The Song Before It Is Sung

by Justin Cartwright

  General Fromm, von Stauffenberg's superior, has been told that the Führer is not dead by Field Marshal Keitel himself. He is incensed when he is ordered by Olbricht to put Valkyrie into operation immediately. He and General Olbricht come to blows. Olbricht now puts out the orders under his own authority, with a proclamation declaring martial law and beginning: 'The Führer, Adolf Hitler, is dead.'

  When von Stauffenberg finally enters Olbricht's office with von Haeften it is 4.30 p.m. He announces that Hitler is dead. 'I saw them carry him out,' he says.

  Von Stauffenberg now goes to see Fromm and tells him that Hitler is dead. Fromm says that is impossible: Keitel himself has told him that Hitler is only lightly wounded. When Olbricht tells him that the orders for Valkyrie have been sent out, he slams the desk with his fist. He says it is high treason. They are all under arrest.

  'On the contrary,' says von Stauffenberg, 'you are under arrest. I placed the bomb myself, right next to Hitler.'

  Fromm replies, 'The assassination attempt has failed. You must shoot yourself.'

  In the small panelled office, the atmosphere is almost farcical. Fromm is trying to save his neck. A pistol is pulled on him. Fromm is given five minutes to decide if he will join the uprising. After five minutes he declares that he considers himself relieved of his command. He is placed under guard in a side room.

  At Wilhelmstrasse, the head office of the Auswartiges Amt, von Gottberg has been waiting since soon after dawn, full of excitement. Hans-Bernd von Haeften, who is the older brother of von Stauffenberg's aide, Werner von Haeften, and other conspirators gather. They occupy themselves with office work and correspondence. They rejoice that it is the last time they will ever have to close letters Heil Hitler! At 2 p.m. they receive the agreed message, Panta rei, Greek for All in motion. Hitler is dead. The Valkyrie plans to seal off the government area of Berlin are to be put into operation right away from General Army Office. Von Gottberg looks out of the window for the movement of troops. People are walking unconcerned down Wilhelmstrasse and there are no soldiers in sight. Someone tells von Gottberg that there is a report that Hitler has survived an assassination attempt unscathed.

  'It's a trick,' says von Gottberg. 'Stauffenberg himself confirms that Hitler is dead.'

  But they can get no information from the Bendlerblock, Reserve Army Headquarters. Von Gottberg is desperate to speak to von Stauffenberg, and von Haeften tries many times to reach his brother. The lines are dead or overloaded. Two hours pass as they wait, helpless.

  After placing Fromm under arrest, von Stauffenberg starts on a round of telephoning to assure the other conspirators that Hitler is dead. He tells them that it is impossible that Hitler has survived: he has seen the explosion and the body being carried out. He calls von General von Stülpnagel, the Military Governor of Paris, and other conspirators in Prague and Vienna. Some of the troops are ordered out, as the plan demands, and they set off from Potsdam to occupy the government quarter of Berlin. But a diligent Major Remer, a convinced Nazi in charge of the Guard Battalion, manages to speak to Hitler himself and orders some of the troops back to barracks. Tanks from the Officers' School in Krampnitz are moving fast, however. Von Stauffenberg's inner circle come and go, increasingly uncertain.

  Wilhelmstrasse. At about 5.30 p.m. von Gottberg sees that the street below is cordoned off and steel-helmeted soldiers are taking up their positions on both sides of the road, right up to the Adlon Hotel. Von Gottberg and von Haeften are delighted; they embrace. They have a list of people who are to be arrested as soon as the military leaders are ready. Von Gottberg tries to call the Bendlerblock again, but still he cannot get through. They decide to delay any announcements and appointments within the office until they are certain.

  At the Bendlerblock, an SS colonel arrives to ask von Stauffenberg to a meeting with the Chief of Secret Police. Von Stauffenberg has him arrested. The confusion deepens as reports come in that Hitler will himself soon make a statement. Support melts away. The conspirators are not, after all, in control of Berlin or of communications. Junior officers loyal to the Führer arm themselves and shooting breaks out. Von Stauffenberg is hit in the shoulder. Now he telephones Paris, his last hope, from Fromm's office, but he is told, 'The SS are advancing.'

