Like espionage and treason. For my parents spies traitors. And later i realized that i was not alone in having such thoughts. I felt from the very beginning that i was somehow an outsider but i could not figure out why the other children was so hostile towards me there was several times when children jumped on me and wanted to beat me up weve been. Through that and then finally my teacher said to my mother its this now its clear to me what accident so bad at school as the son of a traitor i cannot expect anything else. Went deep in this calm when my mother came home after that. I never actually seen her cry before but i remember that i saw something terrible and realized that she had tears in her eyes went. About those things you never forget when you were a child or 2 or deceived your dignity month its couldnt miss for against. Germany at the end of the 19th thirtys the polish facade of a dictatorship the nazis were pumping a lot of money into rearmament the economy was booming and the number of unemployed had fallen below the 1000000 mark. The people were excited about germanys new power but also hitler was about to lead germany into a war that would cost tens of millions of people their lives and destroy half of europe. A few people resisted. But a group of officers saw that hitlers policies were pushing germany into the abyss. Caesar from hope aka a cousin of close shrink but of french dolphin bag the army officer who tried to assassinate hitler joined in the plans for a coup he had moved his wife and 5 children to Upper Bavaria his son trade remembers him the biota and by an uncut as soon as he arrived in bavaria the 1st thing he would do was take off his uniform and pull on his leather shorts up and i have very happy memories of my father he was laughing for the 100 that was of course because it was the Holiday Season that he was at home and could devote himself to our family and was able to laugh heartily thats an image that has stayed in my memory one for which i am very grateful to have been shut up for. Lieutenant colonel going to smith was only 30 when he was appointed to the german armys general staff which dolphin back managed to recruit into the ranks of the plotters axis meant was born in may 1904 though todays pushed and he is of course although they were married for 6 years from 1988 to 944. 00 my mother once told me that they had only seen each other for a total of 44. 00 days you. See although he wrote more than 2000 letters from the front and that was the way things were back then don its. My father gunter visors born and my mother joy married in berlin in 1941. At a held a reception that evening in his studio. My father was a successful playwright and he had a lot of friends in the berlin art scene. And. His best friend haro schultz a voice and turned up in uniform. A large circle of happy fascist friends had formed around him and his wife labor touch. To stop assuming that circle the red orchestra. It was like dancing on a volcano some of the wedding guests would be executed a year later labor toss and haro to. Ante nazi resistance had begun earlier hello shoots of boys and worked in the air ministries Intelligence Section he knew about hitlers secret plans for war against the soviet union in 1941 before hitler came to power shultz of poison was a staunch opponent of the nazis in 1933 he was severely mistreated by the s. S. And they beat a jewish friend of his to death in front of his eyes. Afi tanakh and his american wife mildred were friends of schultz of boys in the naacp worked as a senior Civil Servant in the ministry of economy the 2 made contact with the american and soviet embassies and passed on news about hitlers war preparations. The soviet embassy gave hanukah radio transmitter and said his friend hunts copy was to use it to send messages to moscow. Copy came from the communist Youth Movement he was just 17 when the nazis put him behind bars for almost 2 years in 1901 he married his fiance hailed it as the nazis vance as anti nazis they were not just willing to discuss resistance or make jokes about the nazi lost but also to help people or hand out leaflets with a look at that. Death is that they were ready to run these risks because they thought well well do it if we dont have an h. B. O. The members of the socalled red orchestra came from all walks of life aristocrats communists christians artists and workers all circles where not everyone knew each other personally a lot of women were involved Office Worker erica from book door was brought in by your husband kai a sculptor her daughter saskia was born in 1937 or 2 beaten homes even they were not easily intimidated by authority and were never taken in by the nazis hollow rhetoric. For this and. What everyone in the group shared was the desire to get rid of the hitler regime to end the war and to stop the persecution of the jews they didnt look the other way like the majority of germans did they helped the persecuted hid them and got them out of the country. Dentist dr hellmuth hippa treated jews in their hiding places and his girlfriend helped them with food packages or young pianists tell him or drop off sometimes played music with the couple went on had him. One day hempel took my father aside and asked him if he wanted to work with