfair). we would not be here squabbling about it now if it still didnt have some fangs left in it.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I'll just say that the trials for war crimes were arranged and carried out by the victors. It was the victors who decided what did and didn't constitute a war crime. There is a reason why no indictment of any defendant at Nuremberg made any mention of bombing for example. There was nothing like a supposedly impartial body as exists today. Had the Germans prevailed who knows who might have ended up in front of a panel of judges selected by the Nazi regime, rather than those of The US, UK, France and the USSR.
Cheers
Steve

There is no argument that the Nurnberg Trials was the right thing to do. I think everything from the Nurnberg Trials to the Marshal Plan was the correct way to rebuild a nation, re-introduce its population back to the international community and ensure a lasting peace. It also brought some of the people responsible to justice. All of that however had nothing do with whether retributions on innocent people was okay and justified simply because their govt. that brought it upon them was guilty of the crimes and war itself.

 

[pbehn]

It was political expediency, a certain number had to be executed to satisfy public outrage, sufficient put on trial to remove the most senior nazis left to allow Germany to rebuild, of course if the nazis were valuable and could build a rocket for example they stopped being so evil. Just being a nazi was not sufficient, even if the nazis as a group were collectively and in most cases individually guilty, they couldn't all be found guilty and executed as it would need a system like they had just uncovered.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

It was political expediency, a certain number had to be executed to satisfy public outrage, sufficient put on trial to remove the most senior nazis left to allow Germany to rebuild, of course if the nazis were valuable and could build a rocket for example they stopped being so evil. Just being a nazi was not sufficient, even if the nazis as a group were collectively and in most cases individually guilty, they couldn't all be found guilty and executed as it would need a system like they had just uncovered.

There is some truth to that.

 

[parsifal]

I'll just say that the trials for war crimes were arranged and carried out by the victors. It was the victors who decided what did and didn't constitute a war crime. There is a reason why no indictment of any defendant at Nuremberg made any mention of bombing for example. There was nothing like a supposedly impartial body as exists today. Had the Germans prevailed who knows who might have ended up in front of a panel of judges selected by the Nazi regime, rather than those of The US, UK, France and the USSR.
Cheers
Steve

At last someone with a meaningful critique of the Nuremberg process.

Nuremberg was a whole bunch of compromises and imperfections. It was far from perfect, but it was better than any of the realistic alternatives.

Critics of the Nuremberg trials argue that the charges against the defendants were only defined as "crimes" after they were committed and that therefore the trial was invalid as a form of "victors' justice". The alleged double standards associated with putative victor's justice are also evident from the indictment of German defendants for conspiracy to commit aggression against Poland in 1939, while no one from the Soviet Union was charged for being part of the same conspiracy. As Biddiss observed at the time, "the Nuremberg Trial continues to haunt us. ... It is a question also of the weaknesses and strengths of the proceedings themselves.

Jackson, the principle US attorney responsible for the courts architecture and guiding principles stated in a letter to Truman discussing the weaknesses of the trial, in October 1945 stated that the Allies themselves "have done or are doing some of the very things we are prosecuting the Germans for. The French are so violating the Geneva Convention in the treatment of prisoners of war that our command is taking back prisoners sent to them. We are prosecuting plunder and our Allies are practising it. We say aggressive war is a crime and one of our allies asserts sovereignty over the Baltic States based on no title except conquest."

Associate Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas charged that the Allies were guilty of "substituting power for principle" at Nuremberg. "I thought at the time and still think that the Nuremberg trials were unprincipled," he wrote. "Law was created ex post facto to suit the passion and clamor of the time."

U.S. Deputy Chief Counsel Abraham Pomerantz resigned in protest at the low caliber of the judges assigned to try the industrial war criminals such as those at I.G. Farben.

Many Germans who agreed with the idea of punishment for war crimes, admitted trepidation concerning the trials.

