1944.07.27 “Mobilizing for the Last Stand”
by Frederick (Fred) Otto Seibel (1886 – 1969)
14.6 x 23.3 in., ink on paper
Coppola Collection
Frederick Seibel began his career as a cartoonist in 1916 for the Knickerbocker Press in Albany, New York. He moved to Virginia in 1926 to become an editorial cartoonist for the Richmond Times-Dispatch and worked there for over 30 years. Over the course of his career, he did several shows at Metropolitan Museum Of New York, Art Institute of Chicago and Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Seibel died in 1968 after completing nearly 16,000 cartoons. His most famous cartoon was "Retreat from Moscow," (5 November 1936) depicting presidential candidate Alfred E. Smith as Napoleon after FDR's landslide victory in 1936.
As early as 1938, German military officers had plotted to overthrow Hitler, but indecisive leadership and the pace of global events stymied action. Plotters gained a sense of urgency in 1943, after Germany lost the Battle of Stalingrad and Soviet forces began to push towards Germany.
The “20 July” plot was another failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler, the chancellor and leader of Nazi Germany, and overthrow the Nazi regime on July 20, 1944. The plot, named Operation Valkyrie, was famously dramatized in the 2008 Tom Cruise film, Valkyrie. The plotters were part of the German resistance, mainly composed of Wehrmacht officers. The leader of the conspiracy, Claus von Stauffenberg, tried to kill Hitler by detonating an explosive hidden in a briefcase. However, due to the location of the bomb at the time of detonation, the blast only dealt Hitler minor injuries. The planners' subsequent coup attempt also failed and resulted in a purge of the Wehrmacht.
The event was publicized worldwide. News in the West emphasized the growing sense of rebellion and revolt inside the Nazi regime, and particularly against Hitler.
Each passing month brought Nazi Germany nearer to the end.
Within days of the 20 July event, the ranks of the Nazi military were purged and those around Hitler pressed for retaliation and displays of strength. The Reich Plenipotentiary for the Total War Effort was a position created by Hitler on July 23, 1944, for Joseph Goebbels, who was also at the time the regime's Propaganda Minister. The purpose of the new office was to rally the German people behind an effort to achieve "total war,” in which all civilian resources and all aspects of civilian infrastructure are subordinated to the needs of the military and the war effort. The idea to create the new office, and to appoint Goebbels to it, had come from Goebbels himself.
The factor which, more than anything, changed Hitler's mind about going ahead with total war was the attempt by officers of the Wehrmacht to assassinate him in the July 20 plot. This reinforced his feelings that his generals were undermining his efforts to win the war. This, in Hitler's mind, had led to the steady worsening of the German military position in the East, in the war against the Soviet Union.
Although the public announcement of the creation of the new office implied that the idea had come from Goering, who was still at the time Chairman of the Ministerial Council for the Defense of the Reich, it was in fact Goebbels' idea.
