Suppose you are a combat veteran at the last, dark years of World War II. You have lived your entire life as a courageous person, and now, your army has betrayed you. It was the case with a man known as Captain Friedrich Klausing.

Klausing was a battlefield hero, but there was a secret. He was aware that the war was ruining his nation and therefore in 1944 he became a part of a renowned conspiracy to eliminate Hitler. Unfortunately, the strategy did not work. The leaders determined that he must die at once because he attempted to change things.


Something very cruel was done on his last morning in the army. They surrounded him before execution and tore the medals off his chest. They ripped the rank signs off his shoulders. They meant that he was no longer a leader or even a human being.


Then they took him to a wooden post in a secluded yard as the sun was rising. There were ten men in a line with rifles. A rifle was loaded with a blank bullet to make the soldiers less guilty. In this manner, each soldier might be hoping that he did not shoot the fatal shot.


Klausing had been proposed a blindfold, and, as most of the proud officers, he did not accept it. He stared in the barrels of the guns. The soldiers fired and he fell and a doctor examined his body. The head of the squad was obliged to fire one more shot with a pistol to be absolutely sure that he was gone. It is a true and sad story that depicts the extent to which leaders go to maintain control.

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