Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis (Allen Lane History)

by Ian Kershaw

  5. See Hans Mommsen, ‘Social Views and Constitutional Plans of the Resistance’, in Hermann Graml et al., The German Resistance to Hitler, (1966), London, 1970, 55–147, here 59, for perceptions by Pater Alfred Delp and Adam von Trott of lack of popular support for a putsch. Over seven years after the events, General Klaus Uebe was adamant that the mass of the rank-and-file troops rejected any notion of a move by officers against Hitler (IfZ, ZS 164, Klaus Uebe, 3 January 1952).

  6. Kramarz, 201.

  7. Fabian von Schlabrendorff, Offiziere gegen Hitler, (1946), revised edn, Berlin, 1984, 109.

  8. Scheurig, Tresckow, especially ch.4; also Fest, Staatsstreich, 177; Whaley, 48–9, 54, 56.

  9. Scheurig, Tresckow, 111–12.

  10. Scheurig, Treskow, noff.; Fest, Staatsstreich, 177–80.

  11. Fest, Staatsstreich, 193–4.

  12. Hassell, 307 (28 March 1942).

  13. Helena P. Page, General Friedrich Olbricht. Ein Mann des 20.Juli, Bonn/Berlin, 1992, 206.

  14. Fest, Staatsstreich, 194; quotation, Spiegelbild einer Verschwörung. Die Kaltenbrunner-Berichte an Bormann und Hitler über das Attentat vom zo.]uli 1944. Geheime Dokumente aus dem ehemaligen Reischssicherheitshauptamt, ed. Archiv Peter für historische und zeitgeschichtliche Dokumentation, Stuttgart, 1961, 368.

  15. Thun-Hohenstein, 224, citing Hermann Kaiser, Tagebuch v.3 February 1943. The entry was not included in the extracts from Kaiser’s diary published in ‘Neue Mitteilungen zur Vorgeschichte des 2o.Juli’, Die Wandlung, 1 (1945/46), 530–34. But see also Kaiser’s diary entry for 31 March 1943 in Annedore Leber and Freya Gräfin von Moltke, Für und wider Entscheidungen in Deutschland 1918–1945, Frankfurt, 1961,203: ‘A discussion arises about discipline and obedience of the leadership and Fromm says, in a hundred cases one must be 100 per cent obedient. Olbricht opposes this: one must be able to say no once in 99 cases. Fromm retorts vehemently in favour of unconditional obedience…’ (‘Es kommt Gespräch über Disziplin und Gehorsam der Führung auf und Fromm sagt, in hundert Fallen müsse man Iooig gehorsam sein. Olbricht dagegen: Man müsse bei 99 Fallen einmal nein sagen können. Fromm erwidert heftig, für unbedingten Gehorsam ...’) Kaiser’s involvement in the opposition is thoroughly dealt with by Ger van Roon, ‘Hermann Kaiser und der deutsche Widerstand’, VfZ, 24 (1976), 259–86.

  16. For use of the term, see, e.g., Hoffmann, Widerstand, 350.

  17. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 341–2.

  18. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 343–6, 350; Fest, Staatsstreich, 194–5.

  19. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 348–9.

  20. See Hoffmann, Hitler’s Personal Security, 1 11ff.

  21. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 351; Hoffman, Hitler’s Personal Security, ch.5–9.

  22. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 347.

  23. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 347, 351.

  24. Schlabrendorff, 67–75; Hoffmann, Widerstand, 352–3; Fest, Staatsstreich, 196–7.

  25. Rudolf-Christoph Frhr. v. Gersdorff, Soldat im Untergang. Lebensbilder, Frankfurt etc., 1979, 128–32; Hoffmann, Widerstand, 353–60.

  26. Meehan, 337; and see Klemperer, 287. Henry II had allegedly used the words, ‘Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?’ at which four knights from his entourage rode to Canterbury to murder the Archbishop, Thomas Becket. The formation of Bishop Bell’s attitude towards the Nazi regime during the 1930s can be traced in Andrew Chandler (ed.), Brethren in Adversity. Bishop George Bell, the Church of England, and the Crisis of German Protestantism, 1933–1939, Woodbridge, 1997.

