Plotting Hitler's Death

by Joachim C. Fest

  The increasing pressure exerted by the Führer, coupled with his evident disdain for the military, prompted a group of younger general Staff officers to renew their old connections with opponents of the regime in the Foreign Office and, most important, in Military Intelli­gence, where Hans Oster had continued to work away with the en­couragement of Canaris, who was now impatient to proceed. Oster had recruited Hans von Dohnanyi into Military Intelligence, and Dohnanyi in turn had brought in a number of close friends who opposed the Nazis, including his boyhood companion Justus Delbrück, baron of Guttenberg, and the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dohnanyi’s brother-in-law, who provided a bridge to Christian oppo­sition circles. At the same time, Helmuth Groscurth resumed close contacts with Beck, who rekindled the connection to Goerdeler. Gradually, through many more intermediaries as well, various old and new contacts were established.

  The resumption of ties to an active opposition group seemed to save Goerdeler from a psychological crisis. In his isolation he had fallen in with a group of staid old national-conservatives who did nothing but meet, talk, draft reports, hope, and wait. He had become increasingly distraught and had lost himself in far-fetched revolution­ary schemes. Over Beck’s vehement opposition, he worked on the idea of asking Hitler to send him on a mission to Britain and France to discuss peace conditions that, he calculated, “Hitler would not swallow and that would then lead to his downfall.”31 Goerdeler origi­nally envisaged a “transitional cabinet led by Göring” for the first weeks following Hitler’s fall. Other opponents of the Nazis advanced similarly misguided schemes, such as working with “open-minded cir­cles” within the SS and tossing Ribbentrop “like a bone” to the en­emy.32 They argued for hours over the restoration of the monarchy and who would be the best pretender to the throne. These ludicrous fantasies stemmed, for the most part, from an enervating lack of real activity. If it is true that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and with respect to Hitler’s regime that is irrefutable, then absolute impotence has a similar effect, at least insofar as any sense of reality is con­cerned.

  To the great disappointment of all the plotters, Halder continued to insist in the last days of October that the time was not ripe. Even the far more decisive General Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel now ac­cused Oster and Canaris of rushing things. Neither Halder nor Stülpnagel apparently knew anything about the resistance cell within the high command called Action Group Zossen, which had been formed in midmonth primarily by younger staff officers in Colonel Wagner’s circle. This ignorance throws a telling light on the isolation of the opposition groups and the lack of coordination among them. More radical and concrete in its approach than other conspiratorial circles, Action Group Zossen had formulated plans for eradicating Hitler, eliminating the SS and Gestapo, cordoning off the main cen­ters of power, and even forming a provisional government.

  Appeals for action now rained down from all sides. In order to prompt the indecisive Halder and, even more important, Brauchitsch to make their move, the conspirators in Military Intelligence wrote a paper, with the help of Secretary of State Ernst von Weizsäcker in the Foreign Office, Erich Kordt, and Hasso von Etzdorf, in which they once again marshaled the arguments against the planned western offensive. In their view, Hitler’s plans would bring about “the end of Germany,” a belief confirmed by his announcement that he intended to invade through Belgium and Holland, thereby in all likelihood drawing the United States and numerous other neutral countries into the fray. Experience, they continued, showed that protests and threats to resign would not change Hitler’s mind and would only confirm his conviction that all “ships must be destroyed and bridges burned.”33

  Finally, after long hesitation, worn out by his exertions and by Hitler’s scornful impatience, Halder decided on the last day of Octo­ber 1939 that action could no longer be delayed. The mounting con­cern among the generals, as well as the pressure from Etzdorf, the Foreign Office, and Action Group Zossen, may have helped convince him there was once again hope that a coup would succeed. In any case, he summoned Groscurth on the evening of October 31 and informed the surprised Military Intelligence officer that he, too, had finally concluded that violence was the only solution. Halder men­tioned his earlier plan of eliminating at least some of the leading Nazis in a staged accident. He outlined a few details concerning the operation itself and the new regime to take power afterwards and then added, with tears welling up in his eyes, that “for weeks on end he had been going to see Emil [Hitler] with a pistol in his pocket in order to gun him down,” as Groscurth recorded in his coded diary.34

