German government honours military plot against Hitler

Jul 20, 2009, 16:43 GMT

   Berlin - The German government honoured military opposition to Nazi Germany and remembered victims of Nazism on Monday in a ceremony marking the 65th anniversary of a failed plot against Hitler.

Politicians and soldiers laid wreaths at the Bendler Block in the interior ministry, where Colonel Claus Schenk Count of Stauffenberg was executed alongside three fellow plotters on July 20, 1944.

Earlier that day in 1944, Stauffenberg had planted a bomb hidden in a briefcase in Hitler's eastern front headquarters, the Wolfsschanze in what is now Poland. However the bomb blast was shielded by a heavy table and Hitler received only minor injuries.

In the mean time however, Stauffenberg had travelled back to Berlin and put in motion Operation Valkyrie, in an attempt to overthrow the Nazi dictatorship.

The plotters were tried and executed as soon as their failed plan came to light. July 20 has since become a symbol of the military anti-Nazi resistance in Germany.

Victims of Nazi Germany were also remembered at Ploetzensee, a lake on the outskirts of Berlin where more than 2,500 people were killed between 1933 and 1945.

Later on Monday, Chancellor Angela Merkel and Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung were due to join young army recruits giving their military pledge in front of the parliament.

Anti-military demonstrators seized the opportunity to protest against war at a rally on Potsdam Square, out of earshot of the parliament building. Police had previously banned them from marching through Berlin's Tiergarten park.

The secretary-general of the Christian Democrats (CDU), Ronald Pofalla, said it was important for young soldiers to take their oat of allegiance in public. 'In this way we Germans show that the army stands in the centre of our society,' he said.

Earlier in the day, the parliamentary commissioner for the armed forces, Reinhard Robbe, said the military received insufficient recognition in present-day Germany.

'In our society, too little attention is shown towards our soldiers,' Robbe told German daily Mitteldeutsche Zeitung. This weighed heavily on German troops, the parliamentarian added.

Speaking at Ploetzensee, German Economics Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg said resistance to Nazi Germany came from all areas of society, including trade unionists, politicians, scientists, public servants and members of the Jewish community.

'July 20 is a warning to the future, and not an annually recurring nostalgic event,' Guttenberg said.