Category Archives: Issue 8

The Spark of the Nuclear Age

David Lane

Every year countries develop new and different experimental weapons and methods to achieve respect and fear from other nations in a time of war. These experiments contribute heavily to the advancement of society, the progress of mankind, and the expansion of nations. America has had such an experiment and development in science. The Manhattan Project, the atomic bombing of Japan, and the aftermath of the bomb were pivotal moments in world events.

On the second of August in 1939, Albert Einstein and others wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt telling of the Nazis’ attempts to purify uranium-235. This process would be used to create an atomic bomb that had the potential to destroy cities in a matter of seconds. Shortly after the letter, the United States began the multi-billion-dollar assignment known as The Manhattan Project. The Manhattan Project was an extensive scientific experiment that could, in fact, change the world of war forever (Purohit).

The goal of the project was to develop a formula for refining uranium-235. It was not to create the actual bomb, as many mistakenly think. Over the span of six years, 1939-1945, more than two billion dollars were spent on the Manhattan Project. Some of the most brilliant men on the planet were working together to develop formulas for refining uranium. The hardest part of creating the project was to produce enough “enriched” uranium to sustain a chain reaction for a certain amount of time. A huge enrichment laboratory was made in Tennessee. An extraction system was developed that could separate the very useful U-235 and the completely useless U-238 isotopes. Robert Oppenheimer was the chief among the master minds who unleashed the atom bomb. He oversaw the project from beginning to completion ( Bellis). Progress on the project was slow and uneventful until August of 1942. At this time The Manhattan Project was reorganized and placed under the control of the United States Army. The official name of the project was actually The Manhattan Engineer District. More than one hundred and forty thousand civilians worked at various locations on The Manhattan Project. Some of these workers did not know what they were working on. The project was extremely classified.

On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked America at Pearl Harbor. This attack on American soil sparked a war in the Pacific. Almost immediately, on December 8, 1941, America responded with a declaration of war on Japan. President Roosevelt ordered the atomic bomb after getting word the bomb could be made and The Manhattan Project was indeed successful. Colonel J.C. Marshall was told to set up the top secret assignment of creating an atomic bomb so powerful it could destroy a city (Gonzales 33). Two different bombs were produced through this assignment. Both of the bombs worked differently. The bombs were named “Little Boy” and “Fat Man.” “Little Boy” was smaller than “Fat Man” and not as powerful (59). On July 16, 1945, a test bomb was unleashed at 5:29 in the morning. Many scientists believed the bomb would not work. Some prayed it would not because they knew the power it could have and were afraid of the destruction the bomb could cause. Nevertheless, the bomb succeeded in the test. The explosion was massive, and the flash was blinding. Later newspapers said a blind girl could see the flash from one hundred and twenty miles away. The bomb was ready. America had in its possession an item that could truly destroy a city along with millions of lives (Purohit).

Many of the creators of the terrifying bomb had mixed reactions. Some believed it should not be used. Many immediately signed petitions saying the “monster” should not be unleashed. Robert Oppenheimer was extremely excited about the success of the project but was also very scared. He quoted a fragment of the Bhagavad Gita by saying, “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” Isidor Rabi, another extremely important contributor to the creation of the bomb, thought equilibrium in nature had been mixed up, as if mankind had become a threat to the world it inhabited. This discovery would mark the beginning of the atomic age of warfare, a huge advancement for all nations.

On August 6, 1945, a B-29 bomber named the Enola Gay took off from the island of Tinian and made the six-hour journey to Japan. The pilot of the aircraft was Colonel Paul Tibbets. The bomber’s main target was the city of Hiroshima. Hiroshima had a civilian population of three hundred thousand. It was an extremely important military center, containing forty-three thousand soldiers (DOE). The atomic bomb named “Little Boy” was released from the Enola Gay at 8:15 in the morning. The bomb measured 9.84 feet long and had a diameter of twenty-eight inches. It weighed a remarkable 8,900 pounds. The bomb was dropped at an elevation of thirty-one thousand feet (“Dimensions”). The city was alive with activity. People were walking in the streets, kids playing before school, and men and women were making their way to work. The people closest to the explosion died instantly. Their bodies were obliterated into black char. Birds were incinerated in mid-air. Shadows of bodies were burned onto walls, and clothing was melted onto skin. Fires broke out everywhere, creating one massive firestorm blowing furiously across the land destroying anyone who had withstood the first part of the blast (DOE). Staff Sergeant George Caron, the tail gunner of the Enola Gay, describes what he saw: “The Mushroom cloud was a spectacular sight, a bubbling mass of purple and gray smoke, and you could see it had a red-core in it and everything was burning inside. It looked like lava molasses covering a whole city.” Two-thirds of the city was destroyed instantly. The co-pilot, Captain Robert Lewis, stated, “Where we had seen a clear city two minutes before, we could no longer see a city. We could see smoke and fires creeping up the sides of mountains.” Within three miles of the explosion, sixty thousand buildings were completely demolished. A survivor of the attack described the victims as follows:

