Mr. Yang Tianshi, a senior researcher at the Institute of Modern History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a well-known expert on Chiang Kai-shek at home and abroad, published a "shocking secret" two months ago ("The Shocking Secret of Sino-German Relations During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression - Chiang Kai-shek Instigated the German Army to Overthrow Hitler", Taiwan's Biographical Literature, March 2010 issue), saying that Chiang Kai-shek had instigated the German army to overthrow Hitler during World War II. But after reading it carefully, there is a sense of false alarm.
The German anti-Hitler army does not need Chiang Kai-shek's "intermediary" and "instigation"
Anyone who has read the history of the Second World War should be familiar with the attempts of some German generals during the war to overthrow Hitler and his Nazi rule, and it is by no means a "secret", but it is indeed a "shocking secret" to say that this matter was instigated by Chiang Kai-shek. However, there is only a short passage in this treatise that is directly related to the so-called "instigation" of Chiang Kai-shek: "Chiang Kai-shek finally made the decision in January 1942 to send Qi Yan to Switzerland to campaign against the German army and report the plan to Roosevelt" (p. 11). We wonder how Chiang Kai-shek defected to the Germans in the neutral Swiss movement? What are the events and facts of the "movement"? To whom do you "turn your back"? What plans were reported to Roosevelt? None of them were answered. "Defection" is to throw at the enemy and is absolutely inconsistent with the facts. Those German generals wanted to overthrow Hitler as early as 1942, because they wanted to negotiate peace with Britain, France and other allies, avoid all-out war, and out of patriotism, why should Chiang Kai-shek instigate it, and why would they "turn against him"!? As for the German army's demand that Chiang Kai-shek seek peace with Britain and the United States on behalf of the German army, it is even more contrary to common sense. Anti-Nazi German generals and enemy, especially the British side, already had a pipeline, so why should Chiang Kai-shek mediate? Needless to say, at that time, China was already unable to take care of itself, what ability did it have to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, and Chiang had no special friendship with Roosevelt and Churchill. According to Yang Wen, Chiang Kai-shek did not raise the matter with his allies, and only sent a telegram to Soong Mei-ling, who was visiting the White House, asking her to convey it (see p. 13), but whether Soong Mei-ling conveyed it, there is no record of the following, nor the record of Roosevelt's response, can only be said to be impossible, and has no impact. In the last section, Yang Wen talks about the attempted german coup against Hitler in 1944, and tries to associate it with Chiang Kai-shek, and it is too far-fetched to say that "General Falkenhausen, who had expressed loyalty to Chiang Kai-shek", in order to implement the so-called "instigation" by Chiang Kai-shek. General Alexander von Falkenhausen, who served as military chief of Belgium and North France at the end of World War II, was involved in the anti-Hitler campaign like Marshal Rommel and had absolutely nothing to do with Chiang Kai-shek. In addition, Yang Wen specifically mentions that On April 7, 1943, Song Ziwen sent $30,000 to Hans Klein, an arms dealer in Switzerland through Qi Yan (p. 15), as if to implement the fact that Chiang Kai-shek's gold aided the anti-Hitler German army. In fact, from the end of 1942 to the end of World War II, the contacts between the German anti-Nazi underground and the Allied forces in Switzerland were mainly through Allen Dulles, the director of the American Strategic Service, why should an arms dealer convey it through Qi Yan through Chiang Kai-shek?
As for the "coup" in 1944, the number of German generals involved was so high that there was no need for foreign financial aid. The thirty thousand dollars are also missing in Yang Wenli. Song Ziwen said that he gave the money; Qi Yan said that he received the money and gave it to Crane. But we don't know if Qi Enthalpy swallowed up the money, or whether the arms dealer, who was unknown in the anti-Hitler movement, put it in his pocket, otherwise, how could it be used in anti-Hitler activities? Nothing to say. In Yang Wen, the contact between Jiang and the German side was changed by Qi Yan, and even the German side's reply was also relayed by Qi Yan, and the original text was not seen, so that many of the courtiers flattered Jiang's words, which was obviously Qi Yan's addition to please the master. The most interesting thing is that Qi's German friends will also call him brothers and brothers in letters like Chinese. In other words, the Germans' replies were all in the tone of Qi Yan's writing. We do not doubt the authenticity of these materials, but they do not mean that Chiang Kai-shek instigated the German army to overthrow Hitler.
