For a time Tresckow apparently entertained the idea of simply taking a pistol to Hitler. He would either do the deed himself or assign a group of his officers to act as an execution squad. According to all indications, he never totally abandoned this plan, which seemed to him the bravest and most chivalrous form of tyrannicide. All the same, by the summer of 1942 he was asking Major Rudolph-Christoph von Gersdorff to procure a “particularly powerful explosive” and “a totally reliable, completely silent fuse.” Although Gersdorff had to sign receipts each time he took possession of such materials, he was eventually able to accumulate dozens of different explosives, which he, Tresckow, and Schlabrendorff tested in the meadows along the nearby Dnieper River. Finally they selected a British-made plastic-explosive device about the size of a book with a pencil-shaped detonator.
In late 1942 Olbricht indicated that he still needed about eight weeks to complete preparations for the coup and to have reliable units standing by not only in Berlin but also in Cologne, Munich, and Vienna “when the first step against Hitler is taken from elsewhere.” Shortly thereafter Tresckow traveled to Berlin to clear up the last remaining questions with Olbricht and Goerdeler and, most of all, to emphasize that time was running short. Tresckow’s impatience pervades the notes taken by one of the participants. There was “not a day to lose,” he said. “Action should be taken as quickly as possible. No initial spark can be expected from the field marshals. They’ll only follow an order.”33 Olbricht now gave early March as the target date and explained that Colonel Fritz Jäger would advance at the appointed lime with two panzer units to deal with the guard battalion in Berlin. In addition, Captain Ludwig Gehre had assembled a task force for special assignments, and the new Brandenburg division that was being organized in the Berlin area under Colonel Alexander von Pfuhlstein would handle Nazi Party forces. Friedrich Wilhelm Heinz, who commanded the Fourth Regiment of this division, emerged from the shadows to which he had retreated in the fall of 1938. Gisevius was summoned to Berlin to assist Olbricht with the planning, and Witzleben, though seriously ill, agreed with Beck that he would assume supreme command of the Wehrmacht. This basic plan-an assassination attempt followed by seizure of key positions in Berlin and a few other centers-would be largely adopted once again on July 20, 1944.
Getting a bomb near Hitler proved to be far more difficult than originally Imagined, The Führer was growing increasingly distrustful and solitary, he seldom left his headquarters and then often altered his travel plans without warning. Arrangements were made for him to visit Field Marshal Weichs’s army group in Poltava, where a group of officers was also prepared to overpower him; he abruptly changed his route, however, and flew instead to Saporoshe. There, ironically, he barely escaped an attacking Russian tank unit that had run out of fuel at the edge of his landing field.
After turning down a number of requests, Hitler finally agreed to visit Army Group Center in Smolensk in the early morning of March 13, 1943, on his way from his headquarters in Vinnitsa back to Rastenburg. Shortly before the three aircraft carrying the Führer, his staff, and the SS escort touched down, Kluge suddenly sensed something and turned to Tresckow, saying, “For heaven’s sake, don’t do anything today! It’s still too soon for that!”34 In fact, Tresckow, believing that the most opportune time had already passed with the battle of Stalingrad that winter, had taken the precaution of developing a number of assassination plans simultaneously. One of them called for a bomb to be placed in Hitler’s parked vehicle during the visit, but all attempts to slip through the phalanx of SS men to reach the car failed. A second plot was to be carried out if possible by Georg von Boeselager, who had begun assembling a unit near Army Group Center for use in the impending coup. Tresckow was apparently prepared to ignore Kluge’s concerns-so long as there was some assurance that the field marshal himself would not be put in danger-and had positioned Boeselager’s officers and soldiers near Hitler’s SS units as additional “security.” In reality, it seems that they were supposed to open fire on Hitler if an opportunity presented itself.35
After a briefing in Kluge’s barracks, Hitler’s party headed for the nearby officers’ mess. As one witness described the scene, Hitler was sitting with his head hunched over his plate, shoveling in his vegetables, when Tresckow turned to Lieutenant Colonel Heinz Brandt, who was seated next to him, and asked if he minded taking two bottles of Cointreau back to headquarters on the flight. When Brandt readily agreed, Tresckow explained that they were part of a bet he’d made with Colonel Stieff and that Schlabrendorff would hand over the package at the airfield. When the visitors left shortly thereafter, Hitler not only took a different route than previously arranged, but also invited Kluge to ride in his car, thus ruling out any further action at this point. Meanwhile, Schlabrendorff sent Berlin the code word signaling the beginning of the operation and drove off after the column of vehicles.
At the airfield he waited until Hitler had boarded one of three waiting planes, then squeezed the acid detonator and handed the package to Brandt. The bomb was set to go off in thirty minutes, and since the planes took off immediately, Schlabrendorff and Tresckow calculated that the explosion would occur just before Minsk. They returned to headquarters and waited for news of the Führer’s plane from one of its fighter escorts. But nothing happened. Having carried out countless test explosions during the previous weeks, not one of which had failed they were certain of success. But now two hours passed and still there was no word. The conspirators were waiting with mounting anxiety when a message finally arrived from Hitler’s headquarters: the Führer and his escorts had arrived safely in Rastenburg.
