I
All prospects of opposition to Hitler had been dimmed following the astonishing chain of military successes between autumn 1939 and spring 1941. Then, following the promulgation of the notorious Commissar Law, ordering the liquidation of captured Red Army political commissars, it had been Colonel (as he was at the time) Henning von Tresckow, Field-Marshal von Bock’s first general staff officer at Army Group Centre, who had been instrumental in revitalizing thoughts of resistance among a number of front officers – some of them purposely selected on account of their anti-regime stance. Born in 1901, tall, balding, with a serious demeanour, a professional soldier, fervent upholder of Prussian values, cool and reserved but at the same time a striking and forceful personality, disarmingly modest, but with iron determination, Tresckow had been an early admirer of Hitler though had soon turned into an unbending critic of the lawless and inhumane policies of the regime.8 Those whom Tresckow was able to bring to Army Group Centre included close allies in the emerging conspiracy against Hitler, notably Fabian von Schlabrendorff – six years younger than Tresckow himself, trained in law, who would serve as a liaison between Army Group Centre and other focal points of the conspiracy – and Rudolph-Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff, born in 1905, a professional soldier, already an arch-critic of Hitler, and now located in a key position in the intelligence section of Army Group Centre.9 But attempts to persuade Bock, together with the other two group commanders on the eastern front, Rundstedt and Leeb, to confront Hitler and refuse orders failed.10 Any realistic prospect of opposition from the front disappeared again until late 1942. By then, in the wake of the unfolding Stalingrad crisis and seeing Hitler as responsible for the certain ruin of Germany, Tresckow was ready to assassinate him.11
During the course of 1942, a number of focal points of practically dormant opposition within Germany itself – army and civilian – had begun to flicker back to life. The savagery of the warfare on the eastern front and, in the light of the winter crisis of 1941–2, the magnitude of the calamity towards which Hitler was steering Germany, had revitalized the notions, still less than concrete, that something must be done. Beck, Goerdeler, Popitz, and Hassell – all connected with the pre-war conspiracy – met up again in Berlin in March 1942, but decided there were as yet few prospects. Even so, it was agreed that former Chief of Staff Beck would serve as a central point for the embryonic opposition. Meetings were held soon after with Colonel Hans Oster – head of the central office dealing with foreign intelligence in the Abwehr, the driving-force behind the 1938 conspiracy, who had leaked Germany’s invasion plans to Holland in 1940 – and Hans von Dohnanyi, a jurist who had also played a significant part in the 1938 plot, and, like Oster, used his position in the foreign section of the Abwehr to develop good contacts to officers with oppositional tendencies12 Around the same time, Oster engineered a close link to a new and important recruit to the oppositional groups, General Friedrich Olbricht, head of the General Army Office in Berlin and Fromm’s deputy as commander of the home army. Olbricht, born in 1888 and a career soldier, was not one to seek the limelight. He epitomized the desk-general, the organizer, the military administrator. But he was unusual in his pro-Weimar attitude before 1933, and, thereafter – driven largely by Christian and patriotic feelings – in his consistent anti-Hitler stance, even amid the jubilation of the foreign-policy triumphs of the 1930s and the victories of the first phase of the war. His role would emerge as the planner of the coup d’état that was to follow upon the successful assassination of Hitler.13