If Mr. Yang had read more Spanish data, including the diaries of German generals and the testimony of the Nuremberg Tribunal after the war, he probably would not have easily made the astonishing statement that "Chiang Kai-shek instigated the German army to overthrow Hitler." The only so-called German material used by Mr. Yang was a 1960 English bestseller, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: History of Nazi Germany by journalist William Shirer, on which he relied only on Chinese translations. The author has not seen the Chinese translation, and I do not know whether there is any misleading, but it can be asserted that Yang Tianshi did not carefully read this original book, which is more than 1,200 pages long, otherwise he would have found that there was not a trace of Chiang Kai-shek's "instigation" in the book, and many German generals repeatedly tried to overthrow Hitler.
German generals opposed Hitler in order to prevent the war of aggression
Before Hitler started the war, after more than five years of operation by his Nazi Party, his power was quite stable. Under totalitarian tyranny, no opposition movement could survive, and only the strength of the army could overthrow the fascist fuehrer; however, the army was part of its dictatorship, and the German generals were pleased that Hitler could free himself from the shackles of the Treaty of Versailles after the European war. That's why Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg testified at the Nuremberg trial that the German generals had no objection to Hitler until 1938-1939, because there was no reason to oppose it. When Hitler decided to launch a war of aggression, only the general had doubts about restarting the European war, which could lead to the defeat of Germany and repeat the mistakes of the last world war, so he tried to stop Hitler. Just before Hitler decided to attack Czechoslovakia, at least three commanders in positions of military power agreed to participate in the arrest of Hitler to avoid war between The Czechs and Britain and France, including The Commander of the garrison, Berlin, and its neighboring areas, General Erwin von Witzleben. Unexpectedly, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain adopted a policy of appeasement in order to avoid the scourge of war, and agreed to cede the Czech Sudetenland to Hitler. This encouraged Hitler's determination to sweep through the Czech Republic, embarrassed the anti-Hitler German generals, and sent Edwald von Kleist to London to inform the British side that the German generals were mostly opposed to the invasion of the Czech Republic, and that if the leaders of the British government came forward to warn the Nazis of the consequences of the invasion of the Czechs, the German generals would stop Hitler. General Franz Halder, chief of staff of the German Army, sent his personal representative, a retired army lieutenant colonel, to London to contact the British military and its intelligence services. In order to achieve their goals, the anti-Nazi German generals secretly passed through the German Foreign Office and the embassy in Britain, hoping that the British side would take a tough stance against Hitler; if Britain and France could persist, the German army was ready to deal with Hitler. It can be seen from this that the anti-Nazi generals in the German army were spontaneously patriotic from the beginning, and in order not to be involved in the all-out European war that could not be won, they took the initiative to ask for the cooperation of Britain and France, but Britain and France were not very active. However, why wait for external forces to "instigate"? What is more, why should Chiang Kai-shek "instigate" it in 1942? It is hard to imagine that any other scholar would argue that the German anti-Hitler movement was instigated by external forces.
In order to prevent Hitler from starting a war, the anti-Nazi German generals warned London through the pipeline that Hitler would attack the Czech Republic in September 1938, hoping that the British government and France would clearly declare that they would respond militarily with a strong military response. The Anglo-French intelligence services were absolutely aware of the anti-war voices in the German army, but the weakness of the British and French governments towards the Czech Republic inevitably made the Commander of the Berlin Garrison, Witzleben, hesitant to stop Hitler's actions. In other words, if the invasion of the Czech Republic would not lead to a major war because of the appeasement of Britain and France, and for the German generals, there was no point in opposing Hitler, and what reason was there to arrest Hitler and put him to trial? When Hitler was able to gain a large amount of territory for Germany without a fight, what could any German say? As a result, the opportunity to overthrow the Nazi regime early was lost. At the end of February 1946, toward the end of the Nuremberg Trials, Halder, the former chief of staff of the German army, made it clear to a young lawyer from New York who was involved in the trial that he had canceled his planned plan to overthrow Hitler and his Nazi regime because the British and French leaders had agreed to peace talks with Hitler. The young lawyer asked, if Chamberlain had not gone to Munich to make peace, Hitler would have been overthrown? Halder replied that he would definitely do something wrong, but success or failure would be unpredictable. Halder went on to explain that there are three conditions for the success of the mutiny: first, there must be clear and courageous leadership, second, the masses are willing to follow, and third, there is a proper time. There was no foreign aid, let alone Chiang Kai-shek's financial aid and instigation.