  27. In Lothar Kettenacker (ed.), Das ‘Andere Deutschland’ im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Emigration und Widerstand in internationaler Perspektive, Stuttgart, 1977, 203.

  28. British attitudes are critically explored in Lothar Kettenacker, ‘Die britische Haltung zum deutschen Widerstand während des Zweiten Weltkriegs’, in Kettenacker, 49–76 (and see the documentation in the same volume, 164–217); and Richard Lamb, ‘Das Foreign Office und der deutsche Widerstand 1938–1944’, in Klaus-Jürgen Müller and David N. Dilks (eds.), Großbritannien und der deutsche Widerstand 1933–1944, Paderborn etc., 1994, 53–81. For differing evaluations of the Allies’ uncompromising stance, see Fest, Staatsstreich, 212–13; and Heinemann/Krüger-Charlé, 492–3. The variety of ideas on foreign policy within the resistance is explored by Hermann Graml, ‘Resistance Thinking on Foreign Policy’, in Graml et al., German Resistance, 1–54.

  29. For brief surveys of the ‘Goerdeler Group’, see Ger van Roon, Widerstand im Dritten Reich. Ein Überblick, Munich, (1979), 7th revised edn, 1998, ch.8; and Benz/Pehle, Lexikon des deutschen Widerstandes, 217–22.

  30. Graml, ‘Resistance Thinking’, 27. And see Goerdeler’s foreign policy plans put forward in 1941 in Germans against Hitler: July 20, 1944, 5th edn, ed. Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, Bonn, 1969, 55–60.

  31. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 372–3; Goerdeler put forward a similar programme in May 1944 (Christian Müller, Stauffenberg, Düsseldorf, 1970, 393).

  32. Mommsen, ‘Social Views’, 60; Mommsen, ‘Der Widerstand gegen Hitler und die deutsche Gesellschaft’, 9, 11; and Hans Mommsen, ‘Verfassungs – und Verwaltungsreformpläne der Wider-standsgruppen des 20.Juli 1944’, in Schmädeke and Steinbach, 570–97; Roon, Widerstand, 135–9; Fest, Staatsstreich, 147–57.

  33. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 373.

  34. Spiegelbild, 178.

  35. Spiegelbild, 56, 112; Fest, Staatsstreich, 234.

  36. See Helmuth James von Moltke, Letters to Freya, 1939–1945. A Witness against Hitler, London, 1991; and Michael Balfour and Julian Frisby, Helmuth von Moltke. A Leader against Hitler, London, 1972.

  37. See Ger van Roon, Neuordnung im Widerstand. Der Kreisauer Kreis innerhalb der deutschen Widerstandsbewegung, Munich, 1967; Ger van Roon, ‘Staatsvorstellungen des Kreisauer Kreises’, in Schmädeke and Steinbach, 560–9; Roon, Widerstand, 155–7; Hans Mommsen, ‘Der Kreisauer Kreis und die künftige Neuordnung Deutschlands und Europas’, VfZ, 42 (1994), 361–77; Benz/Pehle, Lexikon des deutschen Widerstandes, 247–52.

  38. Roon, Widerstand, 157–8.

  39. Gersdorff, 134ff. (quotation, 135).

  40. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 361.

  41. For the important intermediary role of Schulenburg, see Ulrich Heinemann, Ein konservativer Rebell. Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenburg und der 20.Juli, Berlin, 1990, 142ff. (149–50 for his temporary arrest).

  42. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 363–6; Heinz Höhne, Canaris – Patriot im Zwielicht, Munich, 1976, 529; and, for the enigmatic role played by Canaris, see, apart from his biography of the Abwehr chief, also Heinz Höhne, ‘Canaris und die Abwehr zwischen Anpassung und Opposition’, in Schmädeke and Steinbach, 405–16.

  43. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 373.

