Should a Stauffenberg fix it?

It was not only the American Senator Lindsey Graham who brought the assassination attempt on Hitler into play as a model for solving the Ukraine war.

The – later relativized – statement by US President Biden that Putin could not remain in office raised the question, which had been asked for a long time, of how the end of Putin's rule should be brought about.

Graham backtracked a little later: Putin belongs in prison.

Reinhard Muller

Responsible editor for "current affairs" and FAZ objection, responsible for "state and law".

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But the call for a Stauffenberg comes as a surprise anyway, as the war-disabled colonel's assassination attempt on July 20, 1944, as is well known, failed.

And it was late.

In any case, the path taken by this group of conspirators to the attack was very long - not only long-discussed questions of tyrannical murder, the oath taken on Hitler, one's own survival, the organization of the attack and a new government play a role.

It was also no coincidence that this assassination attempt was only attempted when the war had turned and the crimes of the regime were becoming more obvious.

A successful "leader" and commander, although a criminal as well, would have been much more difficult to overthrow, especially since quite a few of the conspirators of July 20, including Stauffenberg, were initially enthusiastic about the new regime.

There is no doubt, however, that even the attempt was important.

The assassination had to take place, in the words of Henning von Tresckow, no matter what the cost, because "it no longer depends on the practical purpose, but on the fact that the German resistance movement risked life before the world and before history dared to make the decisive throw.

Everything else is irrelevant next to it.”

The carpenter Georg Elser came very close to blowing up almost the entire Nazi leadership on November 8, 1939.

The bomb detonated;

but the objects of the attack had exceptionally left earlier.

Several attempts to assassinate a tyrant failed, who on the one hand strictly paid attention to his safety, was traveling with a commando escort, special trains, and several airplanes, but on the other hand drove through the masses in an open car for a long time.

In any case, there was no assassination attempt from the outside that was even remotely successful.

This also applies in times of increasing democratization and juridification.

FDP politician Jürgen Möllemann considered killing Yugoslav President Milosevic during NATO's Kosovo campaign;

it appears as a lesser evil than air warfare.

For its part, NATO, while emphasizing that Milosevic was not the target of its attacks, bombed the President's residence and his party's headquarters.

Milosevic later died in custody in The Hague during a long trial before the UN Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

He was charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and serious war crimes.

The death penalty was out of the question – and nobody had demanded the death of the Serbian ruler.

That was certainly the case in the case of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein: American President Bush had demanded his death early on.

In the first Iraq war, the goal legitimized by the UN Security Council was to liberate Kuwait from the Iraqis.

Bush junior's war was different: Saddam's regime was to be eliminated.

He personally was the target of the first air raids.

But it ended before a special tribunal created by the Americans in Baghdad.

Bush praised the death sentence against Saddam as a milestone: "My decision to remove Saddam Hussein was correct because the world is in a better state because of it."

And yet it is not only the oppressed who hesitate, but other states to make the world a better place in this way, to oppose the existing order, even if it is dictatorial.

That's why Biden apparently easily slipped the label of Putin as a war criminal - while his demand for removal from office had to be corrected: "The President's point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region exercise.” The foreign minister added that “there is no strategy for regime change in Russia or anywhere else”.

After all, it is about a man whom Biden himself has described as a "murderous dictator" and "butcher".

But the demand for a regime change remains a taboo in a changed world - at least when it comes to strong states whose leaders still have to negotiate.

The right of every people to self-determination and democracy is not bombed out.

If necessary, one intervenes to help, but usually not to change the head of state.

During the invasion of Libya, the accusation was raised that the regime change had not been backed by the UN Security Council.

Of course, further developments cannot be ruled out.

Not even with regard to Putin.

Greatest butchers like Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot died peacefully.

And the Syrian dictator Assad is still in office quite unchallenged.

Ultimately, Putin's fate will be decided in Russia.