Overthrow Hitler in order to avoid the expansion of the war
Germany's annexation of Austria without a war proved that the worries of the anti-Nazi generals were superfluous, and Hitler's reputation was greatly enhanced, and he was even regarded as a rare genius in German history, strengthening his position in Europe, Germany, and the German army, and the Nazi control of the German army, police, and people was becoming more and more tight. When Hitler decided to crush Poland, Witzler, who had wanted to overthrow Hitler a year earlier, had no idea. He left Berlin and headed for the Western Front to command an army group. Halder no longer wanted to get rid of Hitler, but instead buried himself in the plan to attack Poland. General Gerog Thomas, an economic expert in the military that Mr. Yang mentioned, feared a world war, but Hitler told him that he had made an alliance with Soviet leader Stalin and had no worries. However, when Hitler wanted to expand the war in Western Europe and claimed that Britain had been beaten badly, peace talks would be held, which frustrated Halder and other generals. They also faced that if they did not get rid of Hitler, they would be ordered to attack Western Europe, with disastrous consequences. At this time, hitler was in the middle of the day after defeating Poland in the Blitzkrieg, and he wanted to get rid of him without relying on the army. However, both the military and the people were brainwashed by the Nazis, and once the anti-Nazi generals launched a mutiny, they were deeply afraid that it would cause confusion and confusion in the whole country, so they tried their best to maintain contact with the British side and the Holy See, hoping that Britain and France would not take advantage of the chaos caused by the mutiny to occupy Germany. For the German generals who opposed Hitler's exhaustion, overthrowing Hitler was Germany's only hope, but the question was how it could be done. Halder, the German chief of staff, became a key figure again, and he mentioned at the Nuremberg trial that the German field army could not betray the enemy in front of the fully equipped enemy, so he thought of General Friedrich Fromm, who commanded the reserve, and General Fo was willing to obey the commander-in-chief of the army.
The commander-in-chief of the army at the time was Walther von Brauchitsch, who was later promoted to field marshal, and in order to dissuade Hitler from expanding the war, he did not hesitate to show the demoralization of the German army and the defeatism of the army. But Hitler was furious and blamed the Commander-in-Chief for what he did, and how many people did you shoot if you did such a thing? In short, you don't want to fight. Brauchitsch later mentioned this unpleasant experience at the Nuremberg Trials, and Hitler's arrogance and rhetoric made him wonder what to do. Soon after, there was a bomb murder of Hitler, which had nothing to do with the anti-Hitler generals, and Nazi agents also alleged that it was committed by British intelligence agents, but the truth is not known.
Hitler was determined to fight a major war in Western Europe, and the commander-in-chief of the army, Brauchitsch, wanted to resign, but Hitler was not allowed, and he screamed: "We must fulfill our duties like every soldier!" This day, November 23, 1939, was a milestone in Hitler's overpower to the German generals, who considered his political and military judgment to be superior to his generals and did not hesitate to use violence to suppress his opponents. Neither Brauchitsch nor Halder, under Hitler's arrogance, did nothing to take care of the overall situation. It was not until the winters of 1941 and 1942 that Hitler's defeat in the Soviet Union rekindled anti-Nazi hopes within the German army. In fact, when Hitler was on the way to victory, it was difficult to persuade the Germans to mutiny; but when the army was defeated, when a million men were lost in half a year, when many men were dismissed and humiliated by the dictators as scapegoats, the generals had to think about how to overthrow the rule of the madman, and the only one who had the strength to overthrow the tyrant was still the army.
