Plotting Hitler's Death

by Joachim C. Fest

  There is much to indicate that Hitler was already leaning in this direction. And at this point, another explosive police record turned up thanks to the assiduous efforts of Himmler and Heydrich, who produced it, and Göring, who turned it over to the Führer. This one enabled Hitler to rid himself of the entire high command of the Wehrmacht, as the Reichswehr was now called, reducing the army to the purely instrumental role he required for his war policy. The record in question accused the commander in chief of the army of ho­mosexuality. An unsuspecting Fritsch was summoned to the Chancellery, where, as if playing a part in a farce, he was confronted by a hired “witness” before a large audience presided over by Hitler. The accusations against Fritsch would soon be proved groundless, but in the meantime they had had the desired effect: instead of merely hurling the “evidence” at Hitler’s feet, as the Führer himself had expected, Fritsch seemed bewildered and confused by the charges. Failing to see through the ploy, he devoted all his efforts over the next few days to erasing the stain on his honor and convincing the Führer that a terrible mistake had been made. Obsessed with his personal disgrace, he rejected all attempts to persuade him to assume a broader perspective and expose the underlying plot, especially by summoning Himmler and Heydrich as witnesses in a court of law. Only after his cause was irretrievably lost did Fritsch realize that the entire affair was aimed not at him personally but at the army as a whole. Thus Hitler spared himself the public confrontation with the armed forces that he had been so eager to avoid.

  Fritsch was not the only officer who failed to see that this maneuver was Hitler’s attempt to eliminate all opposition within the army. Lieutenant Colonel Hans Oster of Military Intelligence, who did real­ize what was going on, attempted to persuade several commanding generals who could mobilize their troops, to demonstrate the mili­tary’s might and force Hitler to back down. Ulex in Hannover, Kluge in Münster, and List in Dresden listened in outrage when informed by Oster or his emissaries of the true background to the Fritsch affair; Kluge, it is said, even turned “ash-white.” But no one would take action. The jeering and snickering of those who had plotted the in­trigue were almost audible in the background, and it is no wonder that Hitler said he knew for sure now that all generals were cow­ards.28

  Even more revealing, perhaps, was the reaction of Ludwig Beck, who served briefly as the interim head of army command after Fritsch’s departure. Not only did he provide his former chief with scarcely any support, he forbade the officers in army headquarters to talk about what had happened. When Quartermaster General Franz Halder visited him on January 31 to inquire about the affair, which continued to be a closely guarded secret, Beck stonewalled him, claiming he was duty-bound to remain silent. When Halder de­manded that Beck lead his generals in a raid on the Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse headquarters of the Gestapo, which Halder presumed was behind all the intrigues, Beck replied with considerable agitation that this would be nothing less than “mutiny, revolution.” “Such words,” he added, “do not exist in the dictionary of a German officer.”29 The following day Fritsch’s resignation was announced.

  Thus Werner von Fritsch, the commander in chief of the army, was disgraced and quietly driven from his post, though he still felt quite loyal to the Führer. It probably only dawned on Hitler gradually that all the fortuitous events, plotting, and farcical twists of the previous few days had left him with the great opportunity he had always craved: to take a stiff broom to the army. With the first sentence of a decree issued on February 4, 1938, he assumed “direct and personal” command “of the entire Wehrmacht.” Blomberg’s Ministry of War was dissolved and replaced by the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), or high command of the armed forces. Henceforth the Führer would not have to contend with anyone who spoke for the com­bined armed forces, just with the commanders of the various branches. At the same time, Hitler took the opportunity to retire or transfer more than sixty generals, in most cases apparently not for any lack of loyalty to the regime but simply in order to bring younger officers to the top. A number of ambassadors received the same treat­ment. Hitler was certainly at least partially motivated by a desire to shroud the dismissals of Blomberg and Fritsch in a fog of change and reorganization. The extent to which he used this reshuffling to take retribution against those who had opposed him on November 5 of the previous year is indicated by the fact that Neurath, too, was dis­missed, to be replaced by Joachim von Ribbentrop. Hitler also put an end to his tempestuous relationship with Hjalmar Schacht, his minister of economics, by appointing Walter Funk to that post. Finally there was the question of what to do with Hermann Göring, whom Hitler named field marshal in an attempt to appease him for having been passed over in this orgy of new appointments.

  Thus the last people who could challenge Hitler were eliminated, having been systematically weakened and stripped of their authority. The new men recommended themselves to the Führer through their pliancy and submissiveness, and he expected them to be nothing more than executors of his will. Wilhelm Keitel was made chief of the OKW because Blomberg, during his final interview, had disparaged him as a mere “office manager.” “That’s just the kind of man I need,” Hitler promptly replied.10 Walther von Brauchitsch, who took over as commander in chief after Fritsch, accepted the appointment reluc­tantly and after long hesitation, more out of a sense of duty than out of ambition. He was apolitical, like many of his fellow generals, tended to avoid conflict, and in any case was much too weak-kneed to have any hope of defending the army’s interests against Hitler, the Nazi Party, and the rising SS.

