Plotting Hitler's Death

by Joachim C. Fest

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  For the second time in a year, a coup plot had sputtered and failed. The conspiracy of November 1939 was more tragedy than farce, yet there is indeed something farcical about a coup that was foiled simply by the angry outburst of a tyrant. It would be easy, in judging these events, to confine oneself to moral categories and point to the con­spirators’ indecision, spinelessness, and lack of resolve. Count Helldorf was certainly justified in calling Halder a “heroic philistine,” as was Groscurth in expressing his “loathing for the generals,” and Hassell in pointing bitterly to the contradiction between the “marvel­ous discussions” that the generals—or “Josephs” as he scornfully (if obscurely) dubbed them-conducted in lieu of action. For those seeking the cause of the army’s failure, such verdicts may reveal something about the strained relationships between Helldorf and Halder, Groscurth and Brauchitsch, or Hassell and the generals, but they illuminate virtually nothing about the real reasons for the re­peated failures of the coup.

  Somewhat more enlightening is the remarkable lack of realistic imagination on the part of the conspirators. In the fall of 1939, as in September 1938, they made the initiation of the coup totally depen­dent on events they could neither accurately predict nor control. The officers on the general staff were professional strategists who had demonstrated their skill on numerous occasions, but all the evidence indicates that on this occasion their planning was inadequate and probably even stunningly inept. Much remains unknown, for most of the relevant documents were destroyed and their authors perished in the war or on the gallows. One fact, however, looms so large that it cannot be overlooked: the conspirators plotted all this time to “do away” with Hitler without even the most resolute core of the resis­tance ever deciding exactly how this would be done, who would do it, and even if it could be done.

  In contrast to the September conspiracy, it is impossible to determine which units were to have delivered the blow in November. Groscurth and Stülpnagel developed orders for the operations, but Halder spoke quite vaguely after the war about two “panzer divisions that had been held back” for this purpose but whose names and positions no one seems to remember. The orders launching the coup could only be signed by the commander in chief of the army, yet, as everyone knew, Brauchitsch was not prepared to do this. Among the more farcical aspects of the conspiracy was Stülpnagel’s idea of pre­senting the orders to Brauchitsch in a sealed envelope so that he would not ask any more questions. Brauchitsch may have said on November 5 that he would do nothing to prevent someone else from “acting,” but this hardly demonstrated a willingness to sign papers authorizing the coup. The conspiracy was riddled with such inconsis­tencies, which would reappear on July 20, 1944.

  The conspirators were not hampered by any lack of seriousness or moral insight. If anything, the opposite was true. All the protests against atrocities in Poland, of which there were many more than have been mentioned here, show that the outrage at Nazi barbarism extended far beyond the circles of active conspirators. Their really decisive failing, it seems, was their lack of political will to commit an act that ran against the grain of all their traditions and patterns of thought. There is truth to the remark of the Italian ambassador to Berlin, Bernardo Attolico, that the German character, as he had come lo know it in those officers, was deficient in the qualities needed for good conspirators: patience, a keen understanding of human nature, hypocrisy, psychology, and tact. “Where can you find that between Rosenheim and Eydtkuhnen?” he asked.45

  The conspirators were acutely aware of this deficiency, and attempted to hide it by continually finding new reasons for their inaction: they were waiting for a swing in the public mood or for Hitler to suffer a setback; the younger officers, as Witzleben complained, were still “intoxicated” by Hitler; a civil war would break out or another “slab-in-the-back” myth-reminiscent of the army’s putative betrayal al the end of the First World War-would arise if they acted now; it would be best first to explore the attitude foreign powers would adopt toward a new government; and finally, time and again, no one was prepared actually to throw the bomb. When Dino Grandi went to the meeting of the Fascist Grand Council at which Mussolini was to be overthrown on July 25, 1943, he took two hand grenades with him. At the entrance to the chamber in the Palazzo Venezia, the first member of the Grand Council he encountered was Cesare de Vecchi. Fearing that Mussolini would defend himself and open fire, Grandi asked de Vecchi on the spur of the moment if he would take one of the gre­nades and throw it at II Duce if necessary. De Vecchi agreed immediately without any doubt or hesitation. A major weakness of the German resistance at this point was that it did not have a Grandi or even a de Vecchi.46

  The Italian conspirators focused all their attention on carrying out the assassination and ensuring its success, allowing the next day to take care of itself. The Germans, on the other hand, struggled so long and hard with the preconditions and consequences of their plans that their will to act dissipated. A typical picture of the conspirators would show them huddled together rehashing arguments and counterargu­ments and drafting extensive plans for the world of tomorrow. Even Erwin von Witzleben, the conspirator least prone to lose himself in ruminations, eventually succumbed to this tendency. In September 1938 he had declared that if necessary he would simply put Brauchitsch and Halder “under lock and key” for a few hours; by the next year, however, he was claiming his own subordinate position, his responsibility for his troops, and Oster’s recklessness as reasons for postponing any decision.

