by Ian Kershaw
102. Speer, 391.
103. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 593, 595.
104. Speer, 392–3.
105. Speer, 393–4. The unease about Himmler was not altogether ungrounded. Himmler had been aware since at least autumn 1943 of ‘some sort of dark plans’ brewing and, with Hitler’s permission, had taken up contact with Popitz and, through him, other members of the conspiracy. The intermediary role was played by Himmler’s lawyer, Dr Carl Langbehn, who, as Himmler knew, had sympathized with the opposition since before the war. Himmler was obviously playing a double game. On the one hand, he was careful to demonstrate his loyalty to Hitler, pointing out to the dictator that should any rumours reach him over his contact with the opposition, he should know that his motives were beyond question. Hitler acknowledged that he had complete trust in the Reichsführer. On the other hand, Himmler was well aware that the regime’s days were numbered and that Hitler presented a block on any room for manoeuvre. He wanted to keep his options open, and to maintain a possible escape route should it prove necessary (Speer, 390; Ritter, 360–62; Hoffmann, Widerstand, 367–8; and Hedwig Maier, ‘Die SS und der 20.Juli 1944’, VFZ, 14 (1966), 299–316, here especially 311–14). It seems, nevertheless, doubtful that Himmler had an inkling of specific plans to topple Hitler on 20 July. It has been suggested that he was slow to act, leaving the Wolf’s Lair belatedly, and only appearing around midnight to take charge of putting down the coup (Padfield, Himmler, 498–514). But he was prompt enough in addressing security issues at FHQ directly following the attempt, where he appeared with his entourage within an hour of the bomb exploding (Hoffmann, Widerstand, 503, 824). He was required to accompany Hitler at the visit of Mussolini later that afternoon, which delayed his departure for Berlin. Probably, too, he waited to confer with the head of the Security Police, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, at that very time en route to the Wolf’s Lair, before leaving for the Reich capital. On arrival in Berlin, some time would have been taken up with coordinating the crushing of a military uprising whose ramifications, at that time, were still uncertain.
106. Speer, 393.
107. See Remer’s account in: Hans Adolf Jacobsen (ed.), Spiegelbild einer Verschwörung. Die Opposition gegen Hitler und der Staatsstreich vom 20.Juli 1944 in der SD-Berichterstattung. Geheime Dokumente aus dent ehemaligen Reichssicherheitshauptamt, 2 vols., Stuttgart, 1984, ii.637ff.; also Hoffmann, Widerstand, 528, 594–5.
108. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 528.
109. Otto Ernst Remer, 20.Juli 1944, Hamburg, 1951, 12; repeated with minor variations in Otto Ernst Remer, Verschwörung und Verrat um Hitler. Urteil eines Frontsoldaten, Preußisch-Oldendorf, 1981, 33. Similar wording is given by Linge, ‘Kronzeuge’, B1.84. Linge was, he said, in the room as Hitler spoke. See also Jacobsen, Spiegelbild, 639. It is unlikely that Hitler immediately promoted Remer to colonel, as Linge, ‘Kronzeuge’, B1.84, claimed. (See Hoffmann, Widerstand, 597 and 854 n.343.)
110. Speer, 394–5; Hoffmann, Widerstand, 594–8. See also Gisevius, To the Bitter End, 563–4; Remer, 20.Juli 1944, Hamburg, 1951, 12; Remer, Verschwörung und Verrat um Hitler, 33–4; and Hagen’s report, Spiegelbild, 12–15.
111. 111. Germans against Hitler, 147, for the time.
112. Domarus, 2127 gives the time of the broadcast, at Hitler’s bidding, as 6.30p.m.; Speer, 395–6, recalls the broadcast as ‘towards seven o’clock in the evening’; Reuth, Goebbels, 550, gives the time of the broadcast as 6.45p.m..
113. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 599.
114. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 608, 613.
115. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 616.
116. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 620–26; Fest, Staatsstreich, 277–9.
117. Gisevius, To the Bitter End, 570.
118. IMG, xxxiii.417–18, D0C.3881–PS; Gisevius, To the Bitter End, 570–71 (with some textual variation); Zeller, 397–8; Hoffmann, Widerstand, 623–5; Fest, Staatsstreich, 279–80.
119. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 623ff.; Fest, Staatsstreich, 280–81; Hoffmann, Stauffenberg, 276–7.
120. Schroeder, 148; Domarus, 2123.
121. Domarus, 2124; Schmidt, 595.
122. Schmidt, 593. Linge’s remark, Bis zum Untergang, 229, that Hitler had his right arm in a sling conflicts with Schmidt’s, 593, that he noticed nothing untoward in Hitler’s appearance before he used his left hand to shake hands with Mussolini and it became apparent that he had difficulty in raising his right arm. The photograph of Hitler inspecting the ruined barrack-room with Mussolini is taken at the wrong angle to be conclusive, but nevertheless does not suggest that Hitler had his arm in a sling. When he gave his radio address in the early hours of the following morning, his arm was not in a sling. (See the photographs in Fest, Staatsstreich, 265, 278.)