The appearance of people was … well, they all had skin blackened by burns. … They had no hair because their hair was burned, and at a glance you couldn’t tell whether you were looking at them from in front or in back. … They held their arms bent [forward] like this … and their skin — not only on their hands, but on their faces and bodies too — hung down. … If there had been only one or two such people … perhaps I would not have had such a strong impression. But wherever I walked I met these people. … Many of them died along the road — I can still picture them in my mind — like walking ghosts (Rosenberg).

The goal of this bombing was not to merely destroy military forces; it was to demolish a city (Rosenberg).

All communications were destroyed in the bombing leaving Hiroshima stranded. The government eventually received different reports from the outskirts of the city about fires and large amounts of smoke. Sixteen hours later, the Japanese government finally received confirmation of what had happened. They realized America had unleashed the most powerful weapon known to mankind on the city of Hiroshima (DOE).

America was not done with its unleashing of weapons of mass destruction. Although America did give Japan the chance to surrender between bombings, Japan refused. The next target was the city of Kokura. Kokura was a massive collection of war industries. The second option was Nagasaki. They ended up having to settle for Nagasaki due to inclement weather. The plane carrying the second bomb was named Bock’s Car (“Bombing”). Piloting the aircraft was Charles W. Sweeney. Sweeney said his greatest fear was “goofing up.” He also stated, “I would rather face the Japanese than Tibbets in shame if I made a stupid mistake.” The second bomb, “Fat Man,” was much heavier than “Little Boy.” This made the aircraft more difficult to pilot.

The bombing of Nagasaki seemed jinxed from the beginning. Many things went wrong such as bad weather, bad visibility, faulty communications, and even a malfunction with the bomb itself. Despite the many close calls, Sweeney still accomplished his goal. They left Tinian Island at 3:40 in the morning on August 9. The plane headed for Kokura, but due to inclement weather and malfunctions with the extra fuel supply, they had to settle for the second option of Nagasaki. Nagasaki was a major ship building city and military port (Glines). The second atomic bomb exploded over the city of Nagasaki at 11:02 am. A reporter flying in the plane behind the Bock’s Car said, “We watched a giant pillar of purple fire, 10,000 feet high, shoot upward like a meteor coming from earth instead of from outer space” (Glines). About two hundred thousand people were in the city of Nagasaki when the bomb exploded. A survivor of the Nagasaki bombing explains a scene he remembers distinctly as follows:

The pumpkin field in front of the house was blown clean. Nothing was left of the whole thick crop, except that in place of the pumpkins there was a woman’s head. I looked at the face to see if I knew her. It was a woman of about forty. She must have been from another part of town — I had never seen her around here. A gold tooth gleamed in the wide-open mouth. A handful of singed hair hung down from the left temple over her cheek, dangling in her mouth. Her eyelids were drawn up, showing black holes where the eyes had been burned out. … She had probably looked square into the flash and gotten her eyeballs burned (Rosenberg).

Numerous secondary fires erupted throughout the entire city. The fires were nearly impossible to put out due to the break of water lines (DOE). The devastation was incredible.

The effects of these two bombings were absolutely devastating. They left Japan emotionally destroyed. America, within the course of three days, had left Japan completely dumbfounded and awestruck. The bombing of Hiroshima instantly killed sixty-six thousand to sixty-nine thousand people. One hundred thousand more died by 1945. And by 1950, over two hundred thousand had died from various lingering effects (“Dimensions”). Everything up to one mile from the target was completely destroyed with the exception of certain concrete structures made to withstand a blast. Everything was flattened and desolate. It looked like a wasteland (Purohit).

The effects of the Nagasaki bombing were not as severe as Hiroshima, even though the bomb was more powerful and bigger. This is mainly because Nagasaki is located in a mountainous area (Avalon). But even with the mountains acting as barriers, the bombing of Nagasaki took a substantial toll on Japanese citizens. Forty-two thousand citizens were instantly killed, and forty thousand were severely injured. The bomb completely destroyed thirty-nine percent of the buildings in Nagasaki.