  In the bitter cold of mid-January 1940, Beck and Halder wandered together for hours through the deserted streets of the Berlin suburb of Dahlem, deep in a conversation that dramatically illustrated some of the antagonisms that plagued the opposition as a whole. When Beck, perhaps echoing the didactic tone of his predecessor in office, implied that the army command was wanting in courage, Halder retorted tartly that he had opposed Hitler from the very outset-unlike Beck and was in no need of lessons. He refused to allow the army to become the “handmaid” of civilian opposition groups and said he was still prepared to lead the way in a “spearhead” role, but only if backed by a broad-based political movement, of which there was still no sign at all. The task of the civilian opposition groups was to create this movement and not issue “instructions” to the army, for which they ho re no responsibility. Both men were clearly right, and it was indeed for this very reason that their conversation ended in a falling-out. They never saw each other again.47

  Apart from this and a few other isolated cases, what was missing in the resistance on the whole was not passion, strength, or personal courage. There was no lack of conviction that “the wagon is headed for the abyss and has to be stopped,” in the words of a common metaphor of the time. What the resistance did feel the want of, though, was a widely acknowledged central figure whose authority and confidence could draw together all these brooding individuals, estranged by contradictory goals and approaches and united only by their disgust for the regime. Beck was certainly not this person. He was too pensive, philosophical, and inclined to defer action. Hitler’s opponents sensed this shortcoming, as can be seen from the diaries of Ulrich von Hassell, who often speaks of the officer or the man for whom everything lay waiting. Such a man would need a spark of “Catilinarian energy” to be able to depose Hitler and would need also to shed all the scruples and misgivings that repeatedly hobbled the conspirators during the first phase of the resistance. That meant, as one of the conspirators pointed out, a readiness to “do things that others might never understand or undertake themselves.”48

  5. THE NEW GENERATION

  Among the consequences of the failed November conspiracy was a shift in the center of gravity within the resistance. It has been observed, somewhat simplistically, that the resistance was led, up to this point, by older men, some retired and some still holding senior positions, who were struggling to regain their waning influence. Be­ginning in 1940 a younger generation came to the fore, taking up the challe
nge of overthrowing the regime and casting about for suitable leaders of its own.1

  Although this view glosses over numerous distinctions within the gathering “second generation” of opponents to the regime, there is no doubt that new faces and even a new type of person began to appear after 1940. The difference between the new conspirators and the “old school” had less to do with age than with the conclusions they drew from their experiences. This gulf was rarely bridged, de­spite the many similarities in the two groups’ views. While the older conspirators wanted to renew Germany in accordance with timeworn principles that they felt were still valid-though admittedly in need of updating-their younger counterparts were captivated by the idea that a new era was dawning, necessitating a sharp break with the past. In general, this second group was more radical and less respectful than the older generation, which felt bound by traditions, oaths, obe­dience and inhibited by possible accusations of high treason. The new generation tended to scorn such notions as the “subtleties” of a dying world. They made snide remarks about “the old-timers’ revolution.” Adam von Trot occasionally remarked that for the sake of their credibility they needed to “avoid any hint of being reactionary, of gentle­men’s clubs, or of militarism,” all of which stubbornly clung to the older opponents of the Nazis.2

  In social terms, the “notables” who had previously set the tone were overtaken by the “counts,” although by no means did all members of this second group stem from the aristocracy. In military terms, the “colonels” took over from the “generals.” But there was, in fact, a fair amount of overlap between the two groups, as can be seen in the case of one of the key players in the first phase of the resistance who also played an essential role in the second and whose opposition to Nazism led him to such extremes that his actions remain controversial to this day.

  Hans Oster had decided after much mental anguish that all resistance of the kind practiced hitherto was doomed to failure. Not only was the conspirators’ ability to act severely limited by traditional no­tions of gentlemanly behavior, but worse yet, they could not get around the objection that a coup would have little chance for success so long as Hitler suffered no political or military defeat severe enough to break his spell over the German people, at least momentarily. It seemed to Oster that such a defeat should therefore be arranged.

  This was a perilous conclusion. But in his despair and helpless rage Oster realized much more clearly than most of his colleagues that National Socialism represented an entirely new phenomenon: an ide­ology of such sinister immorality that traditional values and loyalties no longer applied. For this reason, Oster commissioned Dohnanyi to gather information about the crimes of the regime both in Germany and, starting in September 1939, in Poland. Oster was hardly sur­prised when the misgivings he expressed about an offensive in the West through Dutch and Belgian territory were brushed aside by Hitler. With all these examples in mind, Oster forced himself to over­come his final inhibitions and take the step that led him to treason.