him. My father didnt understand what he meant because he was a pianist and hempel was a dentist and he didnt know at that point why or how they should collaborate. But then hempel said what i say now puts my life in your hands. And then it immediately became clear what he meant my father replied then we can Work Together that was a huge relief. All of a sudden and this and this extremely narrow and fascist world he had found some like minded people because. Most members of the group came from the Youth Movement. Sailing camping hiking and making music into the countryside and into the blue. They loved life. Their celebrations were legendary the love the romance and the freedom it was all part of their lives lives they risked every day and their resistance to hitler and the war any of their clandestine activities were punishable by death. In the red orchestra wanted to use information to counter the nazis propaganda. In february 9427 months after the invasion of the soviet union they wrote victory by nazi germany is no longer possible. This war. The 2nd conflict in 1902 reported the mass murder of jews in soviet civilians in the east. Shoots a boysen was working in the cultural film center which was collecting secret information and picture material about german war crimes on the Eastern Front the mass murder of the jews pushed many officers into the resistance my father knows with divine feuds that my father was transferred to the general staff in 1043. And then he saw probably for the 1st time all the terrible things that were happening because then he started to take part in the briefing sort and then of course he also saw how much injustice there was in germany because he had to can dismantle his adjutant to army chief of staff courtside. Frenched often back asked him to win over title for the coup. Were decent for what he tried but failed to cite lets hope my father as far as im concerned this conversation never took place and. 20th 1944 a bomb went off in hitlers eastern headquarters. The would be assassin colonel klaus french dolphin bag had launched a coup his cousin say is often ho foka who was one of more than 200. 00 officers and civilians involved in the coup was in paris where detained the local gestapo and s. S. Leaders. For a front hall foka remembers that radiant summer day all too well. And every night i think it was around 7 oclock am we used to listen to the damage opportunities on the day that night there was a special announcement and these were the words he used a criminal group of german officers has tried to murder hitler who didnt know. We all froze the next thing i remember my mother silently rose from the dinner table which was quite unusual i looked out the window because i wanted to know what she was doing and i saw her hurriedly lighting a fire in the garden with a few guns has figured for you and got an answer and for no fuckers mother was burning letters from his father sees a friend who was arrested 5 days after the failed assassination when im out of food and my mother found out about my fathers 1st interrogation when i got stopped the officer asked him to stop whatever way you thinking of half and hope that on monday you have a wife and 5 children and father madonna behind to talk on photos which my father responded with a quote from hina slightly modified what do i care for my wife and child this is about my country if i had to make a great effort to understand that and im sure my mother had problems with it too he knew that the prospects of success would minimal he told my mother the chances were 98 to 2 so they all knew they were going to do something and not survive and he mad at those inventors maturity. The family was separated the mother and older siblings were sent to a concentration camp guarded by 2 for hers was put on a train to bad success in the arts mountains where the nazis interned the children of the conspirators. We arrived totally exhausted of course and i still remember what the warden told us if anyone asks you for who you are to then you only answer with your 1st name for the nazis wanted to wipe out the families of opponents of the regime and put their children up for adoption and im worse and we were housed in a large dormitory and had already turned out the light and the Kindergarten Teacher had gone to bed when said i will now say our last name so we can get to know each other i heard. And then my name. Than i then a shell from a cousin mentioned a great aunt of mine and i said hey you thats my great aunt. It was quite strange within a few minutes we found we belong together but we still didnt know why we were there even on his recent phone that author salman. Caesar from her father was subjected to particularly harsh interrogation because because star power wanted to squeeze the names of the coconspirators out of him. He was able to smuggle packages out of prison through a guard. There was even a package with a tattered blood stained shirt where we wondered what my father wanted to achieve with that stuff not that the shirt was mended and watched but he wanted to give a visible sawing to the outside world record. In the spring of 1902 the discovery of red orchestra agents in belgium had led to the arrest and interrogation of members of the group in germany. My