Both cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, suffered many strange and sometimes unexpected diseases and symptoms after the bombings. Survivors developed symptoms such as blood cell abnormalities, high fevers, chronic fatigue, diarrhea, vomiting, hair loss, and extreme depression. All people after the bombing were more prone to infection and cancer. Three years following the radiation exposure leukemia rates peaked. The exact amount of casualties is unknown, but many continued to perish up to ten years after the detonation of the atomic bomb (Anhalt)!

In addition to the immediate and long-term diseases and injuries of the Japanese people who were struck by the bomb was also an immense amount of emotional damage and sheer terror. The bombings struck an intense fear into all the citizens witnessing the event. Many citizens ran away and hid for long periods of time due to the hysteria the bombing forced into their lives. Before the atomic bombings people would pay no attention to a single plane, but after the nuclear bombing seeing a single plane would put more fear into Japanese citizens than seeing a mass of planes. This terror would never cease to exist (Avalon). It undoubtedly shaped the way mankind sees warfare.

Arguably the biggest deal concerning the bomb was the effect it had on the ongoing world war. The atomic bombing of Japan undoubtedly ended World War 2. Japan surrendered after seeing the massive amount of damage and casualties of their own land and people. Japan offered their surrender on August 10, 1945. The only condition was the emperor be allowed to remain the nominal head of state. America accepted the conditions of their surrender, but said the emperor could only remain for ceremonial purposes. Japan was not happy and delayed their response. During this delay America continued conventional raids, which killed thousands of more Japanese people. Finally the emperor remarked, “I can not endure the thought of letting my people suffer any longer.” On August 15, the emperor announced his plan to surrender. It took a few weeks but finally on September 2, 1945, the official ceremony of surrender took place and the war was over (DOE).

Countries continue to develop different weapons and methods to gain fear from other nations. The atomic bomb may have been one of the biggest discoveries ever made. The invention of this nuclear weapon has changed the way nations look at warfare and political matters. The Manhattan Project, the atomic bombing of Japan, and the aftermath of the bomb were pivotal moments in world events.

Works Cited

Anhalt, Lindsey. “Atomic Bomb.” Arts & Sciences. Washington University in St. Louis. Web. 10 Oct. 2010. <http://artsci.wustl.edu/~copeland/atomicbomb.html>.

“The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima, August 6, 1945.” Department of Energy. Web. 10 Oct. 2010. <http://www.cfo.doe.gov/me70/manhattan/hiroshima.htm>.

“Avalon Project — The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” Avalon Project — Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy. Web. 10 Oct. 2010. <http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/mpmenu.asp>.

Bellis, Mary. “History of the Atomic Bomb and The Manhattan Project.” Inventors. Web. 10 Oct. 2010. <http://inventors.about.com/od/astartinventions/a/atomic_bomb.htm>.

“The Bombing of Nagasaki.” History Learning Site. Web. 10 Oct. 2010. <http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/bombing_of_nagasaki.htm>.

Cohen, Daniel. The Manhattan Project. Brookfield: Millbrook Press, 1999.

Glines, C. V. “World War II: Second Atomic Bomb That Ended the War.” Web.

Gonazales, Doreen. The Manhattan Project and the Atomic Bomb. Berkeley Heights: Enslow Publishers, 2000.

“Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” VCE.COM. Web. 10 Oct. 2010. <http://www.vce.com/hironaga.html>.

“Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Dimensions.” Dimensions Guide. Web. 10 Oct. 2010. <http://www.dimensionsguide.com/hiroshima-atomic-bomb-dimensions/>.

Purohit, Vishwas. “The Atom Bomb: A Brief History.” Buzzle Web Portal: Intelligent Life on the Web. Web. 10 Oct. 2010. <http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/2-17-2004-50656.asp>.

Rosenberg, Jennifer. “Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” 20^th Century History. Web. 10 Oct. 2010. <http://history1900s.about.com/od/worldwarii/a/hiroshima.htm>.

Behind Closed Doors: The Food Industry

Lia Waugh Powell and Kayla Cole Baker

Newspaper headlines and documentaries have recently exposed the horrors and corruptions within the food industry. Most people today have a basic idea of what goes on behind closed doors in the food industry; few know exactly what happens. This day and hour, animals are being produced, transported, and slaughtered in larger quantities than ever before. This high demand creates a need for efficiency and quickness resulting in unfair and inhumane treatment for commercial purposes.

