this charming man

Some persons have complained that yesterday's post was alarmist, depressing. Fine. I'm more than willing to lighten things up. No more doomed-Japan talk for awhile. Instead let's talk about Hitler.

Valkyrie by Philipp Freiherr von Boeselager

The subtitle of this book reads

THE STORY OF THE PLOT TO KILL HITLER BY ITS LAST MEMBER

when it could just as well read

THE STORY OF A GERMAN OFFICER OF GOOD BREEDING AND NOBLE INTENTIONS WHO HAPPENED TO JOIN SOME OTHER FINE GENTLEMEN IN THEIR EFFORTS TO RID GERMANY OF A DISHONOURABLE, RUINOUS TYRANT

and you'd pretty much have the book.

You're not going to find any blood or monsters here. Even Hitler is rather minor to the whole thing -- just the distant, shadowy essence of a menace which is losing the war and ruining Germany.

Growing up on a Rhineland estate (canals, moats, corner towers, acres of wilderness), Von Boeselager's childhood is made up of enlightened Christianity, a classical but liberal education and hunting. Lots of hunting. And this hunting, the practice and idea of which Von Boeselager returns to again and again in his story, is that aristocratic kind of hunting with trained and trusted dogs, done at dawn, in crisp forests and with a crystalline mind. He is not so much hunting as being a hunter. This is an aesthetic and intellectual exercise.

Give him a British title and change his name to Edgar and you get the idea.

Of course he joins the cavalry: the army is separate and apart, its own culture, and within that the cavalry is like a talented nobility. Its officers are apolitical. The Nazis won't last anyway. Kristallnacht is distasteful. The generals will act. In the meantime, there is jumping, dressage and the racecourse to attend to. War comes. The fall of France is a grand adventure! The invasion of the Soviet Union is even greater. Too great, in fact. Only the cavalry can be depended upon over these immense distances, especially during winter. Because winter is a horror. Reconnaissance becomes attack becomes constant defense. The Soviets are rallying. Terrible things are happening in the rear areas. The war is being lost. Russia is a vast, intractable problem. Everybody, including Von Boeselager, gets wounded. He is assigned to the staff of Army Group Centre. The plots begin. Assassination attempts are delayed, cancelled. Explosives fail to explode. Finally, Stauffenberg pulls it off. Only he doesn't. Then everybody gets arrested and dies. Von Boeselager is lucky and escapes detection. At the end of the war he manages to get his beloved cavalry away from the Russian front. Then they go hunting.

This could very well be a book for young adults; it tells its history like one of the Imperial Guard reminiscing about Waterloo. You can almost smell the pipe smoke.