father always kept a diary. But the entries stopped abruptly in september 1942. To stop all came to the studio at 5 am on the 26th my parents were arrested theyd already arrested their friends haroche voice and argued hard knock the gestapo would track them down by decipher a radio message from moscow to brussels giving their names and addresses they had been watched. Gradually the gestapo found out how large the group was over 120 people were arrested in germany alone the oldest was 86 the youngest 17 when the gestapo found a suitcase with a broken radio at the home of the pianist helmont all of he and his friends were interrogated as these and thats the Crucial Point was that these friends had covered him with and he knew it would use or and they knew about him in return as they all knew about each other to such an extent that they could rely on each other. Promote all of pretended to be an innocent musician that saved his life. But because short of boys and some of the others were military officers they faced a court martial. The nazis wanted to keep the extent of the group from the public and ambitious investigating judge months later botha was put in charge of the prosecution he was to ensure that all the defendants received the death sentence the dame wanted out of the void my mother really had a small private fight with the rig he was so autocratically deluded but she didnt let him humiliate her and then also loft that he couldnt take that. My hand military chief justice and this woman loft wouldnt. Hitler personally insisted that the prison sentence handed down to erica from blocked off was converted into a death sentence. For a 5 year olds askia it was a huge shock when her mother suddenly disappeared from her life. Capi was pregnant when she was arrested and her son hunts was born in the womens prison. His father was executed less than a month later. I was and i was in my the mood of often with my mother was always a particular Reference Point for the pain i suffered. With but with the it was an unconscious thing because i couldnt really remember that but i had left me with a feeling that never diminished me up and in fact its recently become even stronger. And i cant bottle it up. As income on the shelf lift. 50000. Copy was allowed to breastfeed her son for 8 months then on august 5th 1983 like the other women in the red orchestra she was beheaded by the guillotine inputs and as a prisoner she was 34 years old special preparations were made for the executions at pratt since a prison even before the death sentences were handed down hitler had ordered the installation of an iron rail with 8 hooks to hang several prisoners at the same time it was a particularly cruel method of execution that reflected the nazis hatred of a group of conspirators at the very heart of German Society after july 20th 1904 the plotters were hanged on the same books that were used for the red orchestra. The nazis had wanted to keep the trials of the red orchestra members secret but the trial of the july 20th plotters was to be used for propaganda purposes. Make sure the very smart officers put them before a socalled Peoples Court and filmed the whole farcical process says Court President hold on for a slow condemned the defendants to death. But foresters humiliation of the defendant was so shocking that the nazis never even released the film. On. The way. I put it which is who Police Officers what a rally that must have been of all of them sitting here at the same tone. And if you will. Not. I. You can hardly imagine how that behaved. I think youre going to see if i can actually think in terms of right or wrong here too. Of course i can really only see my father and so im also very anxious in this room your book homes and of course i know what moved him he knew he wouldnt get out of the situation and his last thoughts were certainly with his family was so kind of if some good the bones of your lips were different. For superman and try try to imagine my father let think he was certain he had no way out so he could put all his passion into his own plea because he had nothing to lose. And his statement mr president it is about my life today but tomorrow it will be about yours shows that it must have hit hard with enticement of perfection from. Thats why we have a nickname. Was. Pretty quiet but i predict that if i had im doing. It from now on if you look. Like an awful. Lot about it i bet. So in the light of wonder when i stand here now i really admire the defendants who stood here and you had the selfcontrol and courage to express things with clarity in their rhetoric and in particular with clarity in their minds in our class in the. I know in christ. You know you know if you want to get here i dont. Believe you dont. Yeah yeah i did good order if. You paid it right. Almost 3000. 