Already as the Stalingrad crisis deepened towards the end of 1942, Tresckow – later described by the Gestapo as ‘without doubt one of the driving-forces and the “evil spirit” of the putschist circles’, and allegedly referred to by Stauffenberg as his ‘guiding master’ (Lehrmeister) – was pressing for the assassination of Hitler without delay.14 He had become convinced that nothing could be expected of the top military leadership in initiating a coup. ‘They would only follow an order,’ was his view.15 He took it upon himself to provide the ‘ignition (lnitialzündung)’, as the conspirators labelled the assassination of Hitler that would lead to their removal of the Nazi leadership and takeover of the state.16 Tresckow had already in the summer of 1942 commissioned Gersdorff with the task of obtaining suitable explosives. The latter acquired and tested various devices, including British explosives intended for sabotage and for the French Resistance that had been captured following an ill-fated commando expedition to St Nazaire and a catastrophic assault on Dieppe in 1942. Eventually, he and Tresckow settled on a small British magnetic device, a ‘clam’ (or type of adhesive mine) about the size of a book, ideal for sabotage and easy to conceal.17 Olbricht, meanwhile, coordinated the links with the other conspirators in Berlin and laid the groundwork for a coup to take place in March. The plans to occupy important civilian and military positions in Berlin and other major cities were, in essence, along the lines that were to be followed in July 1944.18
One obvious problem was how to get close enough to Hitler to carry out an assassination. Hitler’s movements were unpredictable. As we have had cause to note, he frequently – not just for security reasons – altered his plans at the last minute. Such an undependable schedule had in mid-February 1943 vitiated the intention of two officers, General Hubert Lanz and Major-General Hans Speidel, of arresting Hitler on an expected visit to Army Group Β headquarters at Poltava. The visit did not materialize. When Hitler suddenly decided to visit the front, on 17 February, it had been to Zaporozhye not Poltava (which Army Group Β had in any case by then left).19 Hitler’s personal security had, meanwhile, been tightened considerably.20 He was invariably surrounded by SS bodyguards, pistols at the ready, and was always driven by his own chauffeur, Erich Kempka, in one of his own limousines which were stationed at different points in the Reich and in the occupied territories.21 And Schmundt, Hitler’s Wehrmacht adjutant, had told Tresckow and Gersdorff that Hitler wore a bullet-proof vest and hat. This helped persuade them that the possibilities of a selected assassin having time to pull out his pistol, aim accurately, and ensure that his shot would kill Hitler were not great. Nor was the chosen sharp-shooter, bearer of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves Lieutenant-Colonel Georg Freiherr von Boeselager, sure that he was mentally equipped to shoot down a person – even Hitler – in cold blood. It was an entirely different proposition, he felt, from firing at an anonymous enemy in war.22
Nevertheless, Boeselager made preparations for a group of officers, who had declared themselves ready to do so, to shoot Hitler on a visit which, it was hoped, he would soon pay to Army Group Centre headquarters at Smolensk. The visit eventually took place on 13 March. The plan to shoot him in the mess of Field-Marshal von Kluge, commander of Army Group Centre, was abandoned since there was a distinct possibility of Kluge and other senior officers being killed alongside Hitler. Given Kluge’s wavering and two-faced attitude towards the conspiracy against Hitler, more cynical plotters might have thought the risk well worthwhile. As it was, they took the view that the loss of Kluge and other leading personnel from Army Group Centre would seriously weaken still further the shaky eastern front. The idea shifted to shooting Hitler as he walked the short distance back to his car from headquarters. But having infiltrated the security cordon around him and set up position to open fire, the assassination squad failed to carry out their plan. Whether this was because Hitler took a different route back to his car, or whether – the more likely explanation – the danger of killing Kluge and other officers from the Group was seen as too great, is unclear.23
Tresckow reverted to the original plan to blow up Hitler. During the meal at which, had the original plans been carried out, Hitler would have been shot, Tresckow asked one of the Führer’s entourage, Lieutenant-Colonel Heinz Brandt, travelling in Hitler’s plane, to take back a package for him to Colonel Hellmuth Stieff in Army High Command. This was in itself nothing unusual. Packages were often sent to and from the front by personal delivery when transport happened to b
e available. Tresckow said it was part of a bet with Stieff. The package looked like two bottles of cognac. It was, in fact, two parts of the British clam-bomb that Tresckow had put together.
