Plotting Hitler's Death

by Joachim C. Fest

  The cracks that the Führer nevertheless found in this wall were the newly appointed minister of defense, Werner von Blomberg, and the head of the Bureau of Ministers, Colonel Walter von Reichenau. Confounding the expectations of the German Nationalist leaders who helped make Hitler chancellor, these two military men would soon become enthusiastic supporters of the Nazi cause, though for very different reasons. Blomberg was an impulsive, unsettled figure, who in the course of his life had embraced in quick succession democracy, thee anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner, and Prussian socialism, then had come close to accepting Communism after a trip to Russia, and eventually had endorsed the authoritarian state, before falling for Hitler with all the exuberance of his nature. Later he said that in 1933 he was suddenly filled with feelings that he had never expected to experience again: faith, reverence for a leader, and total devotion to an idea. Hitler, he once remarked, acted on him “like a great physi­cian.”6 According to Blomberg’s intimates, a friendly comment from the Führer was enough to bring tears to his eyes.

  Reichenau, on the other hand, was the very embodiment of the modern officer, devoid of prejudice or sentiment. With the cool calculation of one lacking strong political sympathies of his own, he perceived the new men in government simply as the leaders of a mass movement whose strength he would tap to improve the position of the army and enhance Germany’s glory and prestige. A gifted man who combined elegance, toughness, and a taste for power, he was never personally tempted by National Socialism; he respected it as a political force without taking its ideology seriously. Reichenau be­lieved that the Reichswehr, with its “seven antiquated divisions scat­tered across the entire country,” was totally incapable of asserting itself. To expect it to do so was a “daydream” suitable only to the realm of “fiction.” Hoping to cement the army’s relationship with Hitler, marginalize the Nazi Party, and edge out its paramilitary wing, the SA, he proposed that the Reichswehr adopt the motto “Forward into the new state.”7

  Reichenau was relatively undisturbed by the excesses that accompanied the Nazi seizure of power. It always required an element of terror, he said soon alter assuming his new position, to purge a state of all its rot and decay. What did cause him considerable dismay, however, was the mounting power of the SA. Its ranks had swollen to over a million since the mass conversions of the spring of 1933, and it was expressing its dissatisfaction ever more vehemently. Hitler’s brown-shirted legions took a dim view of his legal revolution, which seemed to be undermining their interests, and they looked on bitterly as conservative politicians, aristocrats, capitalists, and generals-the very men whose worlds they wanted to smash-began assuming places of honor at celebrations of the national revival, while they, the eternally mistreated foot soldiers of the revolution, were expected simply to parade by.

  The brownshirts felt they were the vanguard of the revolution, not just extras. They had learned from their slogans and songs how revolutions had been carried out since time immemorial: the fortresses of the old order were stormed in a torrent of bloodshed and plunder and the new order raised on the wreckage of the old-with the greatest rewards going to the most loyal soldiers. They could not understand Hitler’s sly concept of revolution by infiltration and ruse, and their rugged leader, Ernst Röhm, was particularly lacking in the patience and cunning required. And so, while the SA continued, in the disor­derly style it had adopted in the spring of 1933, to sow terror in the streets, to open up its own “wildcat” concentration camps, and to disrupt trials and legal proceedings-occasionally going so far as to beat up fellow party members who showed too much restraint- Röhm reminded his followers with mounting anger of the sacrifices they had made and the dead they mourned. When his demands on the government went unheeded, he found himself increasingly driven lo take the stance of the betrayed revolutionary.

  Bitterly disappointed by the course of events and spurred by the agitated masses, who were eager for the spoils of victory, he whipped up his followers in the SA with speeches and harangues, insisting that “the national revolution must end now and become a National Socialist revolution.” Talk began to circulate in SA circles of the need for a “second revolution” to boost the Nazi movement fully into the saddle, to free it from its wretched mire of half measures, and to sweep Röhm and his organization to the top. When Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick warned in the summer of 1933 that he would take “severe measures”—at the very least putting disorderly SA members in “protective custody”—and followed through by clamping down on SA activities, Röhm threatened to march two brigades up to Frick’s headquarters in the Vossstrasse and give him a public whipping.8