00 death sentences were carried out an approach and say under the nazi regime. Before her execution erica from blocked off wrote a farewell letter to her little daughter but the letter never reached and was later found in the east german archives no one had thought it necessary to actually give it to her it was so for the existence of police i knew nothing of the existence of the letter so not like if id received it at the right time lets say as a teenager not as a child maybe it would have been too much for a child but if id got it when i was still young my life we would have been different. If for years i was angry and i also felt forsaken. At the meal for less than good. So a little bit about the way it went i didnt get the letter until 62 years later. Listen volume is close and say was san still lives and can a spacious place for me. And its also a place of silence and individual encounters with. Anything. I havent had any good experience or this one ive shared with others. And i dont feel very good about it. I cant actually get my pain across to people. In the death certainly plots and say interests meant was slipped a little book the thoughts of good to sugar and hurled are lame and scenes from the bottle. You had for me but i got the roads and it just for me. Axles baptismal of. Another day he wrote. I can hardly speak now because the lump in my throat is too big. With the. Then in another place he wrote. If only i could see our children again. I really could too. Thats what he wrote on 8th of september the day of his execution im tough to him because the. Contest meant was 31 years old. By the end of the war and more than 150 people that were taken part in the july bomb plot had been killed. Its our interest this week its really the most horrible place i know. But its the place where i always see my father on the gallows and i cant get that picture out of my head would dispute you only hear worse. Every year on july 20th the family members meet for prayers. Its and im going to like and we family members are basically alone in a protected area and every time is always a renewed experience for me. Because i not only see the hook above me this neat whole condition of the house but of course i also see my father hanging there and i. Am. Here for fire in front of our liberation was quite sudden someone knocked on the cellar door and the door opened and in front of us was a negro black as night but. Far you know. Weve never seen a negro with a helmet and a machine gun and a big smile as he looked at us children and he reached into his pants pocket and gave us some chewing gum and that quickly dispelled our fear. Well done for being in italy and then it must have been a week or 2 later when we were all summoned doug and then this mayor a social democrat who had been released from the concentration camp turned out. He stood on the table and we children were all lined up in front of the table. And he said you can be proud of your fathers they were heroes and we all looked at each other quite moved and then he left and we went back to business as usual. But it didnt really affect us on going and what it really happened was not actually discussed much damage to her discredit us versus the thank you for the for pursuing. The period of did not support cation and reconstruction began. At 1st nobody cared about the resistance fighters. My father survived the prosecutor had asked for the Death Penalty but he avoided execution through luck and the help of friends my father got 3 years in prison for failing to report a crime after the liberation he plunged back into cultural life he collected information about the resistance in 1907 he gave a speech on the anniversary of the burning of the books. Well this pyar this fiery farce of stupidity was ignited by misguided use it as small a fire on the oakland plots marked the start of a global conflagration which blew back on us and destroyed these houses around it should look at it like. That even. My father wanted to bring munford rather to court and he denounced him to the americans in nuremberg who wrote it did appear at the nuremberg trials but as a witness not a defendant he had been working for the American Secret Service under the code name othello he gave the americans the gestapo version of the red orchestra and supposedly europe wide network of paid communist agents who were just waiting to become active again under moscows leadership. In the cold war that was now beginning rohde became a valuable ally of the west the Public Prosecutor in the book investigated the 40 death sentences he had passed. Come in. There you can read among other things by a prosecutor who was in actual fact running the investigation into rotors activities. He said he had acted relatively humanely given the importance of the case. And in fact a lot more Death Penalty should have been handed down for the month of august. In the end the investigation against month trade order was shelved he ran a farm near luna borg and campaigned for radical right wing parties. Then because he was so close to the east german border and feared he could be kidnapped he moved to the thomas region the citizens of glass who to elected him deputy mayor for the c. D. U. None of the 3rd ikes hanging judges was ever held to account in west germany a generous pension allowed to order to live comfortably until his death in 1971 the families of the resistance fighters had a different tale to tell often they had to fight for years to get their pensions oxus ments mother was one of them rooted event and the pensions offices were a bureaucratic jungle. And you can tell from an all 4 letter to my mother. Or you could tell from the german that the clerk was disgusted at having to write to my