Schlabrendorff carried the package to the aerodrome and gave it to Brandt just as he was climbing into Hitler’s Condor ready for take-off. Moments before, Schlabrendorff had pressed the fuse capsule to activate the detonator, set for thirty minutes. It could be expected that Hitler would be blown from the skies shortly before the plane reached Minsk. Schlabrendorff returned as quickly as possible to headquarters and informed the Berlin opposition in the Abwehr that the ‘ignition’ for the coup had been undertaken. But no news came of an explosion. The tension among Tresckow’s group was palpable. Hours later, they heard that Hitler had landed safely at Rasten-burg. Schlabrendorff gave the code-word through to Berlin that the attempt had failed. Why there had been no explosion was a mystery. Probably the intense cold had prevented the detonation. For the nervous conspirators, ruminations about the likely cause of failure now took second place to the vital need to recover the incriminating package. Tresckow rang up Brandt to say a mistake had occurred, and he should hold on to the package. Next morning, Schlabrendorff flew to Army High Command with two genuine bottles of cognac, retrieved the bomb, retreated to privacy, cautiously opened the packet with a razor-blade, and with great relief defused it. Mixed with relief, the disappointment among the opposition at such a lost chance was intense.24
Immediately, however, another opportunity beckoned. Gersdorff had the possibility of attending the ‘Heroes’ Memorial Day’, to take place on 21 March 1943 in Berlin. Gersdorff declared himself ready to sacrifice his own life in order to blow up Hitler during the ceremony. Tresckow, for his part, assured Gersdorff that the coup to follow Hitler’s assassination would lead to an agreement with the western powers for capitulation while continuing the defence of the Reich in the east and introducing a democratic form of government. With some difficulty, problems of ensuring that Gersdorff would be close enough to Hitler to bring off the assassination, and problems of establishing precisely what time the ceremonials would begin – given security precautions, betrayal of this fact was in itself dubbed sufficient to warrant the death penalty – were overcome. The timing of the attempt was a third problem. The best fuse that Gersdorff could come up with lasted ten minutes. The ceremony itself, in the glass-covered courtyard of the Zeughaus, the old arsenal, on Unter den Linden, the beautiful tree-lined boulevard running through the centre of Berlin, presented no possibility of detonating an explosion in his close proximity. And once Hitler was outside, inspecting the guard of honour at the war memorial on Unter den Linden, laying the wreath, speaking to selected wounded soldiers, or conversing with guests of honour, Gersdorff would have no cause to be near him. His chance would have gone.
The attempt had to be made, therefore, while Hitler was visiting the exhibition of captured Soviet war-booty, laid on to fill in the time between the ceremony in the Zeughaus and the wreath-laying at the cenotaph. Gersdorff positioned himself at the entry to the exhibition, in the rooms of the Zeughaus. He raised his right arm to greet Hitler as the dictator came by. At the same moment, with his left hand, he pressed the detonator charge on the bomb. He expected Hitler to be in the exhibition for half an hour, more than enough time for the bomb to go off. But this year, Hitler raced through the exhibition, scarcely glancing at the material assembled for him, and was outside within two minutes. Gersdorff could follow Hitler no further. He sought out the nearest toilet and deftly defused the bomb.25
Once again, astonishing luck had accompanied Hitler. Whether it was concern about the possibility of an allied air-raid, which, as we saw in an earlier chapter, had been anticipated; whether Hitler’s security advisers had given a hint of concern for his safety at a public appearance, given the uneasy atmosphere after Stalingrad, when, following the ‘White Rose’ protests of the Munich students Hans and Sophie Scholl and their friends, rumours of an attempt to overthrow the regime were circulating; or whether Hitler himself, ill-attuned to having to give a public performance in sensitive circumstances while the country was reeling from such a military disaster, had scant feeling for the ceremonials and simply wanted to get them over with: whatever the reason, yet another attempt, conscientiously planned despite the difficulties, and undertaken at notable risk, had failed. A new opportunity would not rapidly present itself.
The depressed and shocked mood following Stalingrad had probably also offered the best possible psychological moment for a coup against Hitler. A successful undertaking at that time might, despite the recently announced ‘Unconditional Surrender’ strategy of the Allies, have stood a chance of splitting them. The removal of the Nazi leadership and offer of capitulation in the west that Tresckow intended would at any rate have placed the western Allies in a quandary about whether to respond to peace-feelers.