  44. Fest, Staatsstreich, 218.

  45. Hoffmann, Stauffenberg, ch. 1–2; Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, Secret Germany: Claus von Stauffenberg and the Mystical Crusade against Hitler, London, 1994, ch.5; and see Mosse, 209–11; and Roon, Widerstand, 180.

  46. Hoffmann, Stauffenberg, 115–16.

  47. Hoffmann, Stauffenberg, 132.

  48. Hoffmann, Stauffenberg, 133, 151. For assessments of the varied attitudes towards Jews and antisemitism among those involved in resistance to the Nazi regime, see Christoph Dipper, ‘Der deutsche Widerstand und die Juden’, GG, 9 (1983), 349–80; Christoph Dipper, ‘Der Widerstand und die Juden’, in Schmàdeke and Steinbach, 598–616; and Hans Mommsen, ‘Der Widerstand gegen Hitler und die nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung’ (as yet unpublished, but kindly made available to me by Hans Mommsen). As could hardly otherwise be expected, strains of antisemitism – for the most part traditional resentments, far removed from the extremes of Nazi genocidal mentalities – are not infrequently encountered, especially among the older and more conservative sectors of the opposition. At opposite poles in the resistance, not least as regards attitudes towards the Jews, were Oster and Groscurth, who revealed no signs of antisemitism, and Wolf Heinrich Graf von Helldorf (the rabidly antisemitic Berlin police-chief and f
ormer SA leader) and Arthur Nebe (head of a murderous Einsatzgruppe, responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Jews). The mounting atrocities against the Jewish population in the occupied eastern territories were unquestionably, as in Stauffenberg’s case, a strong – though for the most part, it seems, not the decisive – motive in engaging in the conspiracy to kill Hitler. Yet, ambiguities almost inevitably remain: even among the courageous front officers of Army Group Centre, there seems to have been at least initial approval for the ruthless war against partisans and ‘bandits’ which was to a large extent coterminous with the growing genocidal assault on the Jews. (See Heinemann/Krüger-Charlé, 499 and n.99.)

  49. Gisevius, To the Bitter End, 508, for a somewhat unflattering picture of Stauffenberg.

  50. Eberhard Zeller, Geist der Freiheit. Der Zwanzigste Juli, 4th edn, Munich, 1963, 244; Roon, Widerstand, 179–83.

  51. Ritter, 366–7; Fest, Staatsstreich, 222; Hoffmann, Widerstand, 396; Roon, Widerstand, 184.

  52. Germans against Hitler, 131.

  53. Roon, Widerstand, 178–9; Hoffmann, Widerstand, 374ff., especially 386–7; Fest, Staatsstreich, 222–4.

  54. For a character sketch, see Bernhard R. Kroener, ‘Friedrich Fromm – Der “starke Mann im Heimatkriegsgebiet”’, in Smelser/Syring, 171–86.

  55. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 397–8.

  56. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 398–405. For Bussche, see the brief portrait from personal acquaintance in Marion Gräfin Dönhoff, ‘Um der Ehre willen’. Erinnerungen an die Freunde vom 20.Juli, (1994) 2nd edn, Berlin, 1996, 67–76.

  57. Kleist first asked Stauffenberg for time to think it over. He asked his father, hoping he would advise against it. His father replied without hesitation: ‘Yes, you must do it. Whoever fails in such a moment will never again be happy in his lifetime.’ (Bodo Scheurig, Ewald von Kleist-Schmenzin. Ein Konservativer gegen Hitler. Biographie, Berlin/Frankfurt am Main, 1994.) The father would eventually pay for his opposition with his life; the son would survive the Nazi regime.

  58. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 405–6.

  59. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 407–10.

  60. Roon, Widerstand, 188–9.

  61. See, for the reference, above, note 7.

  62. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 406; Fest, Staatsstreich, 243.

  63. Roon, Widerstand, 187.

  64. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 469; Fest, Staatsstreich, 242–3, 246.

  65. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 471–5.

  66. Roon, Widerstand, 189; Hoffmann, Widerstand, 471–2; Fest, Staatsstreich, 250 52.

  67. Roon, Widerstand, 189–90; Fest, Staatsstreich, 252–3.

  68. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 486–8; Fest, Staatsstreich, 258–9.