  As often happened when a decision was finally made, support arrived from unexpected quarters. Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb, the commander of Army Group C, sent Brauchitsch a letter that ended with the comment that he was prepared “personally to stand fully behind you and to support whatever conclusions you reach or actions you deem necessary.” Oster and Erich Kordt had spent the evening of October 31 visiting Ludwig Beck on Goethestrasse in Lichterfelde. After much debate over the attitude of the generals, they arrived at the same desperate conclusion on which all their discussions had foundered for months: the most important condition for a successful coup was to kill Hitler. The next morning, when Kordt arrived al Military Intelligence, Oster half-resignedly summarized their discus­sion with the comment that no one could be found “who will throw the bomb and liberate our generals from their scruples.” Kordt told Oster simply and calmly that he had come to request permission to do just that. All he lacked was the explosives. After a few more questions, Oster promised to have the necessary materials ready on No­vember 11.35

  Everything was now rushing toward a final resolution. The very next day, when Brauchitsch and Halder visited the commanders in the West to canvass their views once again on the impending offen­sive, Stülpnagel invited Groscurth to come along and assigned him the task of “starting the preparations.” He offered encouragement and concrete information, especially about the position of reliable units and the commanders who could be counted on, and asked that Beck and Goerdeler be informed. Beck himself was discussing with Wilhelm Leuschner, a former trade union leader, the possibility of a general strike. A day later Oster was summoned to Zossen and asked to get out the previous year’s plans and update them if necessary. In his diary Gisevius captured the feeling of hectic excitement that filled him and the other conspirators, who had known nothing until then: “It’s going ahead… . Great activity. One discussion after another. Suddenly it’s just as it was right before Munich, 1938. I rush back and forth between OKW, police headquarters, the Interior Ministry, Beck, Goerdeler, Schacht, Helldorf, Nebe, and many others.”36 Meanwhile, in Zossen, arrangements were made “to secure head­quarters.”

  Once again everything was ready. Much as the coup a year earlier was to be sparked by the order to attack Czechoslovakia, this time everything would be set in motion by Hitler’s command to attack in the West. Since Hitler had set November 12 as the date of the offen­sive, the orders would have to be issued by November 5 at the latest. On that date Brauchitsch had an appointment to see Hitler in the Chancellery; he intended to make one final attempt to dissuade the Führer from this “mad attack” by underscoring the unanimous oppo­sition of the generals. Halder’s plans were based on the expectation that when the commander in chief returned from his meeting at the Chancellery, rebuffed and quite possibly humiliated as well, he would not hesitate, as he had in 1938, to issue the marching orders, which only he could sign.

  At noon on the appointed day, while Halder waited in the ante­chamber, Brauchitsch began his presentation to Hitler in the con­ference room of the Chancellery. Although the commander in chief formulated his concerns more pointedly than originally planned, Hitler listened quietly at first. However, when Brauchitsch began arguing that an offensive was impossible at that time, not only for technical reasons but also because of the failings and lack of disci­pline that the troops had demonstrated in Poland-particularly while on the attack-Hitler flew in
to a rage. He hurled accusations at Brauchitsch, demanded to see proof of his allegations, wanted to know what had been done about them and whether death sentences had been imposed on soldiers guilty of cowardice. Hitler loudly sum­moned Keitel into the room, and as Brauchitsch fumbled for words and became entangled in contradictions, he raged against “the spirit of Zossen,” which he knew all about and would soon destroy. Then he abruptly left the room, “slamming the door” and leaving the com­mander in chief standing there.37

  Brauchitsch, who had turned “chalky-white… his face twisted,” according to one observer, found his way back to Halder.38 Together they set out for Zossen, Brauchitsch exhausted and in a state of col­lapse, Halder apparently composed. When Brauchitsch casually men­tioned Hitler’s threat about the “spirit of Zossen,” however-he had not really made much of it-Halder’s ears pricked up and he, too, was seized by panic. Just a few days earlier, he had been warned by the chief signal officer, General Erich Fellgiebel, that Hitler suspected something, or at any rate was making increasingly suspicious-sounding comments about the army high command. This, coupled with Brauchitsch’s revelation, made Halder fear that the plans for a coup had been betrayed or been uncovered by Hitler in some way. As soon as he was back at headquarters, therefore, Halder ordered all coup-related documents destroyed immediately. Not long afterwards, the order to launch an offensive in the West arrived.

