DEUTSCHE BUNDESPOST on the 20 July 1964 issued a First Day Cover with a stamp sheetlet marking the 20th anniversary of the assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler, which suddenly made the world aware that there was a German resistance against the National Socialist regime. Representing the numerous people who sacrificed their lives, the sheetlet contains eight commemorative stamps depicting such resistance fighters.
Featured:
20pf - Sophie Scholl was a German student and anti-Nazi political activist, active within the White Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany. She was convicted of high treason after having been found distributing anti-war leaflets at the University of Munich (LMU) with her brother, Hans. For her actions, she was executed by guillotine. Since the 1970s, Scholl has been extensively commemorated for her anti-Nazi resistance work.
20pf - General Ludwig Beck was Chief of the German General Staff during the early years of the Nazi regime in Germany before World War II. Beck became increasingly disillusioned and stood in opposition to the increasing totalitarianism of the Nazi regime and to Hitler's aggressive foreign policy. Public foreign-policy disagreements with Hitler made Beck resign as Chief of Staff in August 1938. From then on, Beck came to believe that Hitler could not be influenced positively and that both Hitler and the Nazi Party had to be removed from government. Beck became a major leader within the conspiracy against Hitler and would have served as head of state with the title of either President or regent ("Reichsverweser"), depending on the source, if the 20 July plot had succeeded. The plot failed, however, and Beck was then arrested. He reportedly made an unsuccessful attempt at suicide before he was shot and killed.
20pf - Rev. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian and anti-Nazi dissident who was a key founding member of the Confessing Church. Apart from his theological writings, Bonhoeffer was known for his staunch resistance to the Nazi dictatorship. He was arrested in April 1943 by the Gestapo and imprisoned at Tegel Prison for one-and-a-half years. Later, he was transferred to Flossenbürg concentration camp. Bonhoeffer was accused of being associated with the 20 July plot to assassinate Hitler and was tried along with other accused plotters, including former members of the Abwehr (the German Military Intelligence Office). He was hanged on 9 April 1945 during the collapse of the Nazi regime.
20pf - Karl Friederich Goerdler was a German conservative politician, monarchist, executive, economist, civil servant and opponent of the Nazi regime. Had the 20 July plot to overthrow Hitler's dictatorship in 1944 succeeded, Goerdeler would have served as the Chancellor of the new government. After his arrest, he gave the names of numerous co-conspirators to the Gestapo, causing the arrests and executions of hundreds. Goerdeler was executed by hanging on 2 February 1945.
20pf - Wilhelm Leuschner was a trade unionist and Social Democratic politician. An early opponent of Nazism, he organized underground resistance in the labour movement. Leuschner struggled actively in resistance groups close to the unions and maintained contact with the Kreisau Circle, and from 1939, also with the resistance group around Carl Friedrich Goerdeler. After the planned coup d'état, Leuschner was most likely to become Germany's vice-chancellor; however, Claus von Stauffenberg's 20 July 1944 attempt on Hitler's life at the Wolf's Lair in East Prussia failed. As a result, Leuschner was arrested on 16 August 1944, and was brought before the Volksgerichtshof, where he was sentenced to death on 8 September 1944. The sentence was carried out on 29 September 1944 at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin.
20pf - Fr. Alfred Delp was a German Jesuit priest and philosopher of the German Resistance. A member of the inner Kreisau Circle resistance group, he is considered a significant figure in Catholic resistance to Nazism. Falsely implicated in the failed 1944 July Plot to overthrow Adolf Hitler, Delp was arrested and sentenced to death. He was executed in 1945.
20pf - Helmuth James Graf von Moltke was a German jurist who, as a draftee in the German Abwehr, acted to subvert German human-rights abuses of people in territories occupied by Germany during World War II. He was a founding member of the Kreisau Circle opposition group, whose members opposed the government of Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany, and discussed prospects for a Germany based on moral and democratic principles after Hitler. The Nazi government executed him for treason for his participation in these discussions.
20pf - Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg was a German army officer best known for his failed attempt on 20 July 1944 to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the Wolf's Lair and remove the Nazi Party from power. Along with Henning von Tresckow and Hans Oster, he was one of the central figures of the German resistance to Nazism within the Wehrmacht. For his involvement in the movement, he was executed by firing squad shortly after Operation Valkyrie.
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