  69. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 489–91, 493. Fest, Staatsstreich, 261, has 12.40p.m. Below, 381, and some other witnesses suggest that time, others (e.g., in his much later second set of memoirs, Linge, 225, who, however, is frequently unreliable with detail) a slightly later time. Benz, Graml, and Weßs, Enzyklopädie des Nationalsozialismus, 814, give the precise time of 12.42p.m., though without source. According to the summary of the evidence in Hoffmann, Widerstand, 817 n.43, the explosion can not be timed more precisely than between 12.40 and 12.50p.m. Sander’s comment about explosions occurring as a result of animals setting off mines was later echoed by Hitler’s secretary Christa Schroeder (Schroeder, 147). Hitler’s valet, Heinz Linge, stated much later that he initially thought Hitler’s dog had set off a mine (Linge, Bis zum Untergang, 224). Since, however, Linge was close to the hut where the explosion took place, this sounds contrived.

  70. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 491–3; Hoffmann, Stauffenberg, 267.

  71. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 493–5; Fest, Staatsstreich, 261; Irving, HW, 662–3; Below, 381; Schroeder, 147; Irving, Doctor, 145.

  72. Below, 381.

  73. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 496–7; Spiegelbild, 83

  74. Speer, 399; TBJG, II/13, 139 (23 July 1944).

  75. Below, 381; Schroeder, 148; Hoffmann, Widerstand, 496.

  76. Irving, Doctor, 146–8 (where Hitler’s pulse and blood-pressure are said to have risen, but not excessively, following the attack); Below, 381; Schroeder, 148; TBJG, II/13, 139 (23 July 1944); Redlich, 204–5; Schenck, 317–18. Morell told Paul Schmidt, the interpreter, that afternoon that Hitler’s pulse had been quite normal following the explosion (Schmidt, 593).

  77. Linge, Bis zum Untergang, 225.

  78. Below, 382; Hoffmann, Widerstand, 498–501; Irving, Göring, 430.

  79. Schroeder, 148. Hitler asked Christa Schroeder, so she later wrote, to send the tattered coat and trousers to Eva Braun for safe keeping. One of Hitler’s other secretaries, Gerda Christian (Daranowski before her marriage in February 1943), later recalled that Hitler had been calm when he spoke to them on the evening after the attempt on his life. (Library of Congress, Washington, Toland Tapes, C-63B, interview with John Toland, 26 July 1971.)

  80. Below, 382; see also Speer, 391; and Reuth, Goebbels, 548.

  81. TBJG, II/13, 141 (23 July 1944); Below, 382; Linge, Bis zum Untergang, 229; Schroeder, 148–9; Hoffmann, Widerstand, 597. According to the account compiled by Linge in the 1950s, he heard from a telephonist that Stauffenberg had left the barracks in a direction from which it could be concluded that he was leaving the Führer Headquarters, and had this information conveyed to Hitler (Linge, ‘Kronzeuge’, BI.83). Since Stauffenberg left the barrack-hut without cap and belt, heading in the direction of the adjutants’ building, well away from any exit from the compound and in the opposite direction to the airfield, this seems like a later elaboration by Linge, designed to play up his own role.

  82. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 506ff.

  83. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 509 and 823 n.88.

  84. Gisevius, To the Bitter End, 546.

  85. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 506–11; Roon, Widerstand, 192. Himmler had ordered the communications block lifted around 3p.m.. Full clearance was only attained around an hour later. (Hoffmann, Widerstand, 504, 510–11. See also Spiegelbild, 330.)

  86. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 511, 823–6 (notes 93, 95).