  But Röhm did not confine himself to making extravagant remarks before cheering supporters. His slogans promising a “second revolution” were aimed first and foremost at the Reichswehr, which had so far successfully resisted Gleichschaltung and, in Röhm’s view, epito­mized the “forces of reaction” and the official tolerance of them. Röhm felt that the planned expansion of the Reichswehr, and the countless openings it would create for officers in particular, should be directed at satisfying the career ambitions of SA leaders. The logic of the situation led naturally, in his view, to the conclusion that all the armed forces should operate within the framework of the SA and gradually be molded into a National Socialist people’s army. “The gray cliffs must inevitably be swallowed by the brown tide,” Röhm proclaimed as he forged ahead with plans to take the much smaller army, with its gray field uniforms, into the embrace of the brown-shirted SA, transforming it into a popular militia.9

  The generals of the Reichswehr were understandably protective of its traditions and prerogatives; Röhm’s increasingly urgent and imperious designs alarmed them and confirmed their worst fears. As if to bring matters to a head, in the fall of 1933 Röhm incorpo­rated another right-wing paramilitary organization into the SA, the Stahlhelm (“steel helmet”), which had originally been founded as a First World War veterans’ group. At a single stroke he raised the strength of his domestic army to nearly three million men. At the same time he began building the SA into a state within the state, enhancing its military aura, creating a network of offices to oversee a little of everything-including paramilitary sports, gymnastics, and life in the universities-setting up an SA police force and judicial system, and establishing liaisons to industry, government, and the press. Despite his strident, relentless insistence on the unsatisfied demands of his followers, Röhm continued to have confidence in Hitler and considered him merely indecisive and susceptible to “stupid and dangerous” characters like Göring, Goebbels, Himmler, and Hess, who were blocking the way to the real revolution and the dawn of an SA state.10

  Hitler probably basically agreed with Röhm’s ideas. The Führer certainly shared his distaste for the officer caste, with its monocles and starchy mannerisms. If Hitler had exhibited any support for Röhm’s demands at this juncture, however, he would have not only aroused the animosity of the Reichswehr and President Hindenburg but also jeopardized his alliance with the conservatives, undermined his basic tactic of “legal revolution,” endangered the incipient eco­nomic recovery, and possibly even invited intervention by foreign powers. In short, supporting Röhm would have sabotaged his entire strategy for seizing power. At least for the moment, Hitler remained reliant on the expertise of the senior Reichswehr officers as he set about the pressing military tasks he had designated for himself, above all the rebuilding of the army.

  Nevertheless, Hitler did not want to dismiss Röhm’s demands out of hand. He even quietly encouraged the SA leader on the theory that all obstacles put in the path of the Reichswehr would ultimately make it more amenable to his will. At a conference of army commanders in December, Blomberg expressed great concern about “attempts within the SA to establish an army of its own.” Six weeks later he received a memorandum from Röhm in which the SA chief flatly declared “the entire realm of national defense falls within the pur­view of the SA.” The next day, as if not wishing to leave the sl
ightest doubt about his plans, Röhm added comments that the generals took as an open declaration of war: “I now consider the Reichswehr to be only a military training school for the German people. The conduct of war and therefore also the mobilization [of troops] are henceforth the concerns of the SA.”11

  Blomberg and Reichenau responded by insisting on “a clear decision.” Just as Hitler had expected, they made numerous attempts at accommodation to curry favor with him. A preliminary concession had already been made. The commander in chief of the army, Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord, was an aloof, sarcastic man, who punctuated his principles with cutting displays of disregard.12 He made no secret of his aversion to the new rulers, even speaking of them in wider circles as “that gang of criminals” or “those filthy pigs,” the latter an allusion to the homosexual tendencies of the SA leaders. As a result, more and more of Hammerstein’s responsibilities were as­sumed by Blomberg, for whom the duties came more easily than for Hammerstein, who had neither talent nor desire for intrigue and insisted on straight dealings. By the spring of 1933 it was already being rumored that the commander in chief of the army would last, at most, until the summer. Though somewhat passive, Hammerstein ultimately held on until the fall before submitting his resignation. Within the officer corps, hardly an eyebrow was raised. Things finally seemed to be improving, and “everyone was happy to be rid of Ham­merstein.”13 Blomberg even went so far as to order his department head in the ministry to forbid any further contacts with the former army commander in chief.