Factory farming, according to the ASPCA, is “a large-scale industrial operation that houses hundreds or thousands of food animals in extremely restricted conditions and treats them as non-sentient economic commodities.” The mistreatment begins in the process of raising the animals. Factory farms begin with force breeding, in which animals are made to reproduce at unnaturally accelerated rates. This causes the animals to become exhausted and stressed, putting their immune systems at higher risk for disease. Because all of the animals resulting from force breeding need to be stored, the unnatural overpopulation causes them to be cramped into small areas. They have no room to move, causing animals to get trampled to death or badly injured. The lack of space makes ventilation sparse and disease easily spreadable. To control the diseases among animals, the farm workers consistently feed them normally unnecessary antibiotics and hormones. In addition, these antibiotics are used to kill intestinal bacteria, stimulating growth to speed up production along with the hormones with which they’re injected.

The abuse is far from over with the raising of the animals. When the farm workers transfer the animals to the slaughterhouse, they still do not treat the animals as if their treatment could inflict pain. As animals are transferred, they are crammed into trailers, mostly in harsh temperatures. As cold weather worsens, animals start to freeze to the sides of the trailers. The skin of the pigs or cows sticks to the side, and when they are roughly being pulled off to enter the slaughterhouse, their skin remains on the trailer. Many who got sick or injured along the way are forced from the trailers with a bulldozer and piled with the other dead animals, waiting to join them in death. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says each year about ten percent or nine hundred million animals never reach the slaughterhouse.

After arriving from the farms, the animals are put in line to be slaughtered. Federal law requires animals be unconscious during processing, but unfortunately, that is not always the case. The majority of slaughterhouses use electrical wands or what the industry calls a “captive bolt” to make the animals unconscious, but these are not always effective. An account from a worker of a factory farm recounts, “To get done with them faster, we’d put eight or nine of them in the knocking box at a time. You start shooting, the calves are jumping, and they’re all piling up on top of each other. You don’t know which ones got shot and which didn’t. They’re hung anyway and down the line they go, wriggling and yelling, to be slaughtered, fully conscious.” Even with this requirement, some observations tell us thirty percent of animals being processed are still conscious while they go through the assembly line. One worker confessed, “A lot of times the skinner finds a cow is still conscious when he slices the side of his head and the cow starts kicking wildly. If that happens, the skinner shoves a knife into the back of its head to cut the spinal cord. This only paralyzes them, it doesn’t stop the pain.” The blame for this is put on faulty equipment or improper training of the workers. The U.S. Department of Agriculture conducted a survey among all United State slaughtering houses, showing barely thirty-six percent were using “acceptable” slaughtering techniques.

The inhumane act of slaughtering does not only affect the animals, it takes a toll on the workers emotionally and physically as well. A worker shares his experience with working in a slaughterhouse: “I’ve taken my job pressure and frustration out on the animals, my wife and on myself with heavy drinking. With an animal that makes you angry, you don’t just kill it. You blow the windpipe; make it drown in its own blood, spit in its nose. I would cut its eye out and the hog would just scream. One time I sliced off the end of a hog’s nose. The hog went crazy, so I took a handful of salt brine and ground it into its nose. Now that hog really went nuts….” Not only emotionally, the lack of training the staff has acquired can stay with them the rest of their lives. With bloody floors, sharp instruments, and thrashing animals surrounding, it’s easy to slip and injure yourself. Without closely paying attention, the heavy machinery could cause major injury. A worker testifies his observations: “The conditions are very dangerous and workers aren’t well trained for machinery. One machine has a whirring blade that catches people in it. One woman’s breast got caught in it and it was torn off. Another’s shirt got caught and her face was dragged into it.” Those disabled by machines and complain of the dangers are almost always replaced.