Overthrow Hitler to save Germany
The defeat of the invasion of the Soviet Union and the participation of the United States in the war had doomed Germany to win the war, and Hitler could not stop it, and only after the establishment of another anti-Nazi German government could he negotiate peace with the Allies. The anti-Hitler Germans, who called themselves "German patriots", in the summer of 1941, when Germany still had the possibility of defeating the Soviet Union, still wanted Germany to be a great power after the war, with the western frontiers of Austria, Sudetenland, and Poland that Hitler had acquired. But the Eighth Paragraph of the Atlantic Charter, issued by Roosevelt and Churchill on August 19 of the same year, states that Germany must disarm after the war. These generals who opposed Hitler felt that Britain and the United States did not distinguish between The Nazi and anti-Nazi forces in Germany, and that they had to defeat Not only Hitler but also Germany, and that they could not even have the strength of self-defense, which was like unconditional surrender. Therefore, Yang Wen's telegram from Chiang Kai-shek to visit Soong Mei-ling at the White House is really unknown. The message reads as follows:
It has been reported that the recent Nazi propaganda on the inside has often expressed various expressions of the recent post-war policies of Britain and the United States, which are different from the "Atlantic Charter" of the previous year, causing deep fear among all sides in Germany to surrender unconditionally, and Britain and the United States to disarm Germany for a long time, monitor education, and take over the defense of Germany's local administration. If Britain and the United States insisted on such harsh demands, the new German regime in the future would prefer to cooperate with the Soviet Union rather than become a colony of Britain and the United States. In order to promote the internal movement in Germany, this mentality cannot be ignored. I hope to pay attention to this meaning in a euphemistic explanation of the US government (p. 13).
Paragraph VIII of the Atlantic Charter, although it has not yet listed the details, is like unconditional surrender, and it is obvious that what is the difference? The German generals who wanted to overthrow Hitler did not "hesitate", but persevered, but with little effect, and finally by 1944 they were still desperate. The so-called "new regime in Germany in the future would rather cooperate with the Soviet Union" is also unrealistic and unclear.
Although some anti-communist and pro-Russians once thought it was easier to negotiate peace with the Soviet Union, Stalin also took the opportunity to propagate anti-Hitler rather than the German people, which was better than in the unconditional surrender of Britain and the United States. But this illusion was abandoned by October 1943 at the latest, as the Soviet Union publicly and formally accepted the unconditional surrender clause in the Casablanca Declaration at the Meeting of Allied Foreign Ministers in Moscow. At the same time, Dulles in Switzerland also made it clear that Germany had no possibility of making a separate peace with any of its allies. Chiang Kai-shek sent this telegram, is it not unknown to the international situation, if Soong Mei-ling did not convey it to Roosevelt, or there is a reason for the incident.
Regardless of the Atlantic Charter, Germany still occupied most of the continent in 1941, and there were still bargaining conditions for a new government. However, in view of the unfavorable situation in the future, he had his own sense of urgency, so as not to lose the favorable opportunity, and decided to persuade the generals fighting in Russia to wait for the opportunity to arrest Hitler. Field Marshal Fedor von Bock, commander of army group Center who had entered Moscow, was reluctant to comply, but two young officers in the army decided to arrest Hitler when he came, but they underestimated the tightness of the Nazi Guards' security measures and could not get close, so they thought that the only way to do so was to murder Hitler, first creating a fait accompli. Marshal Witzleben, who was in command of the German army on the Western Front, was very active and agreed to overthrow Hitler with direct action, which was the only solution, but he was replaced by a sudden sick leave due to hemorrhoids. Thus, by the beginning of 1942, there was still no concrete way to deal with Hitler, and it was not until the spring of the same year that a leading figure with national and international prestige, General Ludwig Beck, was officially found. Hitler was preparing to re-attack Soviet Russia, which could further plunge Germany into the quagmire. Although approached by General Beck, the senior generals at the front were hesitant and timid about action, so they decided to take drastic measures, and in 1943 there were at least six attempts to assassinate Hitler, one of which was the most thrilling, when a bomb was placed on Hitler's plane and arrived safely without detonation, and the bomb was thus not found. Hitler's agents hunted down many of the elites involved, either removed from office or placed under house arrest, and the underground organization was destroyed.