Overtures by opposition groups to the western Allies had been systematically rebuffed long before this time. For example, for his pains in liaising with German churchmen belonging to the resistance who wanted to sound out the British government about their attitude towards a Germany without Hitler, Bishop George Bell of Chichester was described by Anthony Eden, the British Foreign Secretary, in words redolent of those once allegedly used by King Henry II to usher in the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket in 1170, as a ‘pestilent priest’.26 Despite long-standing contacts with leading figures in the conspiracy – including Carl Goerdeler, Adam von Trott, and the radically-minded evangelical pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer (who had spent some time in ministry at the German church in south London) – the resistance was regarded by the British war-leadership (and the Americans shared the view) as little more than a hindrance. A successful coup from within could, it was felt, endanger the alliance with the Soviet Union – exactly the strategy which the conspirators were hoping to achieve – and would cause difficulties in establishing the post-war order in Germany. The key criterion was how far action by those within Germany who opposed Hitler would contribute to the Allied war effort. A British government internal memorandum written little over a month before Stauffenberg’s bomb went off in Hitler’s headquarters gave a clear answer: ‘There is no initiative we can take vis-à-vis “dissident” German groups or individuals, military or civilian, which holds out the smallest prospect of affording practical assistance to our present military operations in the West.’27
Though prepared to distinguish between the Nazi leadership and the German people, Allied thinking was less ready to separate Hitler and his henchmen from his military leaders and from the Prussian traditions which, it was thought, had been a major cause of two world wars. Now, with the war turning remorselessly in their favour, the Allies were less than ever inclined to give much truck to an internal opposition which, it appeared, had claimed much but achieved nothing, and, furthermore, entertained expectations of holding on to some of the territorial gains that Hitler had made.28
This was indeed the case, certainly with some of the older members of the national-conservative group aligned to former Reich Price Commissar Carl Goerdeler whose break with Hitler had, as we have seen, already taken place in the mid-1930s. Goerdeler and those loosely aligned to him – notably former Chief of Staff Ludwig Beck, one-time German Ambassador in Rome Ulrich von Hassell, Prussian finance minister Johannes Popitz, and ex-Nazi enthusiast and Berlin professor of politics and economics (Staat- und Wirt-schaftsswissenschaften) Jens Jessen – despised the barbarism of the Nazi regime.29 But they were keen to re-establish Germany’s status as a major power, and continued to see the Reich dominating central and eastern Europe. Goerdeler, presumed to be the new Reich Chancellor in a post-Hitlerian government, had envisaged in early 1942 ‘a European federation of states under German leadership within 10 or 20 years’ if the war could be ended and a ‘sensible political system’ put in place.30 In summer 1943, despite the drastic deterioration of Germany’s military situation, Goerdeler’s incorrigible optimism still led him to put forwa
rd as his foreign-political aims: the restoration of the eastern borders of 1914 (meaning, of course, keeping the Polish Corridor, reacquired by Germany through such immeasurable barbarism); retention of Austria and the Sudetenland, along with Eupen-Malmedy and the South Tyrol (which even Hitler had not annexed); negotations with France over Alsace-Lorraine; undiminished German sovereignty; no reparations; and economic union in Europe (outside Russia).31
As regards the nature of a post-Nazi regime, the notions of the national conservatives, disdaining the plebiscitary and demagogic characteristics of what they saw as populist mass politics, were essentially (despite differences of emphasis) oligarchic and authoritarian. They favoured a restoration of the monarchy and limited electoral rights in self-governing communities, resting on Christian family values – the embodiment of the true ‘national community’ which the Nazis had corrupted.32
Among the most striking features of Goerdeler’s lack of realism was his conviction, when it was put to him that Hitler would have to be forcefully removed from the scene, that he could be persuaded by reasoned argument to step down.33 His expectation of an unbloody coup even led him to the idea of suggesting that he could eliminate Hitler through open debate if the military could provide him with the opportunity to address the Wehrmacht and the people.34 It was as well that the letter, composed in May 1944, containing such a remarkable suggestion was sent back by Stieff and never passed to Chief of Staff Zeitzler.35