The reasons for the failure of the assassination attempt of March 13, 1943, have never been fully clarified. The major problem immediately facing the conspirators, however, was how to undo their plan and recover the package before an accident occurred or the contents were discovered. Tresckow decided to telephone Brandt. Coolly he asked him to hold on to the package-there had been an unfortunate mix-up. Schlabrendorff would come the next day on the daily courier flight to Rastenburg and exchange it for the right one.
Fortunately, Brandt still had the original package the next morning when Schlabrendorff arrived, and the exchange was made. Schlabrendorff headed for the waiting train, which was to take him to Berlin that evening. Once in a closed compartment, he opened the bomb with a razor blade and removed the detonator. He found that the capsule had broken, the acid had eaten its way through the wire holding the firing pin, the firing pin had struck as intended, and even the percussion cap seemed to have ignited. But the explosive had not gone off. Among the theories that have been advanced to explain this mystery, the most likely is that the heater in the plane’s cargo hold had malfunctioned, as it sometimes did, and the explosive, which was sensitive to cold, failed to ignite as a result. The most promising assassination plot of the war years had come to naught.36
Schlabrendorff and Tresckow were “shattered” by the inexplicable outcome of their attempt on Hitler’s life, for which they had run so many risks and spent so much time laying secret plans. Tresckow refused, however, to allow himself to grow despondent, nor did he following the failures that were still to come. Typically for him, he did not waste a single second bemoaning his ill fortune, and when another opportunity happened to fall into his lap just a few days later he seized it. News arrived from Führer headquarters that “Heroes’ Memorial Day” would be celebrated on March 21 and that, after attending a service in the glass-roofed hall of the Berlin Zeughaus, Hitler wanted to visit the exhibition of captured enemy weaponry in the same building. Since Army Group Center had arranged the exhibition, Hitler expressly requested the attendance of Field Marshal Kluge.
It was much more important to Tresckow that Gersdorff be there, and since it was Tresckow’s department that had actually put the exhibition together, he had a perfect pretext to seek an invitation for the staff intelligence officer. Gersdorff was immediately summoned back to army group headquarte
rs. When he appeared, Tresckow spoke “with the utmost gravity” about the situation and the “absolute necessity” of saving Germany from destruction. Then he abruptly broached the question of whether Gersdorff would undertake an assassination attempt in which he would probably be blown up himself.37 Gersdorff reflected briefly and agreed. Schlabrendorff was asked to remain in Berlin and turn over to Gersdorff the bombs he still had from the assassination attempt of March 13.
But from this point on, the plot-as promising as it seemed- would be plagued by misfortune. At first, Brigadier General Rudolf Schmundt, Hitler’s increasingly suspicious chief aide, refused to allow Gersdorff to take part in the visit or even know when the ceremonies were scheduled to begin (as Hitler’s inner circle was constantly reminded, the divulgence of such information was punishable by death). Then Kluge had to be persuaded not to go to Berlin, even though he had been invited by Hitler himself, because Tresckow wanted lo keep him away from the assassination. Furthermore, when the explosive was turned over to Gersdorff, he learned that in the rush of events the usual short fuses could not be procured. Oster was asked lo help but could do nothing, so Gersdorff was forced to rely on the ten-minute fuses he had brought along just in case.
The memorial service began an hour later than scheduled. After making a short address Hitler walked over to the exhibition with Göring, Himmler, Donitz, and Keitel. Waiting at the entrance were Gersdorff, Field Marshal Walter Model, acting as Kluge’s representative, and a uniformed director of the museum. Gersdorff ignited the disc when he saw the Führer approach and kept close to his side as the Führer went through the exhibition. But Hitler paid scarcely any attention to the explanations Gersdorff wanted to provide about the objects on display. Nervously, as if scenting danger, he hurried through the rooms. Even a standard from the Napoleonic Wars that German engineers had uncovered in the riverbed of the Berezina failed to capture his attention. About two minutes after entering the exhibition, as a radio broadcast reported, Hitler abruptly left through a side door by the chestnut grove on Unter den Linden. Here, outside the building, he finally discovered a captured Soviet tank and was so fascinated by it that he spent considerable time clambering around on it. In the meantime Gersdorff had rushed to the nearest washroom, where he ripped the fuse out of the bomb. To catch his breath he went to the Union Club where he ran into the Cologne banker Waldemar von Oppenheim, who blithely related that he had just been in a position to kill Hitler as the Führer “drove very slowly in an open ear down the Linden right in front of my ground-floor room in the Hotel Bristol. It would have been child’s play to heave a hand grenade over the sidewalk and into his car.”38
* * *
While all this was occurring at home, the war on the fronts had reached a turning point. Three disastrous defeats in November 1942 made this abundantly clear. Early that month the vastly superior forces of General Montgomery broke through the German-Italian positions at El Alamein, only five days before Allied landings in Morocco and Algeria presaged the end of the African campaign. Also in November, it became plain that Germany’s U-boats were losing the war on the high seas. And on November 19 two Soviet army groups launched an offensive around Stalingrad in raging snowstorms. Henceforth it would be the Allies who orchestrated the war, deciding where and when to attack.
On February 2, 1943, the bruised and bloodied remnants of the German Sixth Army capitulated in Stalingrad. While Hitler fell ominously silent and Göring conjured up a mood of impending apocalypse with dark references to the myth of the Nibelungen, many Germans began to realize that Hitler was no longer master of events