mother to leave it was certainly a terribly unpleasant time for so i was usually fewer more to. Virtually no one was removed from the staff of the administration in judiciary in the new federal republic of germany all eyes were on the future. Before we didnt have a complete replacement of the population in germany mention the same people live there often 8945 as the forest and skin for this development that the resistance fighters were not on it but on the contrary for many years with vilified as traitors as about you and their families is that wives or children of traces of the 950 s. Were not a good time for the families of the resistance vices and kind should set. Public recognition for the victims of july 20th 1904 came slowly the 1st major Memorial Service with president to your door you sent chancellor conrad out an hour only took place in 1954. Meanwhile the german democratic republic saw itself as the 1st anti fascist state on german soil it promised to do everything better. I was a pioneering pioneer if you like look pretty and of course i later joined the free germanys organization and was also a candidate for Party Membership because my father simply refused to talk about my mother it was always a kind of hard core inside me but he does find it very hard to count. The nazis had sentenced as ask his father to 4 years in prison and he survived the war in a penal battalion in the g. D. R. He tried to adapt to the new regime. Copy grew up with his grandmother at the beginning of the 1950 s. Street schools and even nurseries were named after his communist parents he became the child of heroes and marks and as an adolescent as an 111213 year old i just couldnt live. With those were the times where i lay in bed at night and said man why did you do that get us good mom. Thats me to a top 40 what really made me angry was kind of like when i was 14 i asked my father about the red orchestra and he said to me weve promised the soviet comrades that in the sort of voice im using now very official we have promised the soviet omers not to talk about it the struggle is not over there comes its not was it formed with. The communists saw the red orchestra as to bush why into ideologically diverse paying too little attention to the moscow line in east germany if you had time for the july plotters either just a bunch of aristocrats and officers who were worried about their farms but suddenly in the mid 1960 s. The red orchestra was honored after all but in the soviet union the east german leadership hurriedly changed its tune. The game because as. We got you and forgot it was because of the publication of the history of the Labor Movement and which the schultz a voice in the hard knocks group became the schultz of boys and hard organization. Thats why the and then they discovered it also had contacts with moscow. And sent important more information from berlin to moscow with the radio my father had sapped half from my father is this a. Secret police boss it was milk it had a feature film made. Keylock a to p. T. Ex one of the most expensive east german productions ever telling the tale of agents to do the party line. Copy jr did some of the research in moscow. What the government isnt very truthful yes so i wanted to find out which radio messages he sent they surely must have arrived here and so on. But i was told no we dont have any radio messages why are there somewhere else you know i was told theres only one radio message from the 23rd or 24th of june 1041. In other words right after the invasion of the soviet union began it was called a 1000 greetings to all friends us. But the film shows a lot of radio traffic both music as modern that made his men did it against that with a judgment for. They knew that had never been any radio traffic but that didnt stop them spreading all sorts of fantastic nonsense about it just had to be heroic enough and these mutual stereotypes in east and west meant that the stereotypical image of the spies at the red orchestra had remained so powerful it was so long in so many minds that almost until the present day its enjoyed taking time if you. Just got let me as motivated as i would is a mute toss this myth was so good that one could hand it seamlessly down from the interrogation protocols at the top of the interrogation records of the nazi Courts Martial to speak to a news magazine in 1968. In a 10 part series that year dia should be legal repeated to stop those lies about a europe wide Intelligence Group under soviet leadership and 500. 