  Hitler’s impatience and the hectic pace of events are almost palpable in the extant documents from this period. Within days of issuing his February 4 decree, he ordered that the matériel needed for army mobilization be “fully” stockpiled by April 1, 1939. Furthermore, he ordered plans to be drafted for a far-reaching naval program that would enable Germany to compete with Great Britain on the high seas and for a fivefold expansion of the Luftwaffe. At the same time, great strides were made on the operational side. Hitler’s heady rest­lessness of that spring suggests that he was deeply gratified to be free at last of the incessant obstructionism of the old-line generals, with their frowning brows and shaking heads. Now he could pursue his dreams of grandeur and glory unimpeded and “save” the world ac­cording to his own vision. On the evening of April 20, 1938, he asked Keitel to head up general staff preparations for the occupation of Czechoslovakia. At about the same time, the chief of general staff, Ludwig Beck, drafted the first of a series of memoranda composed with mounting alarm over the next few months in an attempt to dissuade Hitler from going to war and also to restore the military’s political influence through internal reorganization. That was the be­ginning of a long, drawn-out duel between unequal opponents. In mid-June Hitler announced that he would take any opportunity that arose after October 1 “to solve the Czech question.”

  Although the period between the Röhm and Fritsch affairs was marked by error and blundering, what stands out above all was a lack of will and assertiveness. In its pedantic, exacting way, history almost always requites such failings with shame and humiliation. In the case of Fritsch, not a single general insisted with appropriate vigor on clarifying the circumstances surrounding his denunciation or even on knowing the reasons, which Hitler only vaguely hinted at, that Fritsch could not be fully and publicly exonerated. Still, Brauchitsch inter­ceded persistently and quietly on Fritsch’s behalf and, by pointing to the mounting disquiet in the army, eventually did persuade the Führer to explain himself to the officer corps.

  The meeting was held on June 13 at the air base in Barth, where, according to all reports, Hitler delivered one of the most compelling speeches of his career. With an eye toward his ripening plans for military conquest, he was determined to forestall the looming crisis of confidence in the army. He spoke of his “regrets” and the “tragedy” of the Fritsch case and promised that a similar situation would never arise again. His every word implied that the army remained
the un­challenged and unchallengeable bearer of arms in the Reich, and he concluded by announcing that General Fritsch would be appointed “honorary commander” of the Twelfth Artillery Regiment.

  But the army’s irretrievable loss of influence in the wake of the Fritsch affair became apparent as early as the next March, when the German incursion into Austria was planned without the consultation of the general staff. As if freed of his bonds, Hitler dared for the first time to send German forces across international frontiers, in an oper­ation planned largely by party circles and carried out with the support of Himmler and the SS, whose star was plainly in the ascendant.

  Werner von Fritsch, though now cleared of all charges, was put through one final humiliation. Hitler delayed communicating with him until March 30, when a chilly letter was finally sent out, followed two days later by a curt announcement in the press that the Führer had conveyed to General Fritsch his “best wishes for the recovery of his health.” Fritsch responded one week later in a letter to Hitler: “The criminal charges against me have totally collapsed. However the deeply hurtful circumstances surrounding my dismissal from the army linger on-all the more painfully since the true reasons for my dismissal have not remained unknown to many in the Wehrmacht and the general public.” Fritsch pleaded that “those people be called to account who were officially responsible for my case and for keeping you fully and promptly informed” and entrusted the restoration of his honor “to your wise judgment as commander in chief.” He never received a reply.31

  * * *

  The Fritsch affair marked one of the lowest points in the long history of the German military. It also marked a new departure in the history of the Nazi regime, for the events of the spring of 1938 prompted the first stirrings of underground resistance. Groups materialized in a variety of locations, largely the creation of individuals who recognized not only the threat Hitler posed to Germany but the extent to which his behavior fell short of civilized standards. They formed ties, at­tracted like-minded people, and even overcame deeply entrenched European chauvinisms by reaching out across national borders to seek support abroad. They still differed immensely in their hopes and intentions and their readiness to shed the prejudices of the past; uniting them was little more than the conviction that things could not simply be allowed to take their course.

  The most prominent figure in these opposition groups was indisputably Hans Oster, who became chief of the central division of the OKW Military Intelligence Office in the autumn of 1938. He had been skeptical of the Nazis prior to 1933 but, like most of his fellow officers, initially approved of Hitler’s foreign policy and therefore hesitated for a time once the new regime came to power. The Röhm affair served to clear his mind. Though not particularly politically minded at first, he nevertheless possessed sufficiently strong values and clarity of vision to understand the devastating defeat that the Reichswehr had inflicted on itself. The despotism in the land, daily growing more palpable in countless ways, the curtailment of the rule of law, and the emerging struggle against the churches prompted this parson’s son from Dresden to progress from mere reservations about the regime to fundamental hostility toward it. This inspired him to use the resources of Military Intelligence to build a far-flung network of conspirators. The disgraceful farce leading to Fritsch’s dismissal fired Oster with a determination to resist, though he recognized that it was Fritsch’s own weakness that had made his downfall inevitable. Nevertheless, Fritsch had been Oster’s regimental commander for a number of years and Oster continued to hold him in the highest regard, almost revering him. Decisive, quick-witted, and diplomati­cally imaginative, Oster was an unusual blend of moral rectitude, cunning, and recklessness. During many long discussions with Beck, he pointed out all the inconsistencies in the chief of the general staffs position and sowed doubt about the formalistic concept of loyalty to which Beck always hewed when Hitler repeatedly forced tests of conscience on him. Constantly on the move, Oster cultivated contacts on all sides and forged connections between the civilian and military opponents of the regime that would later become very important.

