In this extraordinary newly discovered and release footage, one can see Ambassador Ulrich von Hassell, Major Ludwig Freiherr (Baron) von Leonrod and Rev Hermann Wehrle before the People's Court, their eloquent defences and their ill treatment at the hands of the odious Court President, Roland Freisler.Freisler acts as both prosecutor and judge in a blatant breach of elementary natural justice and then, with all the venom he can muster, he screeches and screams at the victims earning himself the clandestine sobriquet "raving Roland". He ensured that his victims, the false accused, were further humiliated by having them dressed in old ragged clothes, often without any belt to keep their trousers up, so that they appeared before this Nazi kangaroo court looking shabby, scruffy and humiliated, particularly those who had been generals or high officials.
In these clips he finds Major Baron von Leonrod and his Father-Confessor, Fr Wehrle, guilty of knowing of the 20 July 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler, and of following Catholic theology in considering themselves not bound to reveal their knowledge (clearly because of Hitler's tyranny).
He then condemns them to death, to be hanged by wire, suspended from meat hooks, in the cells of Ploetzensee prison as "enemies of the Reich" but, in reality and in the eyes of God, as deeply heroic Christian martyrs.
We salute their courage in standing firm before the odious treachery, heathen villainy and pagan devilishness of the National Socialist German Worker's Party and its atrocious, diabolical leadership who, with their symbol of a cross with arms broken, the satanic swastika, declared war on the old, royal, noble and Catholic Germany of men like Count Claus von Stauffenberg, Baron Ludwig von Leonrod and Fathers Delp and Wehrle.
In so doing these National Socialists grossly besmirched and blackened the good name of Germany and the German people in the eyes of the world and poured filth upon the ancient history and heritage of a nation and people who, for many past centuries, had formed the political heart and centre of a once Christian Europe now banished by the evil of a modern, secularist, anti-Christian, neo-pagan, National Socialism.
Hail Christian martyrs of Catholic Bavaria
and of the old, once Christian, Germany!
and of the old, once Christian, Germany!
Freisler, who had been a Communist in his youth, had been sent to the Soviet Union to learn how they conducted their show trials of dissidents. He learned his evil trade well at the hands of the equally brutal Soviet prosecutors and judges.
Freisler himself was killed in a bombing raid not long after the 20 July plot trials when the court building was struck by a direct hit. He was found with a file in his hands about to persecute yet another victim of the "People's Court".
His victims are now commemorated in modern Germany as national heroes.
RIP. May they rest in peace!
May we draw strength from their courageous stand against evil. Consider what a singular honour it will be to spend eternity in heaven with men such as these. Are we worthy of the company of these gentle giants?
God give us the strength to learn from them and live as they did!
Our Lady, Queen of Martyrs and of Sorrows,
pray for us and for them!
pray for us and for them!
...
I spent an arduous Saturday morning once in 1988 travelling by public transport from Gatow, where I was staying for a few weeks, to the Ploetzensee Prison, to pay my respects to these men.
ReplyDeleteIt was very difficult to ge to indeed, but worth it.
Yes, difficult place to get to but, as you say, well worth it.
ReplyDeleteTrib.