Bill Kelly's excellent article connecting the Hitler assassination attempt and the assassination of JFK:
A new movie Valkarie, takes its name from the code word for the Nazi generals plot to assassinate Hitler, take over the government and appeal for peace, which resulted in the July 20, 1944 bombing at the Wolf's Lair bunker.
JULY 20, 1944 – NOVEMBER 22, 1963 – Bill Kelly
The July 20, 1944 plot to kill Adolph Hitler and the November 22, 1963 assassination of President Kennedy are separated by nearly two decades in time, yet they are entwined by a number of common attributes, indeed some of the same individuals were involved in both dramas.
Dr. Wilhelm Keutemeyer, Dr. Hans Bernd Gisevius, Mary Bancroft and Allen Dulles were four participants in the July 20, 1944 attempt to kill Hitler who also became players in the Dealey Plaza tragedy.
When Lee Harvey Oswald was identified as a suspect in the assassination, it was immediately determined that he had spent the previous night at the home of Ruth Hyde Paine. How did the Oswalds come to meet the Paines? We learn they met through the seemingly innocent, yet suspicious efforts of a German immigrant, Volkmar Schmidt.
Volkmar Schmidt was at the time an employee of Magnolia Oil Labs and was a friend and associate of George DeMohrenschildt, who encouraged Schmidt to meet Oswald. A party was set up at Schmidt’s house, which he shared with two other young men who worked in the same business, Everitt Glover and the son of one the founders of Radio Free Europe, Richard Pierce.
Schmidt was recruited in Germany by Magnolia Labs, a branch of the Magnolia Oil Company that was originally founded by a man (Little), whose rich widow was bilked by Jim Braden and his sidekick (Pierria) who were branded “The Honeymooners†when Braden was kicked out of Dallas for vagrancy by Sheriff Bill Decker, when Braden was living at the widow’s Turtle Creek home. Since then, Magnolia was bought up by a bigger fish – Mobil Oil.
Schmidt arranged for the early February, 1962 party at his place for Michael Paine to meet Oswald, but neither the host nor Michael Paine attended, so a second party was held (February 20th) at DeMohrenschilt’s apartment.
According to E. J. Epstein (in Legend, McGraw-Hill, 1978 p.204) and a telephone interview with Volkmar Schmidt (Bill Kelly interview with Volkmar Schmidt – Jan. 1995), it was a monumental meeting for both men.
Sitting across a table from Oswald, Schmidt had a three hour conversation with him. Schmidt later said that “almost from the moment Oswald began talking about his experiences in the Soviet Union†Schmidt was impressed by Oswald’s “burning dedication†to what he considered “political truth.â€
During the course of their conversation Schmidt said he used a “reverse psychology†technique that he had learned in Germany from Professor Wilhelm Kuetemeyer.
“When the conversation turned to the subject of the Kennedy administration, Schmidt expected Oswald would express the usual liberal sentiments about the President’s attempt to bring about constructive reform. Instead, Oswald launched into a violent attack on the President’s foreign policy, citing both the Bay of Pigs in April, 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis of October, 1962 as examples of ‘imperialism’ and ‘interventions.’ He suggested that Kennedy’s actions against Cuba had set the stage for a nuclear holocaust and further, that even after the Soviet missiles had been withdrawn from Cuba, American sponsored acts of sabotage and ‘terrorism’ against Cuba were continuing.â€
So Schmidt changed the subject, using a psychological technique learned from Err Professor Kuetemeyer, “He could see that Oswald had extreme and unyielding positions and realized it would do no good to argue with him. Instead, he tried to win his confidence by appearing to be in sympathy with its political views and making even more extreme statements.â€
“In an intentionally melodramatic way Schmidt brought up the subject of General Edwin A. Walker, who had been forced to resign from the Army because of his open support for the John Birch Society and other right wing extremist causes. (Schmidt) suggested that Walker’s hate-mongering activities at the University of Mississippi, which the federal government was then trying to desegregate, were directly responsible for the riots and bloodshed – including the deaths of two reporters on that campus. He compared Walker with Hitler and said that they should be treated as murders at large.â€
“Oswald instantly seized on the analogy between Hitler and Walker to argue that America was moving towards fascism. As he spoke, he seemed to grow more and more excited about the subject. Schmidt could see he finally got through to Oswald. As he listened to Oswald define more closely his political ideas, he began to work out his ‘Psychological Profile,’ as he called it. Oswald seemed to be a ‘totally alienated individual,’ obsessed with political ideology and bent on self-destruction. Even then, he reminded Schmidt of a Dostoevskian character impelled by his own reasoning towards a ‘logical suicide.’â€
Though unknown to Schmidt, within days of their conversation Oswald would order the rifle that was allegedly used to shoot at Walker and kill the President.