  He slumps in the seat.

  'They have left me in the lurch,' he says to von Haeften, who is burning papers in a bin. At 6.15 p.m. the radio announces that an attempt has been made on the life of the Führer, but that he is unhurt.

  At about 7 p.m. there is an awful moment: the troops below in Wilhelmstrasse are withdrawing and soon the traffic is flowing again. Von Gottberg, who has been deathly pale all day, has the feeling that the blood is draining from him with the soldiers as they file away. It is all over. He stays in the office until eleven, destroying papers, thinking of his alibi, hoping to speak to von Stauffenberg. Maybe General Stülpnagel is even now bargaining from Paris with the Allies about surrender.

  At Army headquarters in Bendlerstrasse, Fromm is brought back to his office by the junior officers. He confronts von Stauffenberg and the other conspirators, saying that they are now under arrest and must hand over their weapons: they have committed an act of high treason. General Beck asks to keep his pistol in order to shoot himself. Fromm agrees. Others want to write statements. For half an hour von Stauffenberg stands in bitter silence as they write. Fromm declares that he has convened a court martial and that it has found the colonel, whose name he cannot speak, as well as Lieutenant von Haeften, Colonel Mertz von Quirnheim and General Olbricht, guilty. Von Stauffenberg now speaks: the others were under his command and he takes full responsibility.

  The four men are led down some stairs and outside to where sandbags have been piled against a wall in the long, cobbled, rectangular courtyard. Drivers from the car pool have been ordered to light up the place of execution with the headlights from their vehicles. Ten non-commissioned officers stand ready with their rifles. The conspirators are shot one by one. It is reported that von Haeften tries to throw himself in front of von Stauffenberg, as a last act of devotion. Just before he is shot, von Stauffenberg shouts, 'Long live our sacred Germany.' Es lebe unser heiliges Deutschland. One person reports that he shouts, 'Long live secret Germany,' and that is possible, because the words heiliges and the unfamiliar geheimes could easily have been confused.

  Upstairs General Beck, who has shot himself in the head, is still alive after two attempts. He lies groaning in a corner asking if he is dying. Fromm orders an officer to finish him off. The officer says he cannot shoot a German general lying wounded and defenceless on the floor. He orders a soldier of the Guard Battalion to do it. This man drags Beck into a corridor, leaving a trail of blood from his head, and shoots him.

  Von Gottberg and von Haeften stop off at the Adlon for a drink with a colleague from their office.

  'At least we tried,' von Haeften says.

  'There is no more hope. Hitler has destroyed Germany,' says von Gottberg.

  At 1.30 a.m. they hear that Hitler has made a broadcast denouncing a small clique of disappointed officers. The Führer speaks to the German people from the Wolfschanze: a small, but deluded, group of officers, including von Stauffenberg, has tried to kill him, but he has been spared. He is very lightly injured.

  That night he declares in front of Mussolini that he will practise Sippenhaft without mercy. Mussolini is reported to be shocked. The armoured divisions have withdrawn to barracks.

  The bodies of the five dead men shot in the courtyard of the Bendlerblock are loaded on to a lorry and driven to a graveyard beside the Matthiaskirche in Schoneberg and hastily buried on Fromm's orders in their uniforms and decorations. The next day Heinrich Himmler has the bodies exhumed, cremated and their ashes scattered in the open spaces of a park near by.

  20

  CONRAD' S BELL RINGS harshly. It takes him some time to understand what the noise is, as if he has never heard his bell before. In fact the sound is a kind of grating cry, the cry of a crow. He wakes whe
re he has fallen asleep, on the sofa. He is losing a sense of the days. He has no idea of the time or the date. He goes downstairs and finds Tony, who hands him a registered letter.

  'Morning, mate. This came for you. I signed for it. You weren't answering.'

  'Thanks, Tony.'

  'You orright?'

  'Yes, I'm fine. I've been working hard.'

  And Tony gives him some freshly baked bread, still warmly aromatic.

  'Pugliese. Where me gran come from. You must eat, my son.'

  'I'm eating, Tony. Trust me. But thanks very much.'

  He goes upstairs with the bread and the letter. Fritsch has written to him at last. After how many weeks? He can't work it out. He opens the letter and reaches for his Cassell's dictionary.

