Munich Security Conference | Where world leaders brainstorm on peace

The latest edition of MSC a week ago assumed significance as it was here that Ukrainian President appealed for help ahead of Russian invasion

In January 1944, an audacious plan was hatched to eliminate Adolf Hitler. The plan included a military man packing two modified bombs in his pockets to kill the Fuhrer by detonating them. It was a suicide operation to be executed by a 24-year old infantry captain Axel von dem Bussche. Bussche was supposed to grab Hitler during a planned visit. But an Allied bombing raid disturbed that plan and Bussche failed in the mission.

A second attempt was made soon after in February. This time, Ewald Heinrich von Kleist, the young son of General Ewald von Kleist, one of the anti-Hitler officials of Nazi Germany, was fated to don the suicide vest. The date for the suicide mission was fixed as February 11, 1944. But again, the bombings disrupted the plans and Hitler survived.

The failure of the suicide mission was the first shot at global fame for Heinrich von Kleist. Ewald Heinrich von Kleist would emerge unscathed from the Second World War but Germany itself was divided into two parts — West Germany and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) — that belonged to two different blocks that defined four decades of Cold War that followed the Second World War. Interestingly, at the most dangerous moment of the Cold War, Ewald Heinrich von Kleist would find an opportunity to contribute to build a culture of dialogue and diplomacy.

The most dangerous flash point of the Cold War arrived in the autumn of 1962. As part of nuclear muscle flexing, the United States had placed Jupiter missiles in Italy and Turkey, which bordered Soviet Union at that time. Jupiter, a medium range ballistic missile (MRBM) with a range of 2,400 km was mainly aimed at key Russian cities, including capital Moscow, and challenged the might of the government of Nikita Khrushchev. This coincided with the Bay of Pigs fiasco when the U.S. government attempted to overthrow the Fidel Castro-led communist government of Cuba and earned condemnation of the Soviet bloc.

Angered by the direct intimidation through missiles and humiliation of Castro, the Soviets placed SS-4 missiles in Cuba. The U.S. government of John F. Kennedy discovered the MRBMs in Cuban defence facilities through high altitude photography. Within days the world was brought close to nuclear annihilation because of the standoff. After this dramatic event, the need was felt to foster a culture of close consultation and dialogue within the Western countries.

Ewald Heinrich von Kleist, in this backdrop began an annual conference to discuss international politics which would go on to become the Munich Security Conference, the most elaborate international discussion on global security outside of the United Nations.

A better venue could not have been thought of for such an annual event. Munich was the home of Christian monks but it had a reputation of being a city of entertainment, books and the world famous beer culture which supports a tradition of conversation and friendly debate. During the inter-war period, Munich also gathered a reputation as a city of diplomats and it was here that Hitler hosted the Italian Fascist ruler Benito Mussolini and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, and signed the Munich Agreement, which allowed for German annexation of Sudetanland of Czechoslovakia that was later blamed for stoking Hitler’s territorial avarice.