Those in the field of animal processing are not the only people affected by this way of producing. The consumers eating these meats produced by factory farms are also harmed. The antibiotics and hormones animals are required to eat because of the conditions they live in have harmful effects in humans who consume them. The animals are fed these antibiotics all of their lives, and they become part of their body. When we eat them, we also get the antibiotics and hormones they were given. Consuming these can create a long-term problem with our own health. The overdose of antibiotics can build up in our system, creating immunity from medicines used to fight certain strains of bacteria and illnesses. Overdoses in hormones also affect us negatively. Too much of a hormone can create growth problems in humans, just as it would make an animal grow unnaturally. Within the food we eat are also defects as a result of factory farming and inhumane slaughter. The food product from mass producing farms such as meat, eggs, and dairy products suffers in nutrition. Using improper slaughtering techniques results in blood-spattered meat only acceptable for low-grade meat products, such as hamburgers. As for eggs and dairy products, the force breeding and being injected with hormones to speed up the production affects the quality of the product. There are not as many health benefits and nutrition as a natural, healthy process would produce.

Yet another way factory farming affects the world around us is environmentally. When hundreds of animals are confined to one area, the surrounding land is harmed. So many animals create much more waste than land can support, as well as putting chemicals in the air through processing. This pollutes our soil, air, and water quality. The excessive amount of waste is stored in waste lagoons, which often leak, admitting the manure into our ground and waterways, adding bacteria. Side effects from this can result in Blue Infant Syndrome and other diseases. The manure is also taken by companies to spray as fertilizer, releasing chemicals into the air we breathe and a gas dangerous to those in close proximity to a large amount called hydrogen sulfide. Side effects range from sore throat to seizures and death.

In an attempt to stop this inhumane slaughtering, Congress recognized the Humane Methods of Animal Slaughter Act on August 27, 1958: “Congress finds the use of humane methods in the slaughter of livestock to prevent needless suffering; resulting in safer and better working conditions for persons engaged in the slaughtering industry; brings about improvement of products and economies in slaughtering operations; and produces other benefits for producers, processors and consumers which tend to expedite an orderly flow of livestock and livestock products in the interstate and foreign commerce. It is therefore declared to be the policy of the United States that the slaughter shall be carried out only by humane methods.” Though this held up while the demand for food was in smaller quantities, as it grew so did the inhumane treatment of animals. This created the need for President Bush to sign into law the “Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002.” This includes a resolution the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act of 1958 be fully reinforced to prevent this needless suffering of animals. It also requires the Secretary of Agriculture to track volitions and report them to Congress annually. This poses the question: if these requirements are laws to be reported annually, why has factory farming continued to be a problem? According to Arthur Hughes, Vice-Chairmen of the National Council of Food Inspection, the new federal regulations have given slaughterhouses more responsibility to comply with plant operation, but requirements have left them powerless to enforce them. He explains in an interview, “Drastic increases in production speeds, lack of support from supervisors in plants, new inspection policies which significantly reduce our enforcement authority, and little or no access to the areas of the plants where animals are killed, have significantly hampered our ability to ensure compliance with humane regulations.”

With all of the problems of factory farming evident above, the question comes to mind, “what can be done to change this?” Simply stepping up for the rights of animals made clear in the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act can change the way these factories are run. In 1999, McDonald’s and other fast food companies received word of what was happening inside these slaughtering houses. McDonald’s showed up to investigate if the safety concerns were true. They then set up newer guidelines for workers to follow, but nothing more. Ways to ensure you are not supporting this horrific issue is by buying products marked as organic or free range. They both mean cows, chickens, and pigs have not eaten pesticides and are not being raised in factory farms. This not only does not feed the fast food business money and encourage them to keep producing, but it also supports local farmers. Another thing to look into is http://www.localharvest.org/, a Web site that allows you to find local farms near you and regularly order fresh produce and other foods with a good cause.

Works Referenced

Bonné, Jon. “Can the Animals You Eat Be Treated Humanely?” Msnbc.com Web. 14 December 2011.

Farm Sanctuary. Farmsanctuary.org. Web. 14 December 2011.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA): The Animal Rights Organization. PETA.org. Web. 14 December 2011.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration Home Page. Web. 14 December 2011.

Mut (Courage)

Connor Shanley

In the book Hitler’s Willing Executioner’s, Daniel Jonah Goldhagen talks about how the German people under the Nazi regime were all willing to help Hitler commit his crimes against humanity. It is important, however, to acknowledge the fact there were Germans who disagreed with Hitler and who protested his policies. These people cannot be forgotten; they stood in the face of evil and defied it. These groups carried some of the most brilliant minds of the twentieth century from Sophie Scholl to one of the most famous theologians, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Some of these groups were non-violent, such as the White Rose society, who simply protested Hitler’s policies through writing. Other groups such as the Valkyrie plot and the Abwehr plot tried to eliminate Hitler and replace his government. Both violent and non-violent German resistance to Hitler under the Nazi regime was effective in discrediting and weakening the Nazi government.