And yet, the results were not a uniform dispensation of the death penalty for the defendants that were indicted. For the defendants at the main trial about half were sentenced to death, 4 were acquitted (out of 20 brought to trial from memory) and 6 or 7 received lengthy gaol time. Thats harsh, but these guys were the very leaders we have been talking about

 

[stona]

Now with that I agree. The whole Nuremberg process was deeply flawed, but something had to be seen to be done. In the end it served a purpose but any idea that this was somehow the victorious allies dispensing Justice (with a capital J) is ridiculous.

I don't believe inculpating a relative few national leaders, government officials, functionaries and soldiers was necessary to exculpate the German nation as a whole because I don't believe that the German nation ever needed such exhonoration. I think in that we may have differing views.

Cheers

Steve

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Now with that I agree. The whole Nuremberg process was deeply flawed, but something had to be seen to be done. In the end it served a purpose but any idea that this was somehow the victorious allies dispensing Justice (with a capital J) is ridiculous.

I don't believe inculpating a relative few national leaders, government officials, functionaries and soldiers was necessary to exculpate the German nation as a whole because I don't believe that the German nation ever needed such exhonoration. I think in that we may have differing views.

Cheers

Steve

Agreed, and that has never been disputed here. My beef here was never about the process or the trials, which I think where the only option and course of action that could be taken. That is why there was no "meaningful critique" from me in regards to Nurnberg because there was no dispute over it.

 

[mikewint]

There seem to be two recurring themes here, Collective Guilt or Responsibility and that the German populace, as a whole did not oppose Hitler and his policies.
The first Collective Guilt bothers me the most.

Many Germans were opposed to Hitler and his policies. Some, including military officers, lost their lives heroically trying to assassinate him. Are the families of those men, including their innocent children, somehow stained with a collective German bloodguilt? That they "deserved" to die?
In 1933 the Nazi party received a 44% vote, and only gained control of the Reichstag through a coalition with another party. Within months, through a series of adroit political maneuvers, Hitler managed to gain complete authoritarian control.
Rarely does any government have universal consent. Sometimes 49% of the people get the government the other 51% percent want. Sometimes 90% of the people get the government that the 10% with more weapons want.
"The 'populace' voted for that government"? Really?
In war, collateral damage and deaths are unavoidable, but not on the basis of a collective guilt argument.
Let's leave Nazi Germany for a bit and see "Collective Guilt" in present day America:

Pennsylvania's governor, in a challenge to the NCAA's powers, claimed in a lawsuit Wednesday that college sports' governing body overstepped its authority and "piled on" when it penalized Penn State over the Jerry Sandusky child molestation scandal.
Gov. Tom Corbett asked that a federal judge throw out the sanctions, which include an unprecedented $60 million fine and a four-year ban on bowl games, arguing that the measures have harmed students, business owners and others who had nothing to do with Sandusky's crimes.
"A handful of top NCAA officials simply inserted themselves into an issue they had no authority to police under their own bylaws and one that was clearly being handled by the justice system," Corbett said at a news conference.
The case, filed under federal antitrust law, could define just how far the NCAA's authority extends. Up to now, the federal courts have allowed the organization broad powers to protect the integrity of college athletics.
In a statement, the NCAA said the lawsuit has no merit and called it an"affront" to Sandusky's victims.
Penn State said it had no role in the lawsuit. In fact, it agreed not to sue as part of the deal with the NCAA accepting the sanctions, which were imposed in July after an investigation found that football coach Joe Paterno and other top officials hushed up sexual-abuse allegations against Sandusky, a former member of Paterno's staff, for more than a decade for fear of bad publicity.
The penalties include a cut in the number of football scholarships the university can award and a rewriting of the record books to erase 14 years of victories under Paterno, who was fired when the scandal broke in 2011 and died of lung cancer a short time later.