  In the early 1930s he had made the acquaintance of a young Dutch officer named Gijsbertus Jacobus Sas. At the time of the 1936 Olympic Games, they became fast friends. When Sas, having risen to rank of colonel, was appointed a military attaché to the Dutch embassy in Berlin, they renewed their friendship and grew increas­ingly close despite the enthusiastic admiration of Sas’s wife for the German Führer. On the evening of October 8, 1939, Oster was on his way home to 9 Bayerische Strasse with his occasional driver, Franz Liedig. Silent and sunk in thought, Oster suddenly asked to be dropped off at Sas’s apartment. When he returned a few minutes later and took his place beside Liedig, Oster blurted out that now there was no going back: he had just committed high treason and, if discovered, would be hanged. In an extremely emotional state, he revealed all that had driven him to this point, concluding with words that Liedig would never forget: “It is far easier to take a pistol and kill someone, it is far easier to charge into a hail of machine-gun fire when you believe in the cause, than it is to do what I have done. If things should ever come to this pass, then please be the friend even after my death who knows how it was and what moved me to do things that others might never understand or undertake themselves.”3

  Oster’s “treachery” has fired a passionate debate in Germany, with one side claiming that under a criminal regime all notions of illegality are overturned while the other takes a more formalistic view, saying that deliberate, premeditated treason should always be a capital of­fense. A third group makes the point that Oster’s deed was “basically of little import” because the Belgians, to whom Sas immediately for­warded the information provided by his friend, lent it no more cre­dence than the Dutch had.4 Furthermore, the Western powers reportedly already knew of Hitler’s intentions through many other channels. But these and other attempts to diminish, excuse, or con­demn Oster’s decision fail to come to grips with its seriousness and true intent; they also overlook the fact that Oster had crossed a cru­cial dividing line: he was prepared to cause the death of German soldiers if necessary, a position that practically none of the other members of the resistance could accept, no matter how much they still respected him.

  It is impossible to assess Oster’s actions properly without considering that his intent was not to injure Germany but to spare it the catastrophe that would inevitably result, in the unanimous view of the generals, if the original plans were followed and Western Europe was invaded immediately after the Polish campaign. His motive was to do everything he could to prevent the impending catastrophe that Hitler, after successful invasions of Czechoslovakia and Poland, was deter­mined to visit on the entire western half of Europe, Germany in­cluded. Just how close the military itself was to desperate action can he seen in the example of Walter von Reichenau, who, though he has frequently been decried as a “Nazi general,” vehemently opposed Hitler’s plans for another offensive at the conference of August 30. He then went so far as to meet with Goerdeler in the house of the former vice-mayor of Berlin, Fritz Elsas, on November 6 and en­courage him in scarcely veiled terms to leak the date of the offensive to the British and Dutch so that they would begin their preparations, thus foiling Hitler’s strategic plan.5

  While Reichenau was motivated primarily by pragmatic concerns, Oster’s intentions were much more far-ranging. He hoped, for exam­ple, to reveal, or rather highlight, a paradox that was often ignored: most officers-even those who were highly critical of the Nazis-tended to focus narrowly on their own military victories and thus found it difficult to accept that their successes redounded to Hitler’s glory, augmenting his authority and power and, for the time being, his reputation for almost magical invincibility.

  Oster clearly saw no way out of this dilemma without breaking free of traditional values and thought patterns. He was enough of an officer to understand how seriously his peers took their responsibility for the well-being of their troops. But the question was how that responsibility compared to the one they would bear for the millions of lives that would be lost in a world war unleashed by Hitler and whether it was even possible to address the real issues from the stand­point of individual nations and their legal systems, which protected each nation’s self-interests and made “high treason” a heinous crime. Traditional values provided inadequate tools for understanding or combating Hitler’s rule. Moreover, they failed to address the moral grounds on which, more than anything else, Oster’s fierce opposition was predicated. Some doubt may still remain, but when all the philo­sophical arguments have been exhausted, one point stands beyond challenge in Osier’s thinking. He himself alluded to it when he told Franz Liedig that he had made a decision on moral grounds, for which he alone was responsible and for which, if things turned out badly, he alone would pay.

  Like all previous designs of the German resistance, Oster’s action failed, even doubly so. Hitler did not suffer the expected setback, since the date of the western offensive was postponed twenty-nine times in total between the autumn of 1939 and May 1940, wh
en Wehrmacht units that had recovered their strength and were well prepared and better equipped finally smashed across the borders. Furthermore, the never-ending series of new starting dates for the attack that Oster relayed to the West made his warnings seem unreli­able. The Dutch high command never placed much stock in them in any case, as the original November date struck them as too foolish and irrational to be believed, even of Hitler. They soon wrote Sas off, suspecting that he was either being deliberately misled by his secre­tive informer or that he had become hysterical and hoped to appear more important than he really was. As a result, all his messages were simply filed away. When Oster warned the Norwegian ambassador in Berlin of Hitler’s decision to seize Norway and Denmark the ambas­sador, concluding that it was a deliberate attempt to mislead him, did not even forward the information to Oslo. By the time Norway even­tually mobilized, it was too late. Similarly, the British fleet, which set sail on April 7 to beat the Germans to the punch in Norway (Hitler invaded on April 9) had no idea it was in a race against time. As if to remind Oster that he had risked his life, honor, and reputation in vain, the Dutch commander in chief, General Winkelmann, told Sas that the German officer who was feeding him information must be “a pitiful fellow.”6