
A Nazi Critic and a Gestapo Spy - neonate
https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/a-nazi-critic-and-a-gestapo-spy-a-1266249.html
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sverige
This was upper class resistance to the Nazis. The members of the Solf circle
were aristocrats and included some members of the former Weimar government.
There was other resistance centered in those social circles.

There was, of course, also resistance from groups in the middle and lower
classes. One interesting aspect of the heroine of this tale is her piety, a
common theme among those groups that crosses the lines of social class. Die
Weise Rose was an example of a Catholic resistance group with similar
motivations.

The lawyer Helmuth James von Moltke, who warned the diplomat Kiep of this
informant's activities, was the great-grandnephew of Moltke the Elder, who won
the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian wars in the 19th century, and
grandnephew of Moltke the Younger, who, when he was promoted far beyond his
capabilities to Chief of the German General Staff, screwed up von Schlieffen's
plan such that the German attack on France at the start of WWI devolved into
the trench warfare that disaster became known for, instead of a decisive and
quick victory in the west before attacking the Russians in the east.

The Helmuth von Moltke of this story was executed by the Nazis in early 1945.

I think it's always salutary to be reminded who the actual Nazis were and the
kinds of things that they did to overcome the contemporary habit of calling
political opponents by that name. Godwin's Law wouldn't be a thing if more
people studied the actual history involved.

~~~
brownbat
> This was upper class resistance to the Nazis.

Even "resistance" seems strong. This was the Nazis murdering people for
privately discussing true facts about the state of the war in Italy.

Lest anyone forget, authoritarianism is unimaginably grim.

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vmh1928
The book about pre-war Berlin, "In the Garden of Beasts" recounts the
experience of American Ambassador to Germany, William Dodd. As ambassador he
and his family had many direct encounters with the German government of the
time.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Garden_of_Beasts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Garden_of_Beasts)

~~~
AndyMcConachie
Is that book historical, or historical non-fiction? The latter being where the
author embellishes facts for a better narrative.

I'm genuinely asking as I haven't read it and don't know anything about it.

~~~
shadowprofile76
It's a non-fiction book pretty much through and through. The author writes
with an eye for entertaining narrative and thus you could assume that small
parts are embellished a bit for this reason but overall I haven't seen any
criticism of the book that claims anything remotely important to be fictional.
Martha Dodd (the ambassador's daughter) comes across as particularly foolish.
First because she tries to defend the Nazi regime to her friends and then when
a bit of light finally dawns on her about its nature, switches over to
becoming a useful idiot for the equally vicious soviet regime, working as an
NKVD informatn/agent. And based on third party accounts and the old NKVD
documents from her informant file, describing her as a useful idiot (stealing
a phrase from Lenin) doesn't seem to be far off the mark. One soviet handler's
description of her is rather amusing: "She considers herself a Communist and
claims to accept the party's program. In reality she is a typical
representative of American bohemia, a sexually decayed woman ready to sleep
with any handsome man."

Dodd herself met Hitler once through an introduction by a man who at the time
was a close friend of the dictator, and her description of him was that he was
"excessively gentle and modest in his manners"... Indeed...

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iron0013
I found this fascinating. It’s important that first-hand accounts like this
are documented.

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jonathankoren
I found it interesting that Gestapo spy became a spy for the Stasi. Funny how
that works.

~~~
AndyMcConachie
Ex-nazis worked for both sides during the Cold War. When you're an occupying
army(US/UK, USSR) you look for people who can get stuff done and who know
people, and that means hiring the people that have experience doing the work.

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iambateman
I found the picture of Paul Reckzeh toward the end of the article haunting.
Just an old man peering out of the window, 50 years after his crimes.

On another note, I’m a big fan of Bonhoeffer. I was surprised while reading
his biography to see just how few German critics spoke out or tried to
organize against Hitler. At the same time, it seems the Allies weren’t
listening to or cultivating anti-nazi Germans.

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spamlord
why is this on HN?

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dang
Because it's interesting. Please see
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

Interesting historical material is always welcome on Hacker News. It's true
that this story includes the words "Nazi" and "Gestapo" in its title; but not
all such titles point to uninteresting flamebait, only most of them. Here
we're interested in the exceptions to things.

~~~
groby_b
"not all such titles point to uninteresting flamebait, only most of them"

Talking about flamebait...

~~~
dang
I meant it more as a wry aside to keep the readers of tedious moderation
comments mildly entertained, but you're right: it's awfully hard to do that
and not cross over into being inflammatory to some readers.

