THE TRAITORS CIRCLE

Elite Germans oppose the Nazis and suffer the consequences.

Journalist and commentator Freedland, author of The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz To Warn the World, writes that Adolf Hitler enjoyed overwhelming support from everyday Germans soon after he took office—and nearly to the end. He drew their backing with his declaration that supposedly depraved foreigners working with perfidious fellow citizens were sucking the nation’s blood. But Nazi violence and suppression of liberty offended plenty of educated, upper-class, often religious Germans, many of whom lost jobs as teachers or civil servants. They expressed their unhappiness and took risks by hiding Jews or helping them flee the country. After the war began, they discussed ways to end it, perhaps by removing Hitler, and provided what aid they could to the few resisters still in the government. Their existence was no secret to Nazi security services that opened mail, tapped telephones, and employed an army of informers, including Jews. Even as Allied armies poured into the country, the Nazis were harrying fellow Germans for insufficient loyalty. Taking advantage of archives in a nation that has kept many records, the author paints vivid portraits of a group of admirable anti-Nazis who met in Berlin in 1943. Freedland writes, “They came together for what, to the outsider’s eye, would have looked like a wholly innocent gathering: an afternoon tea party to celebrate the birthday of a friend. But that single event would eventually expose them to the hangman’s rope and the guillotine’s blade.” Defeatism was a capital crime, and the author details how the Gestapo carefully assembled evidence, then arrested, interrogated, and tortured the dissenters, extracting a few confessions. A trial followed, presided over by a legendary brutal Nazi judge, ending in gruesome consequences. Several escaped, but executions continued even during the final days of the war.

Excellent niche history of a group of heroes who defied Hitler.