The German resistance to Hitler was not made up of one organization. The resistance was made by many different efforts, and it manifested itself in many different ways. The first real resistance to Hitler came before he even got power. The first people to protest Hitler were the communists and socialists; during Hitler’s campaign for election, they protested against Hitler. After he took power, these communists and socialists helped Jews and political prisoners escape to friendly countries. When war broke out with Russia, they helped the invading Russian army with food, money, supplies, and information.

The communists and socialists never united into one single movement; they were rather scattered efforts throughout Germany. Three other major united movements or groups within Germany, who stood against Hitler, though. The first was a non-violent group known as the White Rose Society. The White Rose Society was established in 1942 at the University of Munich. It was founded by three students: Christoph Probst, Hans Scholl, and Sophie Scholl. These students did not lead any coup attempts or try to start a civil war. These students simply spoke about living in an inhumane society.

Hans and Sophie Scholl both originally supported the Nazi government. They were both proud members of the Hitler youth. Their parents were never supportive of the Nazi’s, however. Hans’s and Sophie’s view began to radically change when the Nazis started to invade other countries. Though their views changed in the 1930s, they didn’t start writing until 1942. This is when they began to write about the “Enslavement” of the German people under the Nazis.

In the summer of 1942, the White Rose Society started writing their first leaflets. The leaflets were entitled “Leaflets of the White Rose.” The first leaflet was dropped in the fall of 1942. It started some real disorder in Germany. People began printing copies and distributing them to other cities. The writings impacted some students in Hamburg so much they started their own “White Rose Society.” In Munich, anti-Nazi graffiti began to spread rapidly. The leaflets were even given to U.S. soldiers before they invaded North Africa. In the winter of 1943, the publications had to stop because Hans and Christoph were both sent to fight on the Eastern Front against the Russians. Once they returned in February, they started work on a second pack of leaflets entitled the “The Leaflets of Resistance.” Only two of these were published, however, before they were all arrested on February, 18, 1943. On February 22, their trial began. The three founding members stood bravely, but on February 23, all three were beheaded.

Hans Scholl, Christoph Probst, and Sophie Scholl served as martyrs for the academic community who stood against Hitler. Unfortunately, the Hamburg branch of the White Rose Society was also caught and many were sentenced to death. These examples served to inspire others to speak out against Hitler. This is the most well-known non-violent resistance to Hitler. There were many coup attempts on Hitler. Some of these attempts were non-violent; they simply wanted to overthrow Hitler, with no blood shed. Others were full-on assassination plots. These coup attempts came from many different places within German society. The most famous ones and the ones that almost worked, though, came from inside Hitler’s own military.

General Ludwig Beck was the Chief of General Staff of the German army. When Hitler announced Germany was going to invade the ethnically German parts of Austria, Beck was outraged. Beck said he would refuse to carry through any order pertaining to the invasion of Austria. Beck did not have to carry through any orders to invade Austria. Austria was annexed as part of Germany and did not put up any fight. In 1938, Hitler announced plans to invade the ethnically German part of Czechoslovakia. General Beck had a major problem with killing any Germans, even it was just through ethnicity. Beck again protested, suggesting all generals of the German army should resign because it would be a crime to kill other Germans.

He sent the following letter to his fellow generals: “The very existence of the nation is at stake. History will attribute a blood-guilt to leaders that do not act in accordance with their professional expertise and political conscience. Your military duty to obey [orders] ends where your knowledge, your conscience and your responsibility forbids the execution of an order. If in such a situation, your advice and warnings are ignored, then it is your right and your duty before the Nation and History to resign from your positions” (Schrader, “The First Coup”).

This failed not because other generals didn’t agree with him, but because they were afraid of what might happen to them. Beck resigned his post, but Franz Halder agreed with Beck. Franz Halder and General Hans Oster, head of counter intelligence, made a plan to arrest Hitler. They made a plan down to the tee to execute if Hitler ordered the invasion of Czechoslovakia. Unfortunately, the English and the French signed away Czechoslovakia, and there was no fight over it. So the generals could never carry out their plans, because there was no invasion.

