Plotting Hitler's Death

by Joachim C. Fest

  The professional pride that many officers took in their work also tended to dampen their hostility toward the government. Even so steadfast an opponent of the Nazis as Lieutenant Colonel Helmuth Groscurth, writing in his diary at the beginning of the Polish cam­paign, expressed virtually daily his pride at the way countless individ­ual orders fit together perfectly to produce a grand, victorious campaign. Oster, Henning von Tresckow, Rudolph-Christoph von Gersdorff, and others were caught up in the same dilemma. Many memoirs from the time illustrate how much easier it was to solve this conundrum in one’s thoughts than in real life. For some, there was no way out of it.

  Amid all the jubilant announcements of further German victory appeared a name from the past that had virtually been forgotten: General Werner von Fritsch, the former commander of the army, who had quietly been rehabilitated but never reinstated. In a final, quixotic appearance, he was killed during the last days of the Polish campaign while observing the attack on Warsaw from the suburb of Praga.

  After little more than three weeks Poland had been taken. The opponents of the regime, whose disappointment with the Western powers had always been colored with contempt, felt confirmed in that feeling when Britain and France failed to intervene, giving Hitler a lightning victory. France, which was bound by treaty to launch be­tween thirty-five and thirty-eight divisions against Germany within sixteen days of the outbreak of hostilities, delayed mobilizing its forces. Throughout the half-hearted drôle de guerre, the French sought to cling as long as they could to the glorious illusions of the age and to the mirage of a peace that had long since been lost.

  * * *

  On the day the war began, Brauchitsch released a declaration stating that the hostilities were not directed against the Polish people and that the conquered territories would be administered in accordance with international law. But only one week later, Hitler issued guide­lines for governance indicating that he had no intention of leaving the administration of the Polish territories to the army. In keeping with his principle of divided authority, he created a civilian administration in addition to the military one and, as if to complete the confusion, sent in so-called Einsatzgruppen (or “task forces,” the SS’s notorious execution squads) behind the front-line troops. These Einsatzgruppen were technically subject to the military justice system but actually look their orders from Reich Security Headquarters and therefore from Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. They soon instituted a reign of terror. Even before the Polish campaign was concluded at the end of September, the first complaints had been lodged about summary executions of Poles and Jews, arbitrary harassment, and indiscriminate arrests.” And as early as September 9, Quartermaster (General Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel went to see Halder at Canaris’s request to inform him of Reinhard Heydrich’s comment that every­thing was going “too slowly.” Heydrich had declared, “These people have to be shot or hanged immediately without any sort of trial… aristocrats, clergy, and Jews.”16

  Three days later, on a visit to the Führer’s train, Canaris himself informed General Keitel that he had learned that “widespread shoot­ings were planned” in Poland and that “the aristocracy and clergy in particular” were to be “wiped out.” Canaris pointed out that “in the end, the world will hold the Wehrmacht responsible as well.” Typi­cally, Keitel failed to address the substance of what Canaris said, confining himself solely to questions of jurisdiction and noting that “these things had already been decided by the Führer, who made it clear to the army high command [Brauchitsch] that if the Wehrmacht did not want to become involved in all this it would have to accept the presence of the SS and Gestapo,” which would, together with civilian authorities, undertake “the ‘ethnic exterminations.’”17

  And so the situation remained. Brauchitsch was very consistent in complaining only when the SS or civilian authorities overstepped their authority, although he involved himself in many petty quarrels on this account. He never raised the far more telling question of the extent to which the brutal systematic slaughter besmirched the honor and reputation not only of the Wehrmacht but of Germany itself. Even though he had given his word to the Polish people in his decla­ration of September 1, he remained impassive. And while he did work tirelessly to keep the Wehrmacht from involvement in any atrocities, by so doing he only cleared the way for acts of breathtaking barbarity by the other branches. Attempts were soon made within the Wehr­macht to enforce discipline and proper conduct more rigidly and to punish transgressions severely, but these efforts were inevitably frus­trated and could not later shield the organization from accusations of thinly veiled complicity in the slaughter.

  For a time, Brauchitsch attempted to keep commanders in the conquered and occupied territories from realizing that the so-called land cleansing operations in the east stemmed from decisions made by Hitler himself to which Brauchitsch had acquiesced without com­plaint. As a result, it was widely believed that the atrocities were due to “excesses by lower-level authorities.” General Walter Petzel and, even more emphatically, General Georg von Küchler demanded an end to the indiscriminate massacres, as did others. Küchler described one SS unit as a “disgrace to the army.” When the senior band leader of SS-Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler ordered fifty Jews shot, General Jo­achim Lemelsen had him arrested and turned over to the army group for sentencing. General Wilhelm Ulex, who had been rehabilitated and returned to command, also demanded an end to the so-called ethnic policy, which he called a “blot on the honor of the entire German people.”18

  There; was no doubt in Brauchitsch’s mind that any intervention along the lines demanded by these generals would lead to a fierce confrontation since the policies involved were in fulfillment of some of Hitler’s most basic aims in the East.19 The commander in chief was simply not prepared for such a showdown. In vain did General Wil­helm von Leeb remind the army leadership that the “army, if reso­lutely led, is still the most powerful factor around.”20

