81 years have passed since the failed effort on the 3rd Reich leader Adolf Hitler. On this occasion, the German government commemorated opposition against national socialist tyranny.
Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig said on Sunday at the Berlin-Plötzensee Memorial Site that commemoration of 20 July 1944 was not routine. The point is to guarantee that "Germany will never again be the origin of specified a terrible horror".
– This work is due to guilt," said Hubig. As she added, celebrations are a call for firm opposition to those who endanger democracy and justice. present these values were again under pressure, she said.
A failed assassination, Hitler survived
On 20 July 1944, Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg assassinated Hitler to put an end to national socialist tyranny. The effort failed and Stauffenberg and any of his co-conspirators were executed that same night.
Many opposition activists active in the attempted assassination of 20 July 1944 were subsequently executed in Berlin-Plötzensee prison. A full of 2,800 people were beheaded or hanged there from 1933 to 1945.
"Great Courage"
During Sunday's celebrations, Berlin's mayor Kai Wegner drew attention to the large courage of members of the resistance. As he said, those who resisted in those days put themselves and their families in mortal danger. "They were threatened with civilian rights deprivation, concentration camps, collective work towards household and death," he said.
German Minister of State for Culture Wolfram Weimer besides pointed out the destiny of the relatives of the bombers. – Their families besides showed courage and frequently paid a advanced price for it – he said. Relatives who hid letters among the mountain records. Wives who persisted in prison. Mothers who have endured interrogations are always afraid of what will happen to their children.
During this year's celebration, the speech was given by actor Matthias Brandt, boy of erstwhile German Chancellor Willy Brandt. He recalled his father, who had to go to exile in 1933 to avoid persecution by national socialists. Brandt besides described a hard period after the war, in which his father and many members of the opposition against the Nazis were referred to as “the traitors of the homeland” and warned against the return of marginalization and racism in society. “We must not be silent,” he said.