A perfect example of ascribing collective guilt. Sandusky is certainly guilty, as are other coaches and administrators who overlooked and covered up his crimes. But how far does that guilt extend? Does it make sense to punish the entire university? Does it make sense to void 14 years worth of victories, erasing them as if they never happened, even though none of the players who won those victories had any involvement in the scandal? So the whole institution has a collective guilt and needs to be punished as a whole?

 

[Hiromachi]

At last someone with a meaningful critique of the Nuremberg process.

Nuremberg was a whole bunch of compromises and imperfections. It was far from perfect, but it was better than any of the realistic alternatives.

Critics of the Nuremberg trials argue that the charges against the defendants were only defined as "crimes" after they were committed and that therefore the trial was invalid as a form of "victors' justice". The alleged double standards associated with putative victor's justice are also evident from the indictment of German defendants for conspiracy to commit aggression against Poland in 1939, while no one from the Soviet Union was charged for being part of the same conspiracy. As Biddiss observed at the time, "the Nuremberg Trial continues to haunt us. ... It is a question also of the weaknesses and strengths of the proceedings themselves.

The only real issue from my perspective was that one totalitarianism (communist) was judging the other (nazis), or more specifically soviet criminals were judging German criminals which makes it a parody of justice. Of course Soviet side was the victorious and along with Allies had to take part in it but it does not change the fact what kind of people participated in the trials.
Lets take for example Iona Nikitchenko who in mid 30s sentenced hundreds of innocent people for death, he even took part in show trials during the infamous Great Purge, when he sentenced Kamenev and Zinoviev. The Soviet prosecutor Roman Rudenko was the one who even tried to bring Katyn as a nazi crime, which brought certain comments from Hermann Goering, eventually that was dropped and few today know of it.

Few seem to consider the possibility that to make a trial more just, so the victors would not judge the defeated, would be asking a representatives of neutral countries such as Switzerland or Sweden.

 

[mikewint]