  Far from heeding this call to action, Brauchitsch sought salvation instead in evasion and did all he could to shed responsibility for the administration of the occupied territories. On October 5, in response to a complaint from Albert Forster, a gauleiter, or district leader, that the Wehrmacht was demonstrating a “lack of understanding” of the regime’s ethnic policies, Hitler fulfilled Brauchtisch’s request by re­moving Danzig and West Prussia from the jurisdiction of the military. Twelve days later, army responsibility for all other areas was with­drawn. At a meeting in the new Chancellery with Himmler, Keitel, Martin Bormann, Rudolf Hess, and Hans Frank, who had been designated the future governor general of occupied Poland, Hitler re­marked that the Wehrmacht should be happy to be rid of these tasks. Keitel made notes in pencil on the Führer’s further comments: Po­land was not to be turned into some kind of “model province”; the emergence of a new “class of leaders” must be prevented; his policy required “a tough ethnic struggle, which could tolerate no constraints”; and “any tendency toward a normalization of conditions must be stopped.” Hitler concluded with his infamous remark about the “devil’s work” to be done in the East.21

  The abrupt end of the army’s responsibility for administration resulted in a surge of arbitrary actions on the part of party, civilian, and police authorities, kangaroo courts, district commissars, auxiliary po­lice, and others, who could now claim to be carrying out special as­signments not subject to external oversight. The change in administrative responsibilities also heightened the conflict with the army units remaining in these areas. General Karl von Rundstedt left his post as commander in chief of the eastern districts in horror after a short period; his successor, General Johannes Blaskowitz, sent Hitler a memorandum in early November describing the abuses, crimes, and atrocities, expressing his “utmost concern,” and pointing out the danger that these actions posed to the morale and discipline of the troops. Hitler rejected the “childishness” of the army com­mand, saying, “You can’t wage war with Salvation Army methods.”22

  Still
the matter would not die. A little later Blaskowitz wrote to Brauchitsch of the “bloodthirstiness” of the Einsatzkommandos, claiming that it posed an “intolerable burden” for the troops and reiterating his demand that a “new order” be instituted soon. More important, officers who opposed the Nazi regime, Lieutenant Colonel Groscurth in particular, then distributed Blaskowitz’s memorandum to the commanders in chief of the western districts and their staffs, among whom it aroused “stupefaction” and “great agitation.” General Bock and others demanded to know whether “the hair-raising de­scriptions” were accurate and whether those responsible had been called to account. Some even demanded that a state of emergency be declared in the occupied territories.23

  Although Brauchitsch shared the generals’ horror at what was happening, he once again stonewalled all requests to take; action. Finding himself increasingly besieged, he continued his hopeless attempts to allay the widespread outrage by downplaying events and refusing to discuss them. When this failed, he delegated responsibility for resolv­ing discord to the lower ranks, where, as it happened, the opponents of the Nazi activities were winning converts to their cause. When, in January 1940, Blaskowitz arrived in Zossen with another, still more sharply worded memorandum stating that “The attitude of the army to the SS and the police alternates between abhorrence and hatred” and that “Every soldier feels sickened and repelled by the crimes committed in Poland by agents of the Reich and government representatives,” Brauchitsch flatly refused to forward it to Keitel or Hitler. General Ulex had no more success when he complained that SS and SD (Sicherheitsdienst, or Security Service) units demonstrated “an utterly incomprehensible lack of human and moral sensibilities” and had sunk “to the level of beasts.”24

  Brauchitsch apparently never even passed along the concern, expressed by nearly all the critics, about the threat to discipline and the danger posed to supply lines by the prevailing state of pandemonium. He certainly never contemplated organizing a common protest or rallying the army commanders to resign en masse, though it seems likely they would all have agreed to this step, given that even an admirer of the regime like General Reichenau had on occasion expressed his revulsion at what was happening. By May, Hans Frank had been appointed governor general of the conquered territories, and he succeeded in having Blaskowitz replaced. Shortly beforehand Himmler had also succeeded, despite bitter opposition from both the OKW and the OKH, in obtaining permission to further expand the armed SS units and to form new ones. Despite its efforts, the Wehrmacht was never able to discover the troop strength of these units. It no longer played much of a role in the political calculations of the Nazi leadership.