  * * *

  By late afternoon Brauchitsch had regained his composure. Hitler, he said, had simply caught him completely by surprise. Although the order to launch an offensive had once again created precisely the situation that was supposed to spark the coup, Brauchitsch now declared that the attack in the West could no longer be stopped. He added, “I myself won’t do anything, but I won’t stop anyone else from acting.”

  Halder, alternating between resignation and apprehension, expressed similar sentiments. He told Groscurth that now that their undertaking had been abandoned, “the forces that were counting on us are no longer bound to us.” Halder felt that there was no one who could succeed Hitler and that the younger officers were not yet ready for a putsch. Groscurth insisted that they act, arguing that the factors cited by Halder had been just as true before the scene in the Chancel­lery and reminding him that Beck, Goerdeler, and Schacht were still on board, not to mention the determined Canaris. Halder responded angrily, “If they’re so sure at Military Intelligence that they want an assassination, then let the admiral take care of it himself!”39

  Groscurth immediately carried this challenge back to Military Intelligence on Tirpitzufer, infuriating Canaris. At this point the opposition forces began falling apart at a pace so rapid it was almost visible. Canaris took Halder’s message, which was possibly exaggerated in the retelling, to mean that the OKH was foisting the assassination attempt off on him because it could no longer do it. One of the questions that remains unanswered to this day is why Oster, who witnessed Canaris’s outburst, failed to point out that an assassin was now available in the person of Erich Kordt, who had relatively easy access to the Chancel­lery and Hitler, was prepared to put his life on the line, and awaited only the necessary explosives, which a section head named Erwin von Lahousen had promised to procure. Most likely Oster was all too aware of Canaris’s long-standing antipathy toward political assassinations of any kind. But Oster’s silence also highlights how contradic­tory and uncoordinated the plans of even the innermost core of conspirators remained until the very last moment.

  Soon Oster and Gisevius received further evidence that the resistance was unraveling. For encouragement, they went to see Witzleben, who had heretofore been steadfast in his determination, at his headquarters in Bad Kreuznach. But even he expressed strong doubts that Hitler could still be stopped from launching the offensive. Witzleben believed that the only remaining possibility would be for the three army group commanders in the West-Leeb, Rundstedt, and Bock-to refuse to transmit the order to attack when the time came. On the way back from Bad Kreuznach, Oster stopped in Frankfurt am Main to see Leeb and explore the potential for such a step. How­ever, when Oster not only mentioned the names of many of the con­spirators but also drew from his pocket two proclamations, both written by Beck, to be read during the military takeover, Leeb’s first general staff officer, Colonel Vincenz Müller, responded with outrage. Muller castigated Oster for his recklessness and eventually per­suaded him to “burn the two documents in my big ashtray.” Witzleben, too, was indignant when he heard about Oster’s indiscre­tion and announced that he would not see Oster anymore.40

  Shortly before their departure on the evening of November 8, Oster and Gisevius heard news that Hitler had narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in the Bürgerbräukeller in Munich by unexpect­edly cutting short a speech that was scheduled to last several hours. Gisevius immediately conceived the idea of blaming the assassination attempt on Himmler and using it to justify a coup, in much the same way as the fictitious attempt on the Führer’s life discussed by several of the plotters in September, 1938. But the main consequence of the assassination attempt was the immediate tightening of security mea­sures, which heightened the already considerable difficulties that Lahousen was experiencing in procuring explosives for Erich Kordt. Nevertheless, Kordt was assured once more on November 10 that everything would be ready the next day. There was a catch, however. Under the new restrictions, Lahousen was only able to acquire an extremely complicated detonator that required special training to op­erate. Kordt declared that he was still prepared to proceed, but now Oster got cold feet and backed out. Thus was Hitler spared thanks to the first of many “providential” events that would henceforth occur regularly, preserving him for the “Herculean tasks” that he believed himself destined to carry out.

