What makes you a kasinofaehiger Widerstandskaempfer?

[Rebing <Rebing@compuserve.com>]

Ironically under the subject "List Discipline" there were of late some
strangely shrill notes in this discussion. Good tidings indeed to encounter
now the subject "Amical Proposal".

However, I have my problems signing the truce. Point 2 stipulates never to
call EJ a resistance fighter any more. I never did - who on the List did in
the first place? 

If we left the discussion at that we would leave some confusion unresolved.
For the question remains who can legitimately be called a
Widerstandskämpfer according to Roberto Haab's high moral standards? 

Stauffenberg not only risked his life but gave it after the failed attempt
to assassinate Hitler on 20 July 1944. But for Roberto Haab he does not
qualify because prior to his joining the conspiracy he had been loyal to
Hitler, who was not just a monster, but also the supreme commander of the
Wehrmacht in which Stauffenberg served as an officer.

On the other hand, Sophie and Hans Scholl were students at the University
of Munich when they distributed there their homemade anti-Hitler leaflets
and  were arrested and executed. If they qualify for the honourable title
of Widerstandskämpfer it must be, according to that logic I am trying to
grasp, not because they were more idealistic or courageous but because they
were civilians. Theirs was not the dilemma of having to decide whether to
obey, sabotage or defy the orders of their military superiors. Before he
obeyed the dictate of his moral conscience Stauffenberg had tried to live
according to a code which is also Roberto Haab's: a soldier's honour is to
obey orders. A soldier who becomes a resistance fighter within an army
commits treason. Only when an attempted coup has succeeded, under a new
regime or in other countries the traitor may be glorified retroactively as
a hero of resistance. 

So can a soldier, who does sabotage or defy orders, be his commander
Hitler, Eisenhower or some Swedish or Swiss general, qualify as a
Widerstandskämpfer in the eyes of any old troupier of any army? And if
civilians like the Scholls might qualify because for them there was not any
military honour to be tainted with treason -- what army's officers would
care about declaring such civilians kasinofähig?

This is why I cannot believe that there is such thing as a kasinofähiger
Widerstandskämpfer. 

Admittedly, this is a civilian's view. I belong to an age group (Weisser
Jahrgang) that was never drafted. Infantrymen, put me right if I
misunderstood the military and its logic here!
Having thus explained why  I cannot follow Roberto Haab's reasoning at all,
I join him nevertheless in his amicable proposal: Let us not make the
mistake to  label EJ with that patently inappropriate and even confusing
idea of Widerstandskämpfer.

I add a proposal of my own.  Bertil Häggman, who with admirable patience
has put forward in the course of this discussion the facts which
corroborate his judgment, has found, to my mind, the formula which we all
might subscribe to: EJ leistete Widerstand, he showed resistance. 

Günter Rebing