Chris Hedges: Rebels Stand Alone

[marmar]

from truthdig:


Rebels Stand Alone

Posted on Feb 24, 2013
By Chris Hedges


I was in the Swiss village of Begnins outside Geneva shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. I spent three days there with Axel von dem Bussche, a former Wehrmacht major, holder of the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross for extreme battlefield bravery, three times wounded in World War II, and the last surviving member of the inner circle of German army officers who attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

I was reminded of my visit with von dem Bussche, whom I was interviewing for The Dallas Morning News, by the 70th anniversary of the execution of five Munich University students and their philosophy professor who were members of the White Rose resistance movement in Nazi Germany. The BBC last week interviewed the 99-year-old Liselotte Furst-Ramdohr, who hid leaflets for the group in her closet and helped make stencils used to paint slogans on walls. The six White Rose members managed to distribute thousands of anti-Nazi leaflets before they were arrested by the Gestapo and guillotined. The text of their sixth and final set of leaflets was smuggled out of Germany by the resistance leader Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, who was arrested in 1944 and hanged by the Nazis in January 1945. Copies of the leaflets’ language were dropped over Germany by Allied planes in July 1943. Furst-Ramdohr, who was widowed during the war when her first husband was killed on the Russian front, also was arrested by the Gestapo. She was imprisoned but eventually released.

The White Rose has been lionized by postwar Germans—one of its members, Alexander Schmorell, was made a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church last year, and squares and schools in Germany are named for the resisters—but in the BBC interview Furst-Ramdohr curtly dismissed the adulation of the group.

“At the time, they’d have had us all executed,” she said in speaking of most Germans’ hatred of resisters during the war. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_courage_to_resist_20130224/

[xchrom]

1. du rec. nt

[PuraVidaDreamin]

2. And we all must do something

To stop the hyper overdrive of capitalism, NDAA, drones, The degradation of this planet....

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. Another Bravo for Hedges.

happy to rec.

edited to add:

The takeaway from his article:

He and those like him who made a moral choice to physically defy evil teach us something extremely important about rebellion. It is, when it begins, not safe, comfortable or popular. Those rare individuals who have the moral and physical courage to resist must accept that they will be pariahs. They must live outside the law. And they must be prepared to be condemned.

Some of us older ones know that for real, don't we?

[cali]

4. that's a good piece regardless of the implied comparison

[snot]

5. Wow. What a story; thanks.

[KoKo]

6. Herman Wouk's "War & Remembrance" has excellent footage of

the von Stauffenberg plot to assassinate Hiltler.

You Tube seems to have 7 episodes and Netflix is running the first in the Mini-Series, "Winds of War" for instant watch.

It's an excellent series about WWII from Herman Wouk.

[KoKo]

7. K&R...some early DU'ers might remember the efforts of

some here for a new "White Rose Society." There were also DU'ers who made an effort to try get leaflets at their local libraries in the community bins talking about the Florida Re-count and what "really happened" with that and info about the lies leading up to the Iraq Invasion.

Those were the days here on DU! Trying to educate the people when the Netroots was young. There were some incredible efforts by many here who were so early onto what we would see during the Bush II years.

[raouldukelives]

8. If you want to stand against something, not standing with it is a good start. nt

[bvar22]

9. Thanks. I like that.

Repeat:

[font size=3]"If you want to stand against something, not standing with it is a good start."[/font]



[font color=firebrick size=3][center]"If we don't fight hard enough for the things we stand for,
at some point we have to recognize that we don't really stand for them."
--- Paul Wellstone[/font][/center]
[center][/font]
[font size=1]photo by bvar22
Shortly before Sen Wellstone was killed[/center][/font]

[font size=5 color=firebrick]Solidarity![/font]

[KoKo]

10. ....1