After the first unsuccessful coup attempt, Hitler began to conquer all of Europe. By 1941, Hitler had conquered from the Arctic Circle to the Mediterranean Sea. Among the German public he was very popular. Hitler began to lose popularity in December of 1941, when he tried to invade Russia. Now Generals Beck, Olbricht, and Bussche began to make a plan to overthrow the Nazi regime. They were just waiting for Hitler to get more unpopular. General Olbricht wrote a plan in case of an uprising known as plan “Valkyrie.” Valkyrie detailed the set-up of a new government in the case of Hitler’s death or a rebellion. The plan was constructed so when Hitler was killed the Nazi regime would be taken out. In 1943, Oster and Tresckow joined the plot. In the summer of that year, Tresckow obtained plastic explosives from the English and placed it on Hitler’s plane. This attempt did not succeed. The bomb didn’t go off.

There were many other assassination attempts. One included all the conspirators shooting Hitler at lunch, but many objected saying it wasn’t honorable. They agreed on one plan in July of 1944. The plan was to have Colonel Claus Von Stauffenberg plant a bomb in one of Hitler’s meetings. This was the best option so that way the bomb wouldn’t just kill Hitler, it would kill his advisers as well. The plan was originally set for July 12, but it was delayed because Hitler’s right-hand man wasn’t present.

On July 15, however, Von Stauffenberg asked for permission to carry out the plan and plant the bomb. Olbricht could no longer wait and gave the order to go ahead and plant the bomb. The bomb went off but did not kill Hitler; the bomb was behind a leg of the oak table. Hitler’s life would have ended if the bomb was just half a foot to the right or left. They still tried to carry out plan Valkyrie. It didn’t work. The Nazis quickly stopped the plan. All the conspirators were caught; most were shot on sight.

The next attempt on Hitler’s life was led by one of the most famous theologians of the 20^th century, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Dietrich Bonhoeffer mixed the two types of resistance: at the beginning of the Nazi rule over Germany, he was passive. He simply was protecting the church; once the war started happening, Bonhoeffer realized violent action was necessary. He decided Hitler must be killed.

Dietrich Bonheoffer was born February 4, 1906. He was homeschooled in his early years. Bonheoffer graduated from Union Seminary in New York in 1930. In 1931, he began teaching at the theological faculty in Berlin. In 1933, Hitler’s rise to power sparked much debate within the German protestant church. There was a debate if they should let “non-Aryans” serve as pastors. Bonhoeffer was opposed to this idea of the Church putting a race restriction on pastors. Bonhoeffer was getting worried the Nazi regime was starting to take too much power in the church. Bonhoeffer formed his own church, called the confessing church. The Nazis were infuriated by Bonhoeffer’s teaching, and they outlawed his church. The fact the Nazis outlawed it did not make a huge impact, however; Bonheoffer still had an underground seminary for his church.

In 1939, Dietrich Bonhoeffer decided to join the “Abwehr” plot to kill Hitler. He continued on with the church until he was arrested in April 1943, after it was discovered he had given money to help Jews escape to Switzerland. The Abwehr plot still carried on, though, and on July 20, 1944, five days after the Valkyrie plot, the Abwehr plot tried to kill Hitler but failed. It was discovered Bonhoeffer was part of this plot. He was then sentenced to death and was executed in April 1945.

All of these groups showed great courage in the face of evil. They all stood up for what they believed was right and paid for it. It is important to recognize not all Germans supported the Nazis; some fought and gave their lives trying to defeat the Nazis. Others simply spoke the truth. In the end, all these groups succeeded in making the Nazi regime less powerful. They made other Germans realize what a twisted organization the Nazis were.

Bibliography

Barnett, Victoria. “Dietrich Bonhoeffer.” Ushmm.org. 1^st ed. National Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2009. Web. 10 October 2010.

Braun, Elihai. “Dietrich Bonheoffer.” Jewishvirtuallibrary.org. 1^st ed. Jewish Virtual Library, 2009. Web. 12 October 2010.

Hornberger, Jacob. “A Lesson in Dissent.” Jewishvirtuallibrary.org. 1^st ed. Jewish Virtual Library, 2010. Web. 10 October 2010.

Scholl, Igne. The White Rose: Munich 1942 – 1943. Farmington, PA: Weslyan University Press, 1983.

Schrader, Helena P. “1938: The First Coup Attempt.” Valkyrie-plot.com. 2^nd ed. 23 April 2008. Web. 10 October 2010.

—. “1942: Plan Valkyrie.” Valkyrie-plot.com. 2^nd ed. 23 April 2008. Web. 12 October 2010.

Redeeming Pandora

A Journal of Scholarship and Opinion