This is my number two from the above post. The German people did nothing to oppose Hitler. I know of/have read of several resistance groups with in Germany but let's begin with about the 1,700 Jews who survived in Berlin, and the estimated 20,000 to 30,000 non-Jewish Germans who actively hid them.
The Edelweiss Pirates
A group of ex-Hitler Youth, the Edelweiss Pirates began organizing right before the outbreak of World War II. Mostly comprised of teenagers between the ages of 14 and 18, they had no central leader and were only loosely affiliated with the groups in other cities—sometimes, the only common factor was the Edelweiss flower badge which they all wore. As the war dragged on, the Edelweiss Pirates performed increasingly dangerous tasks, including sabotage against German railways and aiding Jews fleeing from the Nazis. German reprisals were varied, depending on the severity of the crime, but many were sent to camps or prisons, with some even being executed.
The Swing Kids
Mainly based in the city of Hamburg, the Swing Kids began as a counterculture group to Nazism. They were youth who enjoyed American swing music, something the Nazis detested. Though not very political at the beginning, the Swing Kids were said to have begun spreading the truth heard from the Allies to German citizens. (However, most of their protests seemed to be in the form of petty crime or vandalism.) In addition, many of the group members began to non-violently protest other aspects of Nazi rule, with some even going on to join other more political groups like the White Rose. After 1941, the Nazis began to crack down on the swing clubs, sending many of the children to concentration camps.
Johann George Elser
Normally a footnote in the history of Hitler and Nazism, Johann George Elser was one of many men who tried to assassinate Hitler. However, Elser is part of a select group of people who tried to do it alone. Every year, the Nazis would meet at the Beer Hall Putsch, to commemorate the failed overthrow of the German government that landed a younger Hitler in jail. Elser knew this and used it to his advantage. Ten months before Hitler was going to give his annual speech on November 8, 1939, Elser began scouting out the area. For months, Elser worked, hollowing out a stone pillar behind where Hitler would stand, so a bomb could be placed inside of it. He created a timer that would last for 144 hours and set it for 9:20 PM on November 8,right in the middle of Hitler's speech. Unfortunately, Hitler changed his plans at the last minute because of weather problems and ended 30 minutes early, escaping unharmed. Elser was arrested and imprisoned until April 1945, when he was executed.
The European Union
The original European Union was a group of anti-fascist Germans who despised Nazism and what it had done to their country. Founded in Berlin in 1939, the group began under the leadership of Robert Havemann, a chemist, and Georg Groscurth, a doctor. The European Union produced many leaflets during the war, as well as providing aid and information to Allied Forces and those hunted by the Nazis. However, they never actively tried to take down the government because they felt it would collapse on its own. What they wanted to do was create a unified, socialist Europe. Paul Hatschek, one of the leading members, was captured by the Gestapo in 1943 and ratted out nearly every person in the group, with at least 15 of them being killed.
The White Rose
Only operating for a short time between June 1942 and February 1943, the White Rose was a non-violent group, mostly made up of intellectuals, who distributed pamphlets and used graffiti to try and sway public opinion against the Nazis. The group was led by a group of 20-year-olds who had become disillusioned with what Hitler had turned Germany into. (Many of the leaders were ex-Hitler Youth.) The White Rose became quite popular, especially among college students, and various offshoots popped up in different towns. Three of the founders, Hans and Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst, were eventually betrayed to the Nazis by a janitor at their university and executed on February 22, 1943. Afterward, the White Rose movement fell apart, though almost no one else was caught.
The Solf Circle
The Solf Circle was an informal group of intellectuals who were against Nazism. Established by Johanna Solf, the widow of a German ambassador, the group would routinely meet to discuss their plans to aid the Jews (Solf and her daughter helped hide a number of Jews and assisted their escape from the country). On September 10, 1943 at a birthday party for Elisabeth von Thadden (a famous Protestant headmistress at a nearby school), a secret Gestapo agent was unknowingly invited by one of the members and he reported their actions. Nearly everyone was rounded up, arrested, tried, and executed.
The Catholic Church
Not Pope Pius XII, whose track record is spotty and controversial but rather, certain Catholic priests in Germany, who vociferously fought against, among other things, the T4 program (the so-called "euthanasia program"). Aided by the fact that nearly half of all Germans were Catholic, the Church was able to effectively convince Hitler to abandon the project because he feared having to fight them while he was fighting a war on two fronts.
The Rosenstrasse Protest
A singular event, perpetrated because of the deportation of thousands of Jewish men who were married to non-Jewish women, the Rosenstrasse protest was one of the largest public displays against Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. For over a week in early 1943, the women peacefully marched in protest against their husbands' deportation. Seemingly faced with death each night at the hands of the guards they marched in front of, they persisted, until Hitler released the prisoners, even those already sent to Auschwitz. No one was punished, and almost all of the men survived the war.
Kreisau Circle
Established and led by Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, Peter Graf Yorck von Wartenburg, and Adam von Trott zu Solz, the Kreisau Circle was stationed at Moltke's estate. Said to be one of the main centers of the German resistance movement, their goal was to figure out how to establish a peaceful, Christian Germany, after the war was lost. (For them, it was difficult to reconcile their hatred toward Hitler and the Nazis and their patriotic love for Germany.) The group was known for spreading information to the Allies, as well as other resistance groups within Germany. Later in the war, some of the members were involved in a failed assassination of Adolf Hitler and many of the Kreisau Circle were arrested and executed, even those who had no part in the coup attempt.
Red Orchestra
This name applies to both Soviet and German espionage programs such as the Schulze-Boysen/Harnack group, which was created in 1936. Named after Harro Schulze-Boysen (the Luftwaffe staff officer who founded it) and his friends, one of their goals was to gather intelligence for the Allies and help those hunted by the Nazis to get to freedom. However, their primary goal was to incite civil disobedience by distributing a number of leaflets, as well as causing the Nazis grief through the specter of subversion groups. In 1942, after Gestapo agents intercepted some of their radio transmissions, nearly all of the members of the group were arrested and executed.