‘There Will Be Another Hitler Some Day’

Ewald von Kleist, 88, a former officer in the German Wehrmacht and the last surviving member of the July 20, 1944 plot against Hitler, discusses Germany’s elimination of conscription, why German soldiers need to toughen up and his failed attempt to kill Adolf Hitler.

SPIEGEL: Mr. von Kleist, for decades, conscription has been seen as a guarantee that the Bundeswehr, Germany’s armed forces, wouldn’t develop into a sort of state within a state. Now conscription has effectively been abolished. Do you agree with the decision?