The most conventional thing in the newly established Stauffenberg memorial in Stuttgart is the replica of a map table from the Führer's headquarters, the "Wolfsschanze".

There Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg tried to kill the dictator Adolf Hitler on July 20, 1944.

Otherwise, as soon as you enter the cellar vault in the Old Castle, the viewer senses the intention of the exhibition organizers to create a "new type of memorial" and to take a different path than in 2006. At that time, a first memorial was set up in the castle, in which only Stauffenberg's cello and some documents could be seen.

Stauffenberg grew up in the Old Palace because his father was the chief court marshal of King Wilhelm II of Württemberg and his mother was a friend of Queen Charlotte.

Rudiger Soldt

Political correspondent in Baden-Württemberg.

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Stauffenberg is the best-known and politically most abused resistance fighter against National Socialism.

A memorial relating to the life story only exists in Stuttgart.

In addition, he is of course honored in the "German Resistance Memorial Center" in Berlin and in Albstadt-Lautlingen, in the former family castle.

The fundus is small today

Because the Nazis took the Stauffenberg family into custody after the assassination, important files from the trial of the Hitler assassin were burned, and the pool of documents and exhibits is still small today.

The Nazis distributed the property to the National Socialist Welfare Organization and allowed the villa in Bamberg to be looted.

Stauffenberg's cello and honorary saber, which absurdly enough was owned by DKP chairman Herbert Mies until 1999, are also important exhibits in the new exhibition.

The head of the House of History, Paula Lutum-Lenger, project manager Cornelia Hecht-Zeiler and curator Christopher Dowe have set up a multimedia and interactive memorial in the vault for almost 700,000 euros - and because the history of National Socialism is becoming historicized today.

When designing the concept, the historians took two other developments into account: About a third of the visitors to the old memorial came from abroad.

And when school classes come, about half of the students come from immigrant families.

The exhibition is also intended to counteract a trend in social media, where Stauffenberg is sometimes misused by right-wing extremists as a model for assassinations against democratic politicians ("Valkyrie 2.0") or vilified as a traitor to the fatherland.

“We want to enable self-discovery learning.

We want students to position themselves on the material being presented,” says Dowe.

"The historical figure has been transformed and exploited beyond recognition," adds Hecht-Zeiler.

“With this exhibition we are also looking

A long way to becoming a resister

The first section of the exhibition depicts growing up in a family, followed by an introduction to the thoughts of the later Hitler assassin, his heroization of the “actual people”, the references to the George circle and the veneration of the general Napoleon.

The biographical approach is intended to show Stauffenberg's change from a committed Wehrmacht officer loyal to the regime to an opponent of the regime and organizer of a coup movement.

A field post letter he wrote about Poland on September 14, 1939 shows how far the path to the failed assassination attempt in the “Wolfsschanze” actually was: “The population is an incredible rabble, a lot of Jews and a lot of mixed people.

A people who only feel comfortable under the knout.

The thousands of prisoners will do our agriculture quite well.

At each of three stations - 1933, 1939 and 1942 - the exhibition shows how the relationship between the later assassin and National Socialism changed.

An interactive monitor shows how Stauffenberg's personal networks developed during the Nazi dictatorship.

On a map, these contacts are divided into civilians, military, police/SS and also women - the Gestapo and later resistance research underestimated the role of women in the resistance, probably because of the traditional image of men and women.

There is no lack of reference to the present

In the middle of the vault there is an interactive media table, on which every visitor can reconstruct the 20th of July for themselves by clicking on people, places and individual events.

In order to broaden the perspective of the historical figure, the curators have made two films, a German-Israeli and a German-Polish school project, which can also be seen in the exhibition.

There is no lack of reference to the present.

Many visitors keep asking why it could take so long before there was a serious attempt to overthrow the National Socialist regime.

There are two documents in the last display case: The cartoonists Greser and Lenz ask whether Putin might not be stopped by a new Stauffenberg.

And an anonymous leaflet that unknown persons had pasted on the door of the memorial states: Stauffenberg was an anti-Semitic member of the Wehrmacht and by no means an "anti-fascist" - so it was wrong to honor him.

Both show how topical the question of resistance is.