  In the meantime, Hitler postponed the launching of the offensive from November 12 until the fifteenth, then the nineteenth, and fi­nally the twenty-second. The sense of relief produced by these post­ponements further weakened the conspiracy. Returning from a visit to the western border, Stülpnagel remarked to Halder, “You’re right. It won’t work. The commanders and troops would not obey your call.” Halder himself commented spontaneously to General Thomas that a coup d’ état would fly in the face of all tradition and that “it is quite intolerable that the Germans should come to be the slaves of the English.” The helplessness of the opposition at this point is re­vealed by Halder’s suggestion to Secretary of State Weizsäcker that a soothsayer be bribed to influence Hitler and by his offer to provide a million marks for this purpose. Meanwhile, the commanders in chief of the army groups held a meeting at which they agreed unanimously about the perils of a western offensive but rejected Leeb’s suggestion that they resign en masse. At that, Leeb resolved to banish all thoughts of resistance from his mind.41

  In Berlin, Schacht continued for a time to search out new conspirators who had not yet become cynical and weary, but he, too, eventu­ally grew resigned. Beck continued to write “papers for his daughter,” as one observer scoffed. Gisevius was sent as vice-consul and military intelligence officer to the German consulate in Zurich, Goerdeler returned to his bizarre schemes, and Canaris finally succumbed to his revulsion for the world.42 He forbade Oster to engage in any further conspiratorial activities and demanded that he recall “Herr X,” Mu­nich lawyer Josef Müller, whom Oster had dispatched to Rome in an attempt to discover through the British ambassador to the Holy See how London would react to a coup and what peace conditions it might offer should Germany rid itself of Hitler. An embittered Groscurth wrote to his wife on November 16, “We carry on, but nothing ever happens… except fiascos.” The same day he met with his immediate superior, General Kurt von Tippelskirch, who had at­tended a briefing in Brauchitsch’s office concerning fresh atrocities in Poland. Tippelskirch commented with a sigh, “We’ll just have to get through the valley of the shadow of death.”43

  Hitler’s apparent sixth sense, which he often followed, now induced him to summon the officers once again and rally s
upport for his plans. He knew enough about psychology to employ not only his own oratorical powers but also a measure of spectacle; on November 23, the extended leadership of all three services, the commanders and general staff officers, were invited to a glittering gathering in the Marble Hall of the Chancellery. For the first time since the victory over Poland, the army leadership came together, and the whirl of uniforms, gold braid, epaulets, and red trouser stripes seemed to cast an enchanting spell over the assemblage, so that much of their fear and concern had already evaporated when Göring and Goebbels made rousing appeals to the group. Then Hitler himself appeared, looking rather somber, and spoke at length with portentous solemnity about the thinking that underlay his convictions.

  He opened with a historical and strategic overview, assuring the assembled throng that the Great War had never ended-the second act was only just beginning-and that he had not rebuilt the Wehrmacht in order not to use it. “The determination to strike has always lain within me,” he said. Anyone who opposed him would therefore be crushed, “regardless of who he is.” He said he had been deeply offended by what he saw as a lack of faith: “I cannot endure anyone’s telling me the troops are not all right.” After reviewing once again the necessity for the impending offensive, he declared himself “indis­pensable,” for he alone could make the difficult but crucial decisions. Hanging in the balance was not just a National-Socialist Germany but the entire question of “who will dominate Europe and therefore the world.” The speech bristled with threats directed at “doubters,” “de­serters,” and those who would foment “revolution.” The struggle, he warned, would be waged without quarter against anyone who failed to embrace the will to victory. He himself was prepared “to die, if neces­sary, but only as the last one”: “I will not survive the defeat of my people.” These remarks were enthusiastically received in the ranks of the navy and air force, who had often been praised by Hitler. Within the army, even many of the generals who had recently expressed strong opposition to an invasion conceded that they were “greatly impressed” by Hitler, despite his unmistakable criticism of the high command. Oster commented incisively that accusations of cowardice had once again made cowards of the brave.44