123. Schmidt, 594.
124. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 501–2.
125. Below, 383.
126. Schroeder, 149; Germans against Hitler, 180, has about 1a.m..
127. Domarus, 2127–9.
CHAPTER 15: NO WAY OUT
1. Schroeder, 148–9; Zoller, 186.
2. Speer, 399–400; trans., Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich, Sphere Books edn, London, 1971, 525.
3. TBJG, II/13, 206 (3 August 1944).
4. LB Darmstadt, 246–8.
5. Schroeder, 148. The phrase is also used in Bormann’s telegram to the Gauleiter at 9.20p.m. on the evening of 20 July (The Bormann Letters. The Private Correspondence between Martin Bormann and his Wife from January 1943 to April 1945, ed. H. R. Trevor-Roper, London, 1954, 63).
6. Speer, 400; trans., Speer, Inside, 525.
7. Zeller, 538 n.11, cit. W. Scheidt, ‘Gespräche mit Hitler’, Echo der Woche, 7 October 1949, p.5: ‘Die müssen sofort hängen ohne jedes Erbarmen.’ Scheidt was on the staff of Major-General Walther Scherff, the official historian in Hitler’s Headquarters (who was injured in the explosion on 20 July 1944), and heard the words at one of the military briefings following the assassination attempt, when he was deputizing for Scherff.
8. Guderian, 345–7, indicates that he was ordered to attend, and did so reluctantly and as infrequently as possible.
9. TBJG, II/13, 212 (3 August 1944). The military ‘Court of Honour’ met for the first time on 4 August 1944. On this and three subsequent sittings (14 and 24 August, 14 September), a total of fifty-five officers were expelled from the army (Germans against Hitler, 196–8).
10. Speer, 399; Schroeder, 149.
11. TBJG, II/13, 141 (23 July 1944). Goebbels added the comment (142): ‘The Führer is resolved to eradicate root and branch the entire clan of generals which has opposed us in order to break down the wall which has been artificially erected by this generals’ clique between the army on the one side and Party and people on the other.’
12. Below, 383; Linge, Bis zum Untergang, 232.
13. For a brief biographical summary, see Weiß, Biographisches Lexikon, 130–31.
14. TBJG, II/13, 141 (23 July 1944).
15. Zeller, 538 n.11, cit. Scheidt, ‘Gespräche mit Hitler’ (see above n.7): ‘Und das wichtigste ist, daß sie keine Zeit zu langen Reden erhalten dürfen. Aber der Freisler wird das schon machen. Das ist unser Wyschinski.’ Goebbels discussed with Hitler at the beginning of August, a few days before the trials before the People’s Court were to begin, how they should proceed. No lengthy speeches in defence would be permitted, it was determined. The sessions would not be public, but Goebbels would ensure that first-class journalists were present to cover the trials and produce reports on them for public consumption. He undertook to speak directly to Freisler to explain how the trials were to proceed. Hitler himself was keen that background details which cast negative light on the plotters should be brought out. He was also anxious that the fiction should be held to that the plotters had been no more than a small clique, and that there should be no sweeping attacks on the officer class as such, on the army, or on the aristocracy (which would be dealt with at a later date) (TBJG, II/13, 214 (3 August 1944)). Propaganda directives had emphasized in the immediate aftermath of the faile
d coup d’état that the conspirators had been only a tiny group, and that there was to be no criticism levelled at the Wehrmacht and its officers as a whole (Steinert, 473–4).
16. Bormann Letters, 62–3.
17. Speer, 397–8.
18. Kroener, 183–4. Fromm’s execution appears specifically to have been ordered by Hitler, probably at Goebbels’s prompting, after the Propaganda Minister had brought up the case again on 5 March 1945, pointing out that Fromm deserved to die ‘because he had behaved in such cowardly fashion in face of the enemy, namely the putschists of 20 July’, and that no death penalty could be expected under the current leadership of the People’s Court (TBJG, II/15, 425 (5 March 1945); Speer, 450; Linge, Bis zum Untergang, 232).
19. See Otto Skorzeny, Skorzeny’s Special Missions, London (1957), 1997, 113–19.
20. Bormann Letters, 65.
21. Bormann Letters, 64–5.
22. Spiegelbild, 23; Hoffmann, Widerstand, 625–6. Gerstenmaier was later sentenced to seven years in a penitentiary; the others were executed.
23. Spiegelbild, 16; Hoffmann, Widerstand, 629–30.
24. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 630–4; Below, 384.
