Adam von Trott was a member of the German Resistance during the time of the Third Reich. He worked tirelessly traveling internationally of behalf of the Resistance working toward the common goal of overthrowing Adolf Hitler while still protecting the German people. Trott’s priorities were clear. His short term goal of protecting the existence of the German state accompanied his long term goal of the creation of an international government organization who’s mission would be the collective protection of individual state sovereignty.
From the spring of 1943 to the fall of 1944, he travelled to various countries such as Sweden, Switzerland, and Italy where he met with Dr. Ivar Anderson, David McEwan, and Schulze-Gaevernitz. The goal of his travels were to meet various contacts, which he could then use to influence the Allied policy of dealing with the eventual terms of German surrender. Trott used these contacts to be a voice for the preservation of the German state as well as a voice for his ideas for an international government organization — not unlike the United Nations.
During Trott’s travels, it was very clear that Trott was opposed to the idea of unconditional surrender. If Germany were to accept this, the Allied forces would take over the country and use it to their own disposal. They would help rebuild the state, but would not preserve the German culture. In other words, it would become a puppet-state of the Allies and Russia. Trott pleaded with his many contacts the importance of negotiations that would benefit the Allies and Russia, but also the German people. In doing so, he pushed to get rid of Hitler, but let the working class leaders in Germany to take charge of rebuilding the government and the people.
Trott commented on the peace programme of the American Churches where he voiced his idea of having an international organization based on basic principles of law rather than who has the biggest army. This organization should “ensure the cultural autonomy and equality of all peoples, (Hoffmann 228)” which would parallel with his goals of protecting German people and culture from the result of an unconditional surrender. By having this organization, a country would be further limited in the use of militaries as a force as well as limiting the national sovereignty from corruptness. Essentially, it is an organization to police nations on unlawful actions. Trott wanted this mainly to keep Russia from taking over a weakened Germany after the war. He feared that if the Allies were not on the same page, Russia would move west and potentially have control of Eastern Europe and Germany. Trott wanted Germany to be a democracy, and with Russia taking over, it would become another dictatorship under the control of Stalin and Communist Russia. When visiting with Schulze-Gaevernitz, he let on to his concerns of the increased Russian influence in Germany as well as all of Stalin’s ideas for post war Germany. It can be speculated that Trott was very concerned with Russia’s great interest and the Allies lack of concern with how to rebuild Germany after the war.
In actuality, Woodrow Wilson came up with the fourteen points to help the world recover from the world war. A United Nations was created, which was very similar to Trott’s idea of an international committee, to keep peace and prevent countries from becoming too powerful and abusive with the power they have. However, Trott’s fears did happen with the build up of the “iron curtain” and the creation of Czechoslovakia, which took six countries and formed one communist state. Essentially Trott envisioned that NATO would have prevented the expansion of Communism into countries that did not want Communism thus preserving a countries right to individual national determination. I agree with Trott that there should be international alliances or committees that are more proactive about protecting a countries right to govern themselves without the imposition of other nations rather than today’s reactive organizations that do not send adequate aid until military violence has already begun i.e. not sending aid until ISIS is beheading people on live TV regularly.
Adam von Trott was a prominent member of the German Resistance who devoted the last years of his life to the preservation of his homeland. He worked not only for the short-term goal of saving his people, culture, and the state of Germany as a whole but also advocated the destruction of Adolf Hitler and the dictatorship. He also expressed ideas of a government organization that would regulate international foreign policy in order to protect individual state sovereignty which one could speculate was realized in the creation of the United Nations.