By Thomas Schuler, Atlantic Times (Feb 2009)
After the war, everyone claimed to have resisted Hitler, Ewald Heinrich von Kleist says. He actually did. //
The last living co-conspirator of Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg lives a secluded life in Munich-Grünwald, high on the banks of the Isar River. Anyone expecting to meet an 86-year-old who, ever since the attempt to assassinate Hitler on July 20, 1944, keeps be moaning its failure or boasting of his conspiratorial acts in long monologues, will be disappointed. Everything there is to say about the July 20 plot, Ewald Heinrich von Kleist says, has already been said. Since that date, he adds, he has never thought about it again. That isn't true, of course. He has given speeches, for example on Nov. 15, 2007, in Berlin's Bendlerblock complex on the occasion of Stauffenberg's 100th birthday. The Bendlerblock was the site of Stauffenberg's execution by firing squad and also a location for "Valkyrie," the film about Stauffenberg and the July 20 plot. Kleist himself was last seen in a two-part film about Stauffenberg broadcast on the public ZDF television channel. Its producers had to ask him repeatedly to take part. Kleist believes it important to keep alive the memory of those in the military who resisted Hitler. "But I don't participate in it," he said. "People have a tendency to whitewash themselves and their acts - at the cost of the truth." After the war, he was astonished at how practically everyone suddenly claimed to have been in the resistance. Many asked him for written attestations of their innocence. "There were even some Nazis among them and I found that repugnant," Kleist said. It is also for that reason that Kleist's motto is: "I keep completely to myself." That was the only reason why, when Freiherr Philipp von Boeselager passed away in May, newspapers and television stations could have reported the last living co-conspirator of the July 20 plot had died. It wasn't true but everyone printed and reported it, from the German Press Agency (DPA), Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Der Spiegel, to the Associated Press and the New York Times. Kleist could have objected but he didn't. He had no interest in standing in the limelight. Was his reluctance to take credit for his deeds a matter of pride or was it resignation, if not resentment, that he has been forgotten? Or maybe he received confirmation that in his experience, the history of the resistance was largely a history of misunderstandings? Kleist lets it be known that he doesn't regard the acts of the Communist "Rote Kapelle" (Red Orchestra) groups as resistance. And what about Boeselager? A Munich publisher came out with a book soon after his death, entitled: "The Last Witness to July 20, 1944." Kleist said he had not read it and that it did not interest him. Boeselager provided the explosives to Stauffenberg. Compared to Kleist, he played only a minor role in the conspiracy. Kleist was ready to be blown up along with Hitler and was at Stauffenberg's side on that July 20, his pistol at the ready. Actually, it's a wonder Kleist is still alive. In early 1944, Stauffenberg had asked Kleist if he was prepared to be blown up along with Hitler, as Peter Hoffmann relates in his biography on Stauffenberg. The two talked for six hours and Stauffenberg shared the plans for Operation Valkyrie with Kleist. The producers of "Valkyrie" asked Kleist if he would serve as a consultant. Kleist turned them down and is not mentioned in the film by name. Kleist had asked Stauffenberg for 24 hours to think it over, in part to be able to talk with his father. He hoped his father would dissuade him. But Kleist's father was a bitter opponent of Hitler and said, "Yes, you have to do it. A person who fails at such a moment will never again be happy." Kleist, then 21, told Stauffenberg he was ready. He was to kill Hitler during an upcoming presentation of uniforms, and was later given two grenades to accomplish the task. But the date passed without Kleist being asked to appear. He was told that the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, was not present - and that assassinating only Hitler would make no sense. It was one of more than 40 missed opportunities and attempts. Kleist also knew of the plans for the July 20 plot. He had been assigned to army headquarters on the Bendlerstrasse as an aide. He and other co-conspirators awaited Stauffenberg when he returned from the assassination attempt, in the firm belief he had killed Hitler. But when Kleist walked past General Friedrich Fromm's office, he heard him say on the telephone: "So, Field Marshal [Göring], I can rely on the fact that the Führer is alive." General Fromm, Stauffenberg's commanding officer, had called Hitler's headquarters and Kleist told Stauffenberg about Fromm's telephone conversation. The two went to General Fromm, worried he would try to thwart the coup. They argued. Fromm went after Stauffenberg, "and he had to be quieted down with the help of a weapon," as Kleist put it during the 2007 memorial ceremony in Berlin. What he left out was that he himself had shoved his pistol into General Fromm's stomach in defending Stauffenberg. After the coup failed, Kleist was arrested and interrogated. But though his father was executed, Kleist himself was released. The regime hoped he would seek contact with the conspirators and lead the Gestapo to them. Kleist betrayed no one. After the war, Kleist became a publisher - not surprising for a distant relative of the writer Heinrich von Kleist. In 1962, Kleist established what has become known as the Munich Conference on Security Policy, to which, year after year, the most powerful political and military leaders from East and West came together for frank discussions. He served as moderator of this gathering until 1998. Kleist himself regards the Security Conference, not his part in the July 20 plot to kill Hitler, as his greatest service. Picture above: The last surviving plotter: Ewald Heinrich von Kleist in a photo from 1978.
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