00 radio messages. From brock gough felt hemmed in in the g. D. R. She wanted to travel in 1902 she married a peruvian and moved with him to south america. She later moved to west berlin but she still couldnt shake off the past. But me of the truth but it was only when everything came to a head that i said to myself i understand it cannot be good for your life to run around with this bitterness inside you someone recommended a psychologist he was a curious in his parents also tried to oppose the nazis i told her how i felt and she said listen its completely normal for you to be angry and feel abandoned as a child you couldnt feel any differently if you knew nothing about it unless im trapped and that was the only or. The loss of our food when whole fockers father also left in his family. But i was the one who had a problem with my mother and i couldnt deal with her. And i was always a very angry child and when i was even angrier after the war my mother often stood in front of me and said what would your father have said now if he were with us. That was a club that managed to silence me at once of course for them because my mother would then shut herself away and then come out again with tears stained dolls house. And then in the mid 1970 s. Entrepreneur who now a father and self made a surprising discovery. Indictive is often by i found the proverbial trunk in the attic of our house front i opened it and found loads of material about my father. And fairy and suddenly i had a completely different picture of him with the name i had to recognize my father was a resistance fighter. But how does that work he was originally a fervent nazi too he was. In these 2 extremes merged and that was really difficult. And that for me was ultimately decisive. These contradictions in my fathers biography 1st ordination all socialist and supporter of the system then passionate resistance fighter. This iraq survey in the same biography strange as it may sound only brought me closer to my father. Now he stands before me as a person i can worship as a son whom i can love and feel emotionally connected to young can even con him or to nominate him a full blown. Farewell from home the holidays are over i have to go back to boarding school my father found his way in cultural life he tirelessly fought for the recognition of the resistance but he never achieved his lifes goal to rehabilitate his friends in the red orchestra. He got caught between the millstones of the east west conflict and lies on both sides. He never had a chance. My father died in february 1969 at the age of 66 months copy is devoted decades to the history of the red orchestra and written numerous books. Because ive missed as of course it has followed me. And ive really got no reason to distance myself from my parents. The didnt i think they would be fine with what im doing in this field. And the story hasnt let me go because my parents didnt let me go cannot bid them farewell when in fact. In 1908 the convictions of the conspirators of july 20th were not but it took longer for the women and men of the red orchestra the German Parliament did not know of their convictions until 2967 years after the fact. Its not good news for most that since then ive known that there should be a memorial stone here that was sometime in the fall and then next spring i said to myself you have to do something and because berlin has no money anyway ive taken it on myself when im. 63 years after her mothers death as a scare received her farewell letter at last. But leaves us clear shuffle does my dear saskia i hope that these lines will reach she one day by then i will have been long gone but i wanted to tell you that i have very often indeed almost always thought only of you in my cell my dear dear child i wish you all the best for your life may you be an open honest upright person except for your father whom i loved above all else you were everything to me even if you are still very small now you will still remember me and that will comfort me on my last journey do you remember when i said nobody loves me and you jumped up and put your little arms around my neck and said but mommy i love you so much in these 4 months i have relived the day in the hospital when i held you in my arms for the 1st time so you can blame me for many things but not for being a bad mother. I firmly believe that there will come a time when you have 2nd thoughts about me and many others i would have liked to experience that but now i am also not that its different there is a wonderful calm and cowardly within minutes and a 1000 greetings and kisses from your mother goose kiss from the number. Off. 2 the front. Line are they starry eyed idealists or p. R. Strategists. Main business starters are out to change the world they build Online Platforms that are made to then make money. Cuts to stop shops like teams have a future or on a minute just a marketing shake. Pan made in germany 13 g. W. To. Enter the conflict zone confronting the powerful my guest this week outside the capital of time paying is cho she was seeking the nomination of his probation fast in the carbon tax as china pushes moving creasing urgency for reunification and the taiwanese continue to reject its quota and sees party come to Office Conflict so few minutes on the double the full. Its been 50 years since the moon landing. And all i will ever meet was the 1st man to walk on the moon as a small boy he dreamed of the stars. As a pilot he flew no matter how dangerous he should go to the ball. Is a mystery he took part in the greatest adventure in history and one off. Guard by a. New armstrong starts july 20th on t. W. On wednesday the United States announced that turkey is being kicked out of the f. 35 next Generation Fighter Jet Program the move came after turkey began implementing russias s 400 air Defense System last week washington fears the russian air Defense System would allow moscow to gather inside information about americas new stealth fighter. The World Health Organization has declared the Ebola Outbreak in the