  Sehr Geehrter Herr Senior,

  I have the only known copy of the film in which you have shown interest. This film has been in my possession since 1944. Many times I have wondered what I can be doing with it. I believe from the Bundesfilmarchiv that you are writing about some of the resisters. I was an assistant to Mr Steuben, of Wochenschau, deceased, and the footage filmed on B Camera, Arri 2C, by me was on August 15th, 1944, and never used. This is the footage of the execution of four of the plotters of July 20th, 1944, which event I believe is known to you. The four executed include Count Axel von Gottberg. I am not interested in selling this footage to you, but in making sure that it is given to a responsible person. It can never be shown in the public media. I have lived with this secret for sixty years. Also, I cannot allow this footage to be held in Germany. Many times I have decided to destroy it. If you can come to Berlin there is a possibility that I can give you this film and the negative. Please telephone this number to make an appointment.

  Conrad immediately calls the number in Berlin. He is trembling as it rings. A woman answers and he asks for Herr Fritsch.

  'Papi. Telefon!

  'Guten Tag. I am Conrad Senior. I received your letter.'

  They stumble along in German. Conrad agrees to meet him in four days' time outside Schonhauser Allee 23, in Prenzlauer Berg. He imagines Fritsch in East Berlin — he has a strong urge, at times uncontrollable, to fill in the details of other lives -keeping this awful film for years, like some venomous creature, some poisoned substance, all through the communist days and then in the new united Berlin wondering what he could do with it, how he could atone, perhaps, for his part in this terrible act. And maybe all this time, sixty years now, Fritsch has never been able to talk about it or think of any way of disposing of it honourably until he sees Conrad's notice in the archive or hears about it at a showing or a reunion of other Wochenschau veterans.

  Conrad feels faint. He hasn't been eating. He books himself a ticket to Berlin at a local cheap-flight shop. He has no money in the bank but his credit card is still acceptable, apparently. And then he goes to the Café where workers and taxi drivers gather for breakfast. He tries to estimate how many days have gone by, conscious that during this time the baby has been growing. He leaves a message for Francine: I must go to Berlin. I believe that this is coming to a conclusion now. Please call me to discuss our situation.

  He sits in this Café. The taxi drivers are enthusiastic talkers. They meet here every day for a little Midrash of their own. He wonders how many taxi drivers are still Jewish. It was once the immigrants' route to accumulation. And the taxi drivers' test demanded prodigious feats of memory. Are Jews more intelligent than the rest of us? Is that what the Nazis really feared?

  He remembers von Stauffenberg's guru, the poet Stefan George's, view of Jews: One Jew is very useful but as soon as there are more than two of them, the tone becomes different and they tend to their own business. Jews do not experience life as deeply as we do. They are, in general, different people.

  It was the knowledge of the extermination of Jews and political commissars in the East that turned von Stauffenberg from conservative aristocrat to regicide. An army major reported to him seeing one thousand naked Jews shot by the SS in the Ukraine. Mendel wanted Conrad to determine in what state von Gottberg died. Did he die a German patriot or as someone who wanted to atone for the sins visited on the Jews, on Mendel's people? For Mendel that was the issue when all else was forgotten. And soon he may be able to provide the answer and then his task will be complete.

  Francine has been doing nights as a locum, but she wants to see him before he goes to Berlin. They meet at the flower market in Columbia Road for breakfast on Sunday morning when she comes off shift. Night shifts affect her badly: he is distressed to see the imprint on her face, as deeply worn as the action of water on rocks, so deeply that she seems permanently to have aged. But worse for Conrad than this haggardness is the certainty that she is profoundly unhappy. She is possibly still in love with John.

  They eat a bagel with smoked salmon and scrambled egg, and they drink dark Arabica. Outside the Café, as though they are in a jungle clearing, is a dense wall of greenery and blossom. On a Sunday morning it is almost impossible to walk out on the pavement, such is the commingling of people and plants. Suddenly, to his utter dismay, he sees that Francine is sobbing. He stands up and puts his arm around her and leads her out into the flower market. They stand in a courtyard amongst coppery bougainvillea, tree ferns and large blue pots. He holds her until her sobbing eases.

