Requiem for a Soldier

An aging veteran of WWII by the name of Philipp Freiherr von Boeselager passed away Thursday evening according to a statement issued yesterday by the German military.  No cause of death was announced for the 90 year old former army major.

By now you are no doubt wondering where I’m going with this thought.  Until this morning I had never heard of the man, although I have read about the incident in which he played a vital part.

It seems that von Boeselager was the elusive “missing link” in the July, 1944 attempted assassination of Adolph Hitler.  He provided the explosives for the briefcase bomb that almost decapitated the Third Reich thus shortening the war.  (The bomb plot is the subject of the upcoming Tom Cruise film “Valkyrie”.) Herr von Boeselager went undetected in the ruthless purge of the officer corps that followed the botched bombing primarily because those who knew of his involvement were either already dead, or died quickly following the event.  His brother, who had asked him to procure the explosives, died on the Eastern Front.  Maj. Gen. Helmuth Stieff, to whom he delivered the material was executed for his involvement in the plot without, it would seem, revealing von Boeselagers role.  After remaining silent for 64 years, von Boeselager went public three weeks ago in an exclusive interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, published the day after his death.

Von Boeselager was recruited for the plot by Maj. Gen. Henning von Tresckow in 1942 according to the interview which quoted him as saying that he knew of the attrocities being committed by the Reich and that, “It was no longer about saving the country, but about stopping the crimes.” 

I found it interesting that CNN chose to list von Boeselagers’ obituary in the top 10 stories of this Saturday morning.  I also find interesting the fact that this former German officer, who would have been branded a traitor or even a “terrorist” by his own government, is viewed as a hero today. 

As the Bush administration continues to blur the distinctions between our current American government and the Nazis of Hitlers’ Reich, another of von Boeselagers’ interview quotes strikes a frightening resonance.  “For a long time, it was not believable to normal Germans that the government was criminal,” he recalled. “And as soon as one thought they had pushed that out of the way, then people just didn’t want to know.” 

It’s enough to make one wonder if a hypothetical presidential assassination plot of today will be viewed as an heroic act by some future America. 

Will a top boxoffice star of that time portray the gallant mastermind? 

Will the mainstream media of the day herald the death of a previously unknown member of the cabal of plotters and quote him as saying, “For a long time, it was not believable to normal Americans that the government was criminal, they just didn’t want to know.”