Marshal Rommel joined the anti-Hitler forces
In early 1944, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, known as the "Desert Fox" of North Africa, commanded the Second Army of Ossi, joined the ranks of anti-Hitler in view of the hopelessness of war. His determination was also based on "I believe it is my duty to save Germany", which greatly encouraged the opposition camp. However, Rommel opposed the killing of Hitler, which would make him a martyr, and he advocated that Hitler be arrested by the German army and then sent to a German court to try him for his crimes. The most important thing was how to overthrow the Nazi regime and end the war, after Hitler was overthrown, Rommel would become the temporary Führer or commander-in-chief of the whole army. But what Rommel wanted was not unconditional surrender, his bottom line was an immediate truce between the two sides, the Allies stopped bombing, Germany withdrew, the Nazi rule was overthrown, and a new government was formed. However, the summer of 1944 was already a critical situation for Germany, and Hitler had to be eliminated quickly, otherwise a peace treaty could not be obtained without complete destruction. After the Allied landings in Normandy on June 6 and the Russian offensive on June 20, Hitler still did not heed Rommel's painstaking advice, faced reality, and ended the war. Rommel then told his chief of staff, Hans Speidel, "I gave him the last chance, and if he doesn't do it, we'll do it." Two days after saying this, on the afternoon of July 17, Rommel was seriously injured in a low-altitude enemy attack in a car and was replaced by Field Marshal Guenther Hans Kluge. At this critical juncture, the anti-Hitler heavyweight was unable to act for a while.
The attempt to overthrow Hitler and its tragic consequences
The anti-Hitler generals in Berlin did not expect that the Allies had successfully landed in Normandy, and they were momentarily overwhelmed, and even if the mutiny was successful, it would be difficult to avoid the fate of Germany's occupation, and they could only hope to reduce the loss of life and property, as well as prevent soviet invasion and redundancy, and hope for Western democracies. So the assassination of Hitler at all costs, the removal of obstacles to peace, and even more urgent; the Nazi agents also hunted and killed at all times, and did not show mercy. There was a handsome colonel, Count Claus von Stauffenberg, who was a staff officer of General Flåm, commander of the Berlin Reserve Army, and had many opportunities to report back to Hitler. Born in 1907, he was born into the South German Wang clan and joined the army at the age of nineteen. As early as the summer of 1939, he was extremely dissatisfied with the Nazi anti-Semitic racial policy and had realized that Hitler would lead Germany to a long war, with huge losses of life and property, and would end in defeat. His sights on the Soviet front made him completely disappointed in the Third Reich, and although he was seriously injured by lightning in the North African theater on April 7, 1943, he lost his left eye, right hand and two fingers of his left hand, and his left ear and left knee were also injured, but he still promised to "save Germany". Like other anti-Hitler Germans, he was determined, for spontaneous patriotic reasons, to get rid of the Fuehrer who had brought Germany to ruin, to form a new government, and to negotiate peace with the Allies. He returned to Berlin at the end of September 1943 and used his remaining three fingers to practice detonating a time bomb, hoping to kill Hitler and immediately after forming a new government in Berlin. In order to stabilize the situation quickly, it would be better to kill Hitler's left and right-hand secret service chiefs, Heinrich Himmler, at the same time as Air Force Commander Hermann Goering, but it was not easy.