  It is not difficult in retrospect to identify when this decline began: during the Röhm affair years earlier. In a little-noticed directive from that period, the Ministry of Defense had ordered that people persecuted for political reasons should not be protected. It is arguable that this restriction so compromised the morale and self-confidence of the officer corps that decline was inevitable. In mid-January 1940 Halder noted in his diary a terse comment Canaris had made while visiting him. “Officers too faint-hearted,” Canaris had said, aptly summarizing the old-and now terrifyingly obvious-dilemma. “No humanitarian intervention on behalf of the unjustly persecuted.”25

  * * *

  The events in Poland belong to the history of the resistance because they illustrate the importance of basic moral standards and reveal the manner in which such standards were subordinated to the traditional virtues of the soldier. By this time, if not before, any ability to claim ignorance of the essential nature of the Nazi regime had evaporated for good. In fact, the activities in Poland of the state-sanctioned “mur­der squads,” as Henning von Tresckow called them, were a turning point for many, even if these people did not necessarily proceed to active resistance. There were of course many others, indeed a major­ity, especially among younger officers, who succumbed to “Hitler’s magic” in the wake of the overwhelming German victory and who viewed the failure of the Western powers to intervene, despite their declaration of war, as further evidence of the genius of the Führer.26 Nevertheless, the hemorrhaging that the resistance had suffered be­tween Munich and the outbreak of war was stanched, and the move­ment slowly began to recover. More important, opposition to the Nazis within the army was no longer based solely on Hitler’s fool­hardy foreign policy and the military risks he ran but also on funda­mental moral questions.

  The precise role played by each of these various issues is difficult to determine, but they all came to the fore again in the protracted dispute between Hitler and the Wehrmacht after the Polish cam­paign, leading to a quick revival of the previous autumn’s plans to overthrow the regime. On September 12, when victory over Poland, though imminent, was still not complete, Hitler in his haste informed his chief Wehrmacht adjutant, Colonel Rudolf Schmundt, that he had decided lo launch an offensive in the West as soon as possible and certainly by late autumn. Eight days later the Führer took Keitel into his confidence. On September 27, the very day that Warsaw capitulated, he finally summoned the commanders in chief of the three branches of the armed forces, informed them of his decision, and ordered them to begin working on plans for a western offensive. Once again he based his decision on the argument that because time was working against Germany, both politically and militarily, the offensive could not begin soon enough.

  The army high command, in particular, was convinced that any attempt to “draw the French and English onto the battlefield and defeat them” within a few weeks, as Hitler had said, would be as hasty as it was hopeless. The entire corps of generals was incensed, and they deluged Brauchitsch with protests. On the basis of Hitler’s intimations that a settlement would be reached with the Western powers at the conclusion of the Polish campaign, the OKH had already begun to plan for redeployment in mid-September. It hoped that by simply mounting a solid defense against this enemy who had demonstrated so little stomach for war, it could gradually put the conflict “to sleep,” thereby clearing the way for a diplomatic agreement. Hitler reacted “bitterly” to these plans over the following weeks, partly because the commanders did not seem to share his elation over the victory in Poland but most importantly because their complaints during the campaign sug­gested that they still felt they had some right of consultation in po­litical decisions, while he believed that this issue had been settled once and for all.27

  Stung by Hitler’s response to them, the commanders retreated once again to purely military arguments. They pointed out that the troops were too tired to turn around and fight in the West, that stores of munitions and raw materials were depleted, that winter campaigns were always perilous, that the enemy was strong. But Hitler overrode all objections, regardless of source or context. When one general de­scribed the rigors of a late-autumn campaign, Hitler replied that the weather was the same for both sides. Even Brauchitsch objected openly to Hitler’s plans and asked Generals Reichenau and Rundstedt to speak to him. When this, too, failed, these political and military concerns, now sharpened by moral considerations, led to a revival of plots to stage a coup.

  By the end of September Canaris had already visited the various western headquarters to explore the officers’ attitudes about the planned offensive and, in some cases, to gauge support for the over­throw of the regime. At the same time, Brauchitsch and Halder held an “in-depth conversation” about the choices they faced: either to stage the offensive that Hitler wanted or else to do everything possi­ble to delay operations. A third eventuality was also raised in this conversation and duly noted in the official diary, namely to work for “fundamental change,” by which they meant nothing less than a coup.28

  As might be expected, Brauchitsch shrank from such a radical solution and preferred instead to create delays attributable to technical problems. Hitler, however, was in no mood for such ploys. He informed his commander in chief two days later that no hope remained of reaching a settlement with the Western powers and that he had made a
n “immutable decision” to wage war. The new campaign would be launched sometime between November 15 and 20. Five days later, on October 21, in a speech to the gauleiters, Hitler sug­gested an even earlier date, assuring them that the “major offensive in the West” would begin “in about two weeks.”29

  Brauchitsch was in despair. Canaris, who visited him late in the evening, was “deeply shaken” by both the nervous exhaustion of the commander in chief and by his report, in which the words “frenzy of bloodletting” appeared for the second time in recent days, now ap­plied to Hitler and his furious desire to attack.30 In the continued hope of forcing a postponement, Brauchitsch decided to work out only a sketchy campaign plan. But Hitler allowed him no leeway and only a few days later demanded the necessary amplifications, setting November 12 as the new date for the invasion. He ordered Generals Kluge, Bock, and Reichenau to Berlin to help speed up planning in the high command. All objections raised by the commanders, of whom Reichenau was characteristically the most outspoken, were dis­missed by Hitler as unfounded. Once again he urged Brauchitsch and Halder to hurry and concluded by producing some new operational plans of his own.