25. See especially Schlabrendorff, 132–40; also Hoffmann, Widerstand, 642–3; Fest, Staatsstreich, 296–8.
26. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 628; Ritter, 420; Fest, Staatsstreich, 294.
27. Below, 385.
28. Berlin Diaries 204; Ted Harrison, ‘Der “Alte Kämpfer” Graf Helldorf im Widerstand’, VfZ, 45 (1997), 385–423, here 421.
29. Below, 385; Ritter, 411–24; Fest, Staatsstreich, 306–11.
30. Schroeder, 149.
31. TBJG, II/13, 214 (3 August 1944). Robert Ley was firmly told not to repeat the vicious attacks on the aristocracy which he had made in populist speeches.
32. ‘Die Rede Himmlers vor den Gauleitern am 3. August 1944’, ed. Theodor Eschenburg, VfZ, 1 (1953), 357–94, here 385: ‘Die Familie Graf Stauffenberg wird ausgelöscht werden bis ins letzte Glied.’ See also Hoffmann, Widerstand, 639–41; Fest, Staatsstreich, 305–6.
33. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 635.
34. Cit. Dieter Ehlers, Technik und Moral einer Verschwörung. Der Aufstand am 20.Juli 1944, Bonn, 1964, 28: ‘“Morde?… Sie sind ja ein schäbiger Lump! Zerbrechen Sie unter der Gemeinheit?”’; trans. Germans against Hitler, 198–200. See also Zeller, 461–2, and Germans against Hitler, 211. For a description of the courtroom, see Oven, Mit Goebbels, ii.113, entry for 10 August 1944.
35. Germans against Hitler, 198, 211; Reuth, Goebbels, 599–60.
36. Zeller, 463–4: ‘Dann beeilen Sie sich mit dem Aufhängen, Herr Präsident, sonst hängen Sie eher als wir’ (Fellgiebel). ‘Sie können uns dem Henker überantworten. In drei Monaten zieht das emporte und gequälte Volk Sie zur Rechenschaft und schleift Sie bei lebendigem Leibe durch den Kot der Straßen’ (Witzleben); trans., Germans against Hitler, 201.
37. Germans against Hitler, 201; TBJG, II/13, 225 (4 August 1944).
38. Germans against Hitler, 210.
39. Beheading by axe had been the traditional practice of execution in much of Germany, including Prussia, and was continued in the early years of Hitler’s rule. In some states (Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden, Saxony, Thuringia, Bremen, Oldenburg, and Hesse), however, the guillotine was used. Discussion in legal circles (including letters sent from the general public to the Reich Ministry of Justice recommending variants of gruesomely inhumane capital punishment) eventually culminated in a decision by Hitler in 1936 to standardize execution by the guillotine throughout Germany. The wild escalation in the number of executions during the war led, however, by 1942–3 to the increasing use of hanging as a cheap and simple alternative. Shooting of condemned prisoners now also took place as the search for speedy new methods of execution grew and as the complete collapse of established legal practice gathered pace. (See Richard J. Evans, Rituals of Retribution. Capital Punishment in Germany 1600–198J, Oxford, 1996, ch.15–16, here especially 651–60, 710–20.)
40. Cit. Ehlers, 113: ‘Ich will, daft sie gehängt werden, aufgehängt wie Schlachtvieh.’
41. Based on the eye-witness accounts in Germans against Hitler, 211–12, and the evidence collected by Hoffmann, Widerstand, 649–50, and 971–3, note 111.
42. Speer, 404.
43. According to Speer’s later claim, Hitler watched it over and again (Toland, 818, cit. Speer’s interview for Playboy, June 1971). Luftwaffe adjutant Below remarked, on the other hand, that Hitler showed little interest in the photographs of the executions, which were bandied about Führer Headquarters in repulsive fashion by SS-Gruppenführer Hermann Fegelein, Himmler’s liaison officer at the Wolf’s Lair (Below, 385). Walter Frentz, Hitler’s cameraman, based at Führer Headquarters and frequently a guest at the evening monologues, also claimed, long after the war, that the films had arrived there, but that Fegelein was the only one to have seen them (Hoffmann, Widerstand, 872).
44. Hoffmann, Widerstand, 652, 864–5, note 33, 874, note 123; and see Germans against Hitler, 202–9, 214–19.
45. See Irving, Doctor, 151–2. He told his military entourage at the end of the month that he ought to have spent ten to fourteen days in bed, but had carried on working at least eight hours a day (LB Darmstadt, 271 (31 July 1944)).
46. Irving, Doctor, 154.
47. Irving, Doctor, 150.
48. Redlich, 204–6; Schenck, 302, 318; Irving, Doctor, 152–3; LB Darmstadt, 270 (31 July 1944) (where Hitler ruled out flying for at least a further eight days until his ears were healed); TBJG, II/13, 209 (3 August 1944), 232 (5 August 1944).
