I have taught various humanities classes at the college level for the last quarter-century. I enjoyed history and especially art history classes. In my senior year at Muskingum College, I was Louie Palmer’s teaching assistant in the art department. I wrote the midterm and final exam for both semesters and taught several subsections weekly.

The combination of history and art history fascinated me. Understanding history helps explain why painters create their art. For example, Picasso painted Guernica in his cubism style, which was one of his five styles. It is a large mural, 11x25 feet.

Guernica

It reflects Picasso’s disdain for Hitler. In the spring of 1937, the German Luftwaffe attacked the small Basque city in northeast Spain to support another dictator, Gen. Francisco Franco. With Hitler’s military help, Franco was the longest dictator in European history.

There are many theories about Hitler’s mental state, beginning in his childhood. His father was abusive and an alcoholic. Hitler developed an arrogant and egotistical personality. After WWI, he probably had what we call today post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). As he got older, Hitler had a messiah complex and suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. Some diagnosed him as a hysterical megalomaniac. There is a litany of other psych disorders. Even if only a few were part of Hitler’s psychological makeup, Hitler was an emotional wreck.

Interestingly, before attending graduate school at the University of Edinburgh, I led a tour of American high school students to Salzburg, Austria. The students lived in the homes of the locals. I, along with the other tour guides in our group, also lived with families. I lived with Frau Lucas, who was old when I met her.

We would talk about what she thought as a person during the rise of Hitler. Frau Lucas would relate how he had enamored the people of Austria. She would say that he was the savior of Austria.

When Frau Lucas’ memories moved to WW II, her expressions of joy moved to the troubles that the war brought. She never went much further in discussing Hitler. She merely rolled her eyes and waved her hand as if she wanted to erase those memories. I never pressed her to discuss the war and Hitler. Issues like the holocaust and the POW internment camps are “a bridge too far.”

Frau Lucas did remember the story about Hitler, who went to a German beer hall in Munich in the early 20s and declared that he was taking over the government. She knew that his coup attempt at the Beer Hall Putsch wasn’t successful. She added that putsch is the German word for coup.

The 1937 march to the beer hall in Munich

Frau Lucas also knew that Hitler went to prison, where he wrote Mein Kemp. Interestingly, Hitler was going to title his book, Four and a Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice. However, by 1933, Hitler was the head of the Third Reich as the chancellor. Frau Lucas didn’t know much about the Reichstag fire. Nonetheless, Hitler’s decree, often called the Reichstag Fire Decree, suspended the German constitution “until further notice.” Ironically, the Germans did not have individual rights until the end of WWII.

Frau Lucas and many others had no idea that the German military’s sworn allegiance to Hitler had cracks in it. There were many attempts to kill Hitler. However, five major attempts to kill Hitler started in 1938. The Oster Conspiracy was designed by Major General Hans Oster. Oster’s group would start their coup when Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia. When Britain agreed to the Sudetenland, the coup was aborted.

Another plot was in 1939. It was called the Georg Elser Bomb Plot, which was a timed bomb that was to go off in Munich’s Bürgerbräukeller. The bomb plot was on the anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch. Hitler attended the ceremony but left several minutes before the bomb exploded.

Another bomb was timed to go off in flight that Hitler was on in 1943. Major General Henning von Tresckow and his staff devised a time bomb, which was alleged to be two liqueur bottles for Hitler that accompanied him during another flight. However, the bomb didn’t explode due to freezing temperatures in the cargo section of the plane.

A week after the previous attempt, Major General von Tresckow agreed to allow Colonel Rudolf Christoph von Gersdorff to carry some explosives on his person. Hitler was touring a museum in Berlin. However, Hitler's visit was too brief for the fuses to detonate.

I didn’t ask Frau Lucas about the July 20, 1944, plot to kill Hitler. This one received a great deal of media coverage. Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg had reservations about Hitler early. He also came into contact with Major General von Tresckow and others, who wished to remove Hitler. Colonel von Stauffenber, along with several others, decided to bring a bomb in a briefcase to a meeting with Hitler and other officers at the Wolf's Lair headquarters.

Wolf's Lair

The briefcase was placed under the table where Hitler was standing. The idea was that Hitler would be killed in the blast, then Operation Valkyrie would arrest the Nazi leadership in the wake of Hitler's death. It was hoped that Operation Valkyrie would bring an earlier end to World War II.

This video is of the movie Valkyrie, with Tom Cruise as von Stauffenberg.

However, one of the co-conspirators had accidentally moved the briefcase further away from Hitler, which meant the exploration didn’t kill him. Colonel von Stauffenberg was arrested and executed the following day. Over the next few weeks, over 200 other Germans were convicted at show trials and then killed. These executions were designed to put fear and trembling into the other German military leaders, who might wish to try assassinating Hitler.

A century after the Beer Hall Putsch, Trump, our Führer, lost the election to Biden, leading to the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Like his predecessor, Trump wasn’t happy. As a result, Trump had all the top American brass together at Quantico, VA, a couple of weeks ago. Defense Secretary Hegseth and Trump rambled on for two hours, talking down to the military leaders, discussing their future plans, and telling them how they should dress and behave.

Some of the estimated 800 top military personnel

These are additional members of the military.

As I looked at those 800 highest-ranking military officers sitting there listening to Hegseth and Trump telling them what to think, I wondered how many of the minds of those generals and admirals drifted back a century ago. After being lectured for over two hours, I’d love to know how many officers thought about Colonel von Stauffenberg and even discussed it with some of their colleagues. Time will tell.

This video is Stephen Colbert reflecting upon January 6.

This is The Daily Show reflecting on how Hegseth and Trump should act, dress, and behave.