"When he returned home that night, Schmidt thought that he might be able to help Oswald if he could ‘get him out of his shell,’ He thought of arranging a small party for him where he could meet and talk with other people interested in political ideas. He particularly wanted (Oswald) to meet Michael Paine, an inventor and ‘creative genius’ at Bell Helicopter (whose father, George Lyman Paine, had been one of the leaders of the Trotskyite movement in the United States), and the two men with whom he shared a house in Dallas: Everett Glover and Richard Pierce.â€
So they have a party, and while neither Schmidt nor Michael Paine were present, Ruth Paine met Marina Oswald and became fast friends, while it would take a while longer for Michael Paine to meet Lee Harvey Oswald.
In a footnote, (p. 353), Epstein notes: “Kuetemeyer had been experimenting, according to Schmidt, on a group of schidoids during World War II. The experiments had been interrupted in 1944, when Kuetemeyer had become involved in the plot to assassinate Hitler and had been forced into hiding from the Nazis.â€
Dr. Whilhelm Keutemeyer was a professor of psychosomatic medicine and religion at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. Keutemeyer’s son was Volkmar Schmidt’s best friend, and Schmidt looked to Keutemeyer as a surrogate father figure. Keutemeyer was also a colleague of Swiss psychoanalysist Carl Jung, who attempted to use his professional associations in attempts to influence Hitler’s behavior. When that failed they just tried to kill him.
According to Schmidt, Keutemeyer was also associated with Herr Von Halen and Dr. Adam von Trott zu Solz, both of whom were captured, tortured and executed because of their roles in the failed assassination and coup of July 20, 1944. (For details of their roles Peter Hoffman’s the History of German Resistance, 1933-1944, MIT Press, 1977).
Also involved was one Dr. Hans Bernd Gisevius, a Gestapo officer assigned to Switzerland, who tried to get the OSS chief of Bern, Allen Dulles, to broker a separate peace between Germany and the Western Allies, without Hitler, to fight the Russians together. This plot evolved into the July 20th bomb explosion at the Fuhrer’s “Wolfschanze†bunker headquarters near Rastenburg, Germany.
Col. Claus Schenk Grav von Stauffenberg planted a briefcase bomb under the map table next to Hitler, left the bunker, witnessed the explosion and the flew back to Berlin where he met with Gisevius. Together they drew up press releases to counter Goebel’s propaganda, but when it became clear that the bomb failed to kill Hitler (the heavy wooden table leg saved his life), those responsible were rounded up and executed. Many hundreds, some say thousands were eventually implicated, but somehow, Gisevius went underground and eventually escaped using false identification provided to him by Allen Dulles, though his personal assistant Mary Bancroft.
Mary Bancroft, the stepdaughter of the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, was also Dulles’ mistress at the time, and served as a intermediary between Dulles and Gisevius. She also helped Gisevius translate his history of the Third Rich, later published as “Bis zum bittern Ende.†(two volumes, Fretz & Wasmuth, Zurich, 1946, 1954; To the Bitter End,†Richard and Clara Winston, Jonathan Cape, London, 1948; Rutten & Loening, Hamburg, (1964).
As related in her own “Autobiography of a Spy†(William Morrow, 1983), Mary Bancroft was a close personal friend of Michael Paine’s mother Ruth Forbes Paine Young. Their intimate friendship dated from the 1920s when Ruth Forbes Paine was married to New York architect Lyman Paine, one of the founders of the Trotyskite movment in the U.S. and father of Michael Paine. Bancroft and Ruth Forbes Paine traveled extensively overseas and were together on board an ocean liner when Bancroft met her future husband, a Zurich businessman.
Hans Bernd Gisevius was called to testify for the defense at the Nurenberg trials, but instead of aiding them, he helped send the Nazis to the gallows. He then came to America where Allen Dulles provided him with a $5,000 a month retainer and set him up in the home of his CIA deputy Tom Braden. At the time Braden was head of the International Organizations Division (IOD), and his assistant was Cord Meyer, Jr., who would later take his place. Cord Meyer, Jr. was the co-founder of the World Federalists, which also included it’s Philadelphia adherents, Michael’s mother Ruth Forbes Paine Young and Priscilla Johnson McMillan, when she was a student at Bryn Mawr.
So there you have it - Dr. Wilhelm Keutemeyer, Dr. Hans Bernd Gisevius, Mary Bancroft and Allen Dulles, four direct participants in the July 20, 1944 Hitler assassination attempt and failed coup d’etat, who also became related to the events that culminated in what happened on November 22, 1963.
The main difference between the two events is that the July 20, 1944 plot failed, and those responsible or even remotely associated with it were rounded up and executed without trial, while the November 22, 1963 succeeded and those responsible assumed command.