49. Bormann Letters, 68.
50. Redlich, 205.
51. Irving, Doctor, 150; TBJG, II/13, 213 (3 August 1944).
52. Irving, Doctor, 149 (Giesing’s impressions), 157 (those of Lieutenant-General Werner Kreipe); TBJG, II/13, 209 (3 August 1944) (Goebbels’s impressions); and see Schenck, 394–5.
53. LB Darmstadt, 270 (31 July 1944).
54. Schenck, 250, cit. Morell’s diary entry of 3 October 1944; Redlich, 205.
55. Irving, Doctor, 153 (Morell diary entry for 29 July 1944); LB Darmstadt, 217 (31 July 1944).
56. Irving, Doctor, 160; Redlich, 205.
57. Hoffmann, Security, 253–4; Zoller, 186.
58. TBJG, II/13, 210 (3 August 1944); Warlimont, 442.
59. Zoller, 186.
60. Guderian, 342, and 339–40 for his appointment.
61. See TBJG, II/13, 207 (3 August 1944), where Goebbels writes that propaganda must play its part in preventing an inverted version of the 1918 stab-in-the-back. Then, in his view, the home-front had subverted the military effort; now, the military had threatened to undermine the home-front.
62. Schroeder, 149.
63. IMG, xvi. 541; Speer, 403.
64. KTBOKW, iv. 2, 1572–6.
65. LB Darmstadt, 275–7, 280; LB Stuttgart, 609–20.
66. See above, Ch. 14, note 5.
67. Propaganda directives immediately after the putsch attempt referred specifically to it as a failed ‘stab-in-the-back’ (see Steinert, 475).
68. Steinert, 472–3.
69. BA, R55/614, R55/678, ‘“Treukundgebungen” nach den 20.7.44; insbes. Berichte über einzelne Veranstaltungen und Stimmung nach dem Attentat’; Imperial War Museum, London (= IWM), ‘Aus deutschen Urkunden 1935–1945’, unpublished collection of captured documents, n.d., c.1945–6, 289–92 (instructions from the Reich Propaganda Ministry to Gauleiter and Gau Propaganda Offices, regarding ‘Treukundgebungen anläßlich des mißlungenen Attentates auf den Führer’); MadR, xvii.6684–6 (28 July 1944); Steinert, 476ff.; Michael Balfour, Propaganda in War, 1939–1945, London, 1979, 388.
70. Spiegelbild, 1–3. For the utterly contrasting reactions – based on newspaper reports and rumour – of remaining, anxiety-ridden Jews in Dresden, see the entries in Klemperer, ii.548–54 (21–28 July 1944).
71. In fact, British plans to assassinate Hitler had been formulated only a few weeks earlier than Stauffenberg�
�s attempt on the dictator’s life. Among the arguments used by staff officers within the British subversive agency, Special Operations Executive, to oppose a British assassination attempt – which, in any case, was almost a dead letter at the very time it was conceived – was the view that it would prove counter-productive in stirring up support for Hitler (and thereby making a post-war settlement more difficult). It was also felt ‘that, from the strictly military point of view, it was almost an advantage that Hitler should remain in control of German strategy, having regard to the blunders that he has made’ (Operation Foxley, 14–15, 30–31).
72. Spiegelbild, 4–7.
73. Spiegelbild, 8–11.
74. M.I. Gurfein and Morris Janowitz, ‘Trends in Wehrmacht Morale’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 10 (1946), 78–84, here 81; Balfour, Propaganda, 389. See also Breloer, 334, for a letter sent from one German prisoner-of-war in Texas to Hitler, congratulating him on his survival, and a diary entry from 21 July 1944 stating: ‘I don’t think I’m wrong when I say in such a sad hour for all of us: “Germany stands or falls in this struggle with the person of Adolf Hitler…” If this attack on Adolf Hitler had been successful, I am convinced that our homeland would now be in chaos.’
75. Buchbender and Sterz, 21–2.
76. Spiegelbild, 8–11.
77. See, for example, Andreas-Friedrich, 103 (entry for 31 July 1944), where she was denounced to the Gestapo for a derogatory remark about Hitler by a Party member sitting close by in a Berlin café. ‘Since the 20 July all organs of the Nazis are inclined to sense a putschist in every German citizen,’ she wrote. She narrowly escaped recriminations following the denunciation.
78. Berlin Diaries, 203.
79. Breloer, 132–3.
80. Breloer, 69.
81. Elisabeth Hoemberg, Thy People, My People, London, 1950, 161.
82. GStA, Munich, MA 106695, report of the Regierungspräsident of Oberbayern, 7 August 1944: ‘… ein Teil der Bevölkerung das Gelingen des Attentats in erster Linie deshalb begrüßt bätte, weil er sich davon eine frühere Beendigung des Krieges erhoffte.’