  'I've got rid of it.'

  She stands, silent within his embrace.

  'I love you,' he says. 'We'll be fine.'

  But in his heart he feels a certain bitterness that she should have destroyed the child without consulting him.

  'I've waited for days to speak to you. You never rang,' she says.

  He feels her body quaking.

  'I am so sorry. I was completely lost.'

  21

  IN THE MORNING von Gottberg and the others turn up for work as usual. They appear to be paralysed with disappointment. In the next few days they wait for the inevitable. Although he is offered several opportunities to escape to Switzerland, to France or to Sweden, von Gottberg is unable to leave his wife and children at the mercy of the Gestapo. In any event he feels a sacrifice is due to Germany. Different conspirators react in different ways. On the Eastern Front Major-General Henning von Tresckow, who supplied the explosive, writes a note: Now everyone in the world will turn upon us and sully us with abuse. Hitler is not the archenemy of Germany, he is the arch-enemy of mankind. In a few hours' time I will stand before God to answer for my actions.

  He drives out into a wood with his adjutant, asks him to go back to the car for a map, and then blows his head from his body with a hand grenade. Other conspirators denounce their colleagues. A few escape across the borders by one means or another.

  Five days later von Gottberg is arrested. Two Gestapo men are waiting for him in his office when he comes in. One sits, as is traditional, at his desk going through his papers. Von Gottberg is taken away to Gestapo headquarters, and then to Oranienburg. Dr Six sends an emissary to the prison: he is keen to keep von Gottberg and his foreign contacts as a bargaining chip when the final defeat comes. It is, for the moment, only Schweizer's logbook that ties von Gottberg to Schweizer's master, von Stauffenberg. Later Six turns on von Gottberg saying, Wir haben einen Schweinehund unter uns gehabt — We have had a schweinehund among us — when a document proposing high office for von Gottberg in the new government is discovered. He is to be the ambassador to Great Britain. But Six may be playing a double game, speaking at the same time to his boss, Himmler; the prospect of a settlement with the Allies has been on Himmler's mind too. Who better to send as an emissary to Churchill than an Oxford man? Every day von Gottberg is brought from Oranienburg which is not far from where he and Elizabeth sat in the little DKW looking at Sachsenhausen six years before. Every day he is driven to Gestapo headquarters in Albrechtstrasse, where, the records show, he only incriminates people who are already dead or out of danger. Von Stauffenberg is one of these. Stauffenberg's remains are by now lost in Schoneberg, dispersed, ashes to ashes. The Gestapo are
sure von Gottberg knows more and, at Himmler's behest, want to find out about all his contacts abroad.

  Von Gottberg is beaten and he is made to stand for hours without sleep. Other conspirators are tortured on a rack, or half drowned in buckets of water. The guards are creatures of the movement; their continued existence is tied to the regime. They see these men, distinguished men, who are being dragged in in ever-increasing numbers, as the enemy within; it is always the case that the enemy within, the ones who refuse to accept the articles of faith of the masses, are hated most. The guards have dealt with Jews and Ukrainians and Poles and now they see that they have, in this patriotic work, been insulted by the privileged who own castles set in broad acres and from time immemorial have had everything - fine linen, wines, and leather-bound books - while they have had nothing. Worse, these are the very people who stabbed Germany in the back in 1918. It's an opportunity many of them cannot resist. Their vindictiveness and cruelty are beyond belief.

  Von Gottberg's daily interrogations are interrupted. It is announced that he and the other traitors will be summoned before the People's Court presided over by Judge President Roland Freisler, to be condemned to death. The purpose of the court is to minimise the importance of the uprising; Freisler's job is to blacken the name of the conspirators for home consumption. They are a small group of deranged ingrates, who believe they know better than the Führer, which, of course, is logically impossible, because the Führer is the people. The Führer principle demands that the people hold no doubts or even opinions of their own. Throughout the trials Freisler is to enunciate these ideas clearly.

  To Field Marshal von Witzleben he sneers, 'A Field Marshal and an Oberst General declare that they can do better than our Führer. You understand why we call this overweening ambition? You shrug your shoulders? Well, that is a kind of answer. We are of one opinion that the Führer is of the greatest help to us all alive and well.'