Hitler's Advocate

A British-made acid bomb hidden in a briefcase exploded on July 20, 1944 in Adolf Hitler's headquarters, "Wolfschanze," deep in an East Prussian pine forest. Four men were killed, but Hitler staggered out slightly burned and bruised, though his hearing was affected. Within a few hours, an implacable hunt for the conspirators was unleashed. Before it was over, thousands of Germany's anti-Nazis were exterminated.

The man in charge of tracking down the conspirators was veteran SS Agent Walter Huppenkothen. Last week, Huppenkothen, 44, tight-lipped and cold-eyed, stood trial in a Munich court. The charges against him: torture and murder of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris and five other July 20 conspirators.

A Nazi Party member, Admiral Canaris had headed Hitler's Abwehr, or espionage agency, from 1935 to 1943. Horrified with the party's excesses, he began using his position to plot against Hitler. He helped prospective terror victims escape, falsified reports to dissuade Hitler from invading Spain, saved the lives of French Generals Giraud and Weygand after Hitler ordered them assassinated. He and other undercover rebels kept a detailed chronology of Nazi crimes since 1933 and a card index of Nazi leaders. These and other documents, involving 2,000 Germans in the plot against Hitler, were subsequently seized by the Gestapo.

For Schnapps & Blutwurst. The Fuehrer's revenge, as executed by Huppenkothen, was aired by broadcast from the Munich courtroom last week, for all Germans to hear.

Conspirator Fabian von Schlabrendorff testified that he had been chained to a bed on the fourth floor of the notorious Prinz Albrechstrasse headquarters of the Reich Security Office. His body was stretched with mechanical devices, screws were driven into his thighs and thumbs. An SS man told him: "It has lasted a long time for the little admiral [Canaris]." Schlabrendorff asked the SS man if he wasn't sickened by his job. The shrugging reply: "We get a bonus of schnapps and blutwurst."

Hans Lunding, a Danish political prisoner, had a cell next to Canaris at Flossenburg prison. One day Canaris was led away for questioning. When he returned, the admiral raised his heavily chained arms and in the international code tapped out on the wall: "Bridge of my nose broken. My time is up. Send love to my wife." Next morning Lunding heard an SS man bark: "Strip off all clothes." Canaris, stripped, was led out never to return. (To humiliate the high officers in the plot, the Nazis stripped them, strangled many slowly with piano wire.)

To show how Huppenkothen made a farce out of a legal proceeding, the prosecution produced a surprise witness, Otto Thornbeck, who presided at Canaris' trial, and since the war has been conducting a quiet, respectable law practice in Nueirnberg. Said Thornbeck: "I submitted to the law in force at that time." He testified that under Huppenkothen's direction, conspiracy trials took three hours. Defendants were allowed no lawyers, got no bill of charges. Instead, Huppenkothen shouted the accusation at them, permitted a brief answer period. Then the death sentence was imposed, and next day the prisoners were executed.

For Torture. Huppenkothen coolly asserted his innocence, insisted he had never seen atrocities or torture chambers. It was Hitler's fault; he had decreed both the manner of trial and execution.

Munich judges and jury agreed that within the limits of Hitlerian law then governing Germany, the trials of Canaris and fellow conspirators were legal. Huppenkothen was acquitted of murder. But he was found guilty of using torture, sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison.

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