The moment finally came, and on July 20, 1944, Hitler personally ordered Colonel Staufenberg to give a report at the headquarters in East Prussia. Staufenberg placed the time bomb in his suitcase, placed it on the ground, and gently kicked it under the table. Hitler sat in the center of a long table, the bomb about six feet below his feet. Because the suitcase was inadvertently moved by an officer, although many people died at the time of the explosion, Hitler was only slightly injured. Staufenberg sneaks out before the explosion and sees his headquarters collapsed, believing that Hitler is bound to die, while the anti-Hitler general in Berlin is slow to act, waiting for the news of Hitler's death; but once it is confirmed that Hitler is not dead, he is overwhelmed. Staufenberg was the chief of staff of the reserve commander Flåm, but Flåm, hearing that Hitler was not dead, refused to act, so that the German army supporting the establishment of a new government was completely invisible in the capital of Berlin, even the tanks that had been agreed upon did not arrive, and even the radio stations were not occupied, resulting in a total loss in one day. Nazi General Reinecke, supported by secret police forces, took control of all the troops in Berlin. Seeing the wind, Flåm quickly shot Staufenberg and the other three participants, and forced General Baker to die, but he himself was not spared and was eventually executed. The head of the secret service, Himmler, returned to Berlin that night and telegraphed Hitler that the rebels had been completely wiped out. Hitler broadcast in the middle of the night, declaring that the assassination was an unprecedented crime in German history, that they were a minority and would settle accounts with them to the end. Sure enough, it was followed by bloody liquidations, severe torture to extract confessions, temporary military tribunals, the pronouncement of the death penalty, and then the so-called "people's courts" to strictly try traitors, and thousands of relatives and friends of suspects were sent to concentration camps. Hitler personally demanded a quick verdict and ordered them to be hanged like beasts. Marshal Witzleben's following generals associated with Staufenberg were sent to the "People's Court", presented them in their worst shapes, answered insulting questions, and then executed, and videotaped them in the army to set an example. Many officers were willing to commit suicide, and Halder was released by the Allies after months in a black jail. General Karl Heinrich von Stuelpnagel attempted suicide by inadvertently naming Marshal Rommel. Colonel Caesar von Hofacker later confessed to Rommel's role in the opposition, tortured by the Gestapo secret police. Hitler gave Germany's most beloved general a choice: commit suicide and get a state funeral, or stand trial for treason and lose his honor. Rommel chose the former. The three german marshals, Witzleben, were hanged, Kruger and Rommel were forced to self-decommission, and a large number of excellent German generals, under the obscenity of former Austrian Army Corporal Hitler, crawled in horror and begged for mercy, and their dignity was swept away.
epilogue
Hitler was a madman of the twentieth century, and the harm to mankind and civilization was so deep that it was rare to call him a "Greek demon". Taking advantage of the unfair treatment and humiliation of Germany after the First World War, he preached ultra-nationalism, won the will of the people, seized power, developed force, relied on the secret police and secret agents, and established a powerful fascist dictatorship. After its growth, western powers such as Britain and France also timidly tolerated their fronts, while the objections in Germany were even more silent and sighed in vain. When Hitler began to wage a war of aggression in 1938, people of insight disagreed, but how can we stop the dictator from insisting on going his own way? The answer is that there is no other way but the army, which is an important pillar of its dictatorship and is hard to shake. After all, Germany's professional soldiers were not only warriors, but well trained and educated, and it was not difficult to see the harm of Hitler's policies to the country. Many of them were driven by patriotism, including marshal-level generals, who did not hesitate to oppose their own heads of state, and were always spontaneous internally, by no means foreign instigators, let alone by Chiang Kai-shek, who was far away in East Asia. In short, how could Chiang Kai-shek mobilize the German army to overthrow Hitler's regime?
In fact, the German army did not really rise up to overthrow the Nazi regime, strictly speaking, but many German generals repeatedly tried to overthrow Hitler. They were well-intentioned, initially to prevent Germany from getting involved in a long and difficult war, and later to save Germany from danger. However, they are not as decisive as they are on the battlefield in carrying out coups d'état, and they are often hesitant and miss the opportunity. Although they took the initiative to communicate with the British, it was difficult for the enemy to help. Yang Tianshi claimed that Chiang Kai-shek had aided the German army against Hitler, but apart from the thirty thousand dollars that did not know the whereabouts, he did not know what help it was. Yang Wen mentioned that the German three-man group in contact with Chiang Kai-shek was not the main role of the anti-Hitler clique.
The anti-Hitler general failed to successfully instigate the army within the system to overthrow the Nazi regime, but followed the assassination methods outside the system, and finally on the eve of the defeat of Germany, a young German officer carried a time bomb and wanted to kill the dictator, although after the detonation of the house, Hitler was only slightly injured, and the troops preparing for the coup in Berlin hesitated, so they were easily annihilated, and all the suspected generals were treated inhumanely. The so-called past that instigated the German army to overthrow Hitler's regime became a tragic tragedy for the German people. Linking Chiang Kai-shek to this tragedy is neither necessary nor factual. This article is excerpted from the Oriental Morning Post, source: World Wide Web