Saturday, March 15, 2014
Committee (Omni Shoreham)
The focus of my paper is the memory of the attempted assassination of Adolf Hitler on 20 July 1944. The commonly held view, amongst both scholars and the general public, contends that the plotters of the assassination attempt have been remembered (especially in the immediate post-war years) primarily as traitors. Memory of the conspirators would supposedly remain negative or indifferent for many years after the event occurred. Based on an array of available sources, including newspaper articles, political speeches, popular literature, films, and memorials, my paper asserts three key points concerning the memory of the July 20 Plot. First, despite the commonly held belief and assertion of historians, at no point since the end of the Second World War did a majority of Germans view the events of July 20 (and the men associated with it) negatively. Second, the memory of 20 July 1944 has come to represent Germany’s founding “myth” as a nation born in resistance to fascism. Politicians and news articles frequently cited the event and its conspirators as examples of the “other, better” Germany, meaning the portion of the population that did not fall prey to Hitler and the Nazis. Lastly, and related to the second point, the military resistance against Hitler stands out as the most important and well-remembered of all other Resistance groups and movements. The July 20 Plot is the symbol of the German Resistance to which all others are subordinate.