  This initial attempt to appease Hitler was soon followed by a second. Just a few days after the commanders’ conference in early February, Blomberg ordered that Nazi insignia henceforth be the official symbol of the armed forces. Somewhat later he mandated that the officer corps adopt the so-called Aryan paragraph of the Act to Re­store a Professional Public Service of April 7, 1933, requiring, among other things, that civil servants of non-Aryan descent be retired.14 Shortly thereafter Blomberg issued orders making “sympathy with the new state” the decisive criterion for promotions and, still at his own initiative, introduced a program of “political training” for soldiers. Hitler, who was well versed in reading omens, may have viewed these gestures as the first sign of impending capitulation, de­spite all the grumbling about them in the Reichswehr.

  To entice the army further down this path Hitler himself offered a concession: at the army’s Bendlerstrasse headquarters on February 28, 1934, Röhm was forced to sign a paper in Hitler’s presence that confirmed all the prerogatives of the Reichswehr and delegated only supporting military-training duties to the SA. The dispute between the two military forces was then officially washed away in a “reconciliatory breakfast,” at which, according to Blomberg, the Führer deliv­ered a “stirring” appeal to keep the peace.

  Hardly had the ceremony ended, the table been cleared, and the guests departed, however, before Röhm exploded in a tirade of rage and frustration. He called Hitler a “ridiculous corporal,” accused him of disloyalty and shouted, “If it can’t be done with Hitler, we’ll do it without him!” One of the witnesses, SA leader Viktor Lutze, scurried away from the champagne breakfast in the Huldschinsky Palace, Röhm’s headquarters in Berlin, to Hitler’s camp at Berchtesgaden to report what had happened. The Führer curtly informed him, “We’ll just let this ripen.”15

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  In the meantime Röhm carried on as if the agreements, assurances, and solemn handshakes of February 28 had never occurred. He pur­chased arms abroad, displayed SA muscle in gigantic military parades, held public flag-consecration ceremonies and reviews of his troops, and rode, mounted high on his steed, before the brown-shirted hordes. Still, Hitler waited, for the balance that had been achieved seemed to hold the SA and the Reichswehr in check, each in its own way. Finally, it was the many enemies Röhm had accumulated in the course of his career who decided to pounce, beginning with such people as Rudolf Hess and Martin Bormann in party headquarters and extending all the way to the SA division heads. Most important was Hermann Göring, who felt driven into an alliance that he would have preferred to avoid. He joined forces with Heinrich Himmler, the chief of the SS, turning control of the Gestapo over to him. In aligning himself with Himmler he was also taking on Himmler’s assis­tant, Reinhard Heydrich, who had always struck him as eerie and sinister. By early May Heydrich had assumed responsibility for the operation against Röhm.

  The change in the atmosphere was immediately palpable, as a veritable campaign was launched, complete with intrigue, rumors, and hit lists. Amid all the planning and plotting, the gray shadow of an of­ficer’s uniform appeared time and again. A vague aura of unease began to spread, as if Germany was once again coming to its senses and beginning soberly to assess the changes that had taken place, whose true nature had been veiled by the inebriating spectacle of parades and by the Führer’s speeches. Many of the intolerable condi­tions of the Weimar Republic had indeed disappeared, but only to be replaced by new horrors: the persecution of helpless minorities, a muzzled press, conflict with the churches, mounting suspicion of Ger­many from abroad, and much more. A showdown with the SA loomed nearer, heightening apprehensions, and the Young Conservatives, another group interested in sharpening antagonisms, begun to make its presence felt. Egged on by certain of its members in his entourage, Vice-Chancellor Papen now sensed an opportunity to emerge from the background into which he had been forced and to steer Germany back to being an orderly nation. A revolt of the SA was rumored to be imminent and could perhaps be used, he calculated, to induce President Hindenburg to declare a state of emergency. Papen felt encour­aged by the president himself, who commented as he set off in early June for a vacation on his Neudeck estate in East Prussia, “Things are going badly, Papen. Try to restore order.”16

  With this piece of encouragement ringing in his ears, Papen delivered a dramatic speech (written for him by the conservative writer Edgar Jung) at the University of Marburg on June 17, 1934. As if he had not been partially responsible for government decisions all along, Papen spoke out against the spread of violence, the extremism of the Nazis, the scramble for sinecures and easy money, the suppression of free speech, the mania for Gleichschaltung, and the “unnatural, totalitarian demands” of the state. Hitler was dismayed and bewildered for a fleeting moment, apparently assuming that the rather careless Papen had blurted out the details of a secret agreement that was being forged by the president, the Reichswehr, and the still influen­tial conservative forces. There is much evidence to suggest that this was the moment Hitler finally decided to deal with the SA.

  Feverishly but with great calculation, the stage was set for Röhm’s demise. Public warnings were issued almost daily to those who advo­cated a “second revolution.” The Reichswehr was tipped off that the SA seemed to be planning an operation. Secret but widely circulated reports advised that the brownshirts were on the verge of staging a revolt. Leading politicians from the Weimar Republic, such as Heinrich Brüning and Kurt von Schleicher, who had preceded Hitler as chancellor, were quietly advised to disappear for a few days or, better yet, to leave Germany entirely. The command posts of certain military districts were informed that, whatever happened, the SS would be on the side of the legal authorities and should be furnished with weapons, if necessary. Once again, a “hit list” of the SA made the rounds, landing on the desks both of Reichswehr officers and of some of those whose names it featured prominently. In the middle of the cleverly orchestrated agitation stood the unsuspecting Ernst Röhm, who had just completed arrangements to send his units on their regular leave. On June 29, 1934, the evening before the summer holidays were to begin, SA units in some cities were put on routine alert. Their commanders checked their readiness for action and sent them out to protest on the streets.

  In the early morning hours of June 30 death squads began to fan out. Trucks of SS men and police roved the streets of Berlin, cordon­ing off the Tiergarten district, which housed the SA leaders’ quarters as well as Papen’s office
on Vossstrasse. Hitler himself went to Bad Wiessee, where Röhm was holding a congress of SA leaders, and arrested him in his bed. Together with other SA commanders, Röhm was taken to the prison in Stadelheim. The executions began that morning, both there and in the SS barracks in Berlin-Lichterfelde. To lake advantage of the “unique opportunity,” as one participant phrased it, the hit list was expanded to include not only alleged “SA plotters” but also erstwhile opponents of the regime, including the circle around Papen and a number of leading conservatives. Exem­plary terror would teach all such people to refrain from any hint of revolt.

  General Schleicher, who had turned a deaf ear to various warnings, was shot in his apartment in Neu-Babelsberg, together with his wife. One of his closest associates, General Ferdinand von Bredow, the former chief of the Bureau of Ministers in the Ministry of Defense, was also slain, as were Edgar Jung, Erich Klausener (the head of Catholic Action), and many others. At around 9:00 a.m., three Ge­stapo officials accompanied by thirty SS men stormed into Papen’s offices. They searched the rooms, finally discovering Herbert von Bose, the head of the press office and a close associate of Papen. They asked him his name and then, without another word, shot him. All this was done without judicial proceedings, judgments, or the slight­est semblance of legality. Hitler seemed intent, in fact, on delivering these blows completely in the open so as to leave a deep and abiding impression, as if proclaiming from the rooftops his immutable will and the earnestness of his statement on the evening of January 30, 1933, as he entered the Reich Chancellery, that no power on earth would ever dislodge him alive.17

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  The public was horrified by the butchery, which continued into the evening of July 1. People seemed to realize instinctively that a line had been crossed. Leaders who permitted-or indeed engineered-such abominations were clearly capable of even more disturbing and frightful deeds. These fears were mitigated, however, by a sense of relief that the depredations of the SA, and the threat of chaos and mob rule that it embodied, had come to an end. For a brief moment a tear had appeared in the veil of the “legal revolution,” revealing a Hitler stripped of middle-class airs, a man whose thirst for power knew absolutely no bounds. But a public relations campaign was im­mediately launched to calm the waters, and soon the public was pre­pared to dismiss the two days of massacres as representing “the [Nazi] movement’s sowing the last of its wild oats” and the triumph of Hitler’s forces of order over the savage energies unleashed by any revolution.