  87. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 519 and 833 n.122. That Stauffenberg had seen a person carried from the briefing hut covered in Hitler’s cloak, presuming that it was the Führer, as he (and later Fellgiebel) claimed (Fest, Staatsstreich, 261; Hoffmann, Stauffenberg, 267), seems, however, unlikely. The adjutancy, where they heard the explosion, was some distance – around 200 metres (Hoffmann, Widerstand, 490) – from the hut. There were other buildings, and trees, which would have obscured the view. And it is doubtful that, following the explosion and when time was of the essence, Stauffenberg and Haeften would have hesitated long enough before hurrying away to await the first casualties being carried from the hut. It is possible that they caught a glimpse of someone being taken from the hut as they drove away. Whether, in the mêlée, it was feasible to ascertain that he was draped in Hitler’s cloak, seems doubtful.

  88. Gisevius, To the Bitter End, 545; Hoffmann, Widerstand, 513–14.

  89. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 514; Hoffmann, Stauffenberg, 269.

  90. Gisevius, To the Bitter End, 546–7; Hoffmann, Widerstand, 519–20; Hoffmann, Stauffenberg, 270.

  91. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 520–24.

  92. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 520, 607, 609.

  93. A point criticized by Gisevius, To the Bitter End, 545.

  94. In the German version, Gisevius has the following account of Beck’s words: ‘Gleichgiiltig, was jetzt verbreitet werde, gleichgültig sogar, was wahr sei, für ihn, Beck, set die Entscheidung gefalien. Er fordert die Herren auf, sich mit ihm solidarisch zu erklären. “Fur mich ist dieser Mann tot. Davon lasse ich mein weiteres Handeln bestimmen.”’ (‘Whatever is now being said, whatever is even true, for him, Beck, the decision has been taken. He calls upon the gentlemen to declare in solidarity with him: “For me, this man is dead. I will let my further actions be determined by this.”) (Gisevius, Bis Zum Bittern Ende, 1946, ii.382.) The English version – Gisevius, To the Bitter End, 557 – diff
ers: ‘… It did not matter at all whether Hitler was dead or still living. A “leader” whose immediate entourage included those who opposed him to the extent of attempting assassination must be considered morally dead.’

  95. Gisevius, To the Bitter End, 558; Hoffmann, Widerstand, 615.

  96. Fest, Staatsstreich, 269.

  97. Roon, Widerstand, 194.

  98. See Hoffmann, Widerstand, 529ff.; Fest, Staatsstreich, 270–71; Roon, Widerstand, 195.

  99. Gisevius, To the Bitter End, 558.

  100. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 581 ff.; Fest, Staatsstreich, 283–91.

  101. The only way to reconcile the differing accounts of Speer, 391 and Wilfried von Oven, Mit Goebbels bis zum Ende, 2 vols., Buenos Aires, 1950, ii, 59ff., is to presume that there were two phone-calls from Führer Headquarters, the first from Otto Dietrich very soon after the attack, the second between 2 and 3p.m. from Heinz Lorenz. This seems accepted by Oven in his second, later account (after the publication of Speer’s memoirs) (Wilfried von Oven, ‘Der 20.Juli 1944 – erlebt im Hause Goebbels’, in Verrat und Widerstand im Dritten Reich, Nation Europa, 28 (1978), 43–58, here 47ff.). Goebbels referred to a telephone call at midday – mentioning that two of his ministerial colleagues (Funk and Speer) were with him – in his radio address on 26 July about the assassination attempt (Heiber, Goebbels-Reden, ii.342–3; see also Reuth, Goebbels, 548). It seems unlikely that in this telephone-call, minutes after the bomb-blast, as Irving, Goebbels, 471, suggests (placing the call, though without apparent supporting evidence, at 1p.m., and from Lorenz, not Dietrich), a request was passed on from Hitler for an immediate broadcast to make plain that he was alive and well. More probably, this request came in a subsequent call, in mid-afternoon, as Oven states (See Reuth, Goebbels, 550; Irving, Goebbels, 471, 473, for conflicting accounts). Linge, ‘Kronzeuge’, Bl.84, referred to difficulties in reaching Goebbels that afternoon, and that the telephone link was finally established at 4.30p.m.. In his account, this was the telephone-call in which Hitler spoke to Remer. This call, however, was made around 7p.m. (See Hoffmann, Widerstand, 597; Reuth, Goebbels, 550–2. Here, as in other points of detail, Linge is unreliable.)