  The driving force of the civilian opposition was Carl Goerdeler, whom the military resistance also came over the years to recognize as a leading figure. The scion of a conservative family, he originally joined the German National People’s Party but left because of its narrow, reactionary views. Goerdeler then earned a reputation for being a broad-minded, socially progressive politician as mayor of Leipzig. In the Weimar period, under Chancellor Brüning, he had served as Reich commissioner for price control. Now, after the Röhm affair, he agreed to assume this position once again but soon found himself in conflict with both Hitler’s economic policy and the party authorities. He was a “classic exemplar” of that opposition from within which seeks to civilize the regime by cooperating with it.32 Whereas many people later claimed that they had cooperated with the Nazis in order to prevent even worse from happening, when they had actually demonstrated little courage and achieved virtually noth­ing, Goerdeler proved to be an indefatigable and public adversary of Nazi criminality in his attempt to bolster “the forces of good in the party.”33 In 1933 he refused to raise the swastika flag at the Leipzig city hall. After some vacillation he finally resigned in 1937, when, in his absence and contrary to his explicit instruction, a monument to Felix Mendelssohn, a Jew, was removed from its position in front of the Gewandhaus concert hall.

  From this point on, Goerdeler devoted himself tirelessly to the resistance. He mobilized acquaintances from far and wide. Just be­tween June 1937 and late 1938 he traveled to twenty-two countries, always seeking to persuade the major powers to adopt an unyielding posture toward Hitler. Within Germany he established contacts on all sides and in this way contributed immensely to rallying the conserva­tive, nationalistic, bourgeois opposition to the regime. He was moti­vated in all this by an indomitable, almost pathological optimism and unshakable faith in the power of logical argument. Even as a con­demned prisoner on the eve of execution, he remained true to this belief despite his experiences and his fits of resignation.

  Oster and Goerdeler were just the pivotal figures among a rapidly expanding corps of people who were prepared to oppose the regime. Some were lone wolves unattached to any group. In addition to the major circle within the army was another, at the Foreign Office, led by Adam von Trott zu Solz, Otto Kiep, Eduard Brücklmeier, Hans-Hernd von Haeften, and the Kordt brothers. In the wake of the Fritsch affair, these conspirators were joined by Georg Thomas, the OKW armaments chief; generals Wilhelm Adam, Erich Hoepner, Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel, and Erwin von Witzleben; Chief of Military Intelligence Wilhelm Canaris; and numerous other figures. The Fritsch affair had proved a turning point for Hans von Dohnanyi and Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenburg, too, and Henning von Tresckow even pondered quitting the army and its all-too-acquiescent generals.34

  Ludwig Beck’s behavior reveals how difficult many officers found it to cast military tradition and principle aside and enter an entirely new world. In his memoranda and the comments he made to those around him, Beck repeatedly and vigorously denounced Hitler’s impatient warmongering. At the same time he struggled stubbornly, albeit in increasing isolation, to save the battered “two pillar” theory of the state and assert what was left of army influence over political life, now that Brauchitsch had clearly given up and was completely occupied with slaving off further demands rather than with making ones of his own. When Oster approached Beck at this point and asked him to take action, the chief of general staff agreed to persuade Brauchitsch to support a mass resignation of generals. At the same time, however, Beck was concerned that his name not become associated with the things that were still unacceptable to him as a soldier, such as mutiny and government by South American-style juntas.

  Mass action on the part of German generals was certainly not without incalculable risk. It would be taken as signaling an uprising, for which there was not the necessary broad support, in either the army, the middle class, or
the working class. It might also play into Hitler’s hands, providing him with an opportunity to flood the army with officers loyal to the regime, possibly even plucked from the senior ranks of the SS. Their resignations might enable the Führer to suc­ceed even more swiftly in creating an army that conformed ideologi­cally to his worldview, which was more obviously becoming his aim with every passing day.

  For these reasons, Beck’s plan was to present the idea of the mass resignation of the army as an attempt to save Hitler from the clutches of the party and the SS-a fiction, to be sure. The rallying cry he intended to issue was, “For the Führer, against war, against rule by the bosses, for peace with the church, freedom of speech, and an end to Cheka methods!”35 This approach was based on the widespread impression that Hitler’s entourage was split into “good” and “bad” factions struggling for the heart and soul of the Führer. Everyone must help, therefore, reduce the influence of the “bad” elements around Ribbentrop, Himmler, and Goebbels. This was certainly the thinking behind Beck’s comment to Brauchitsch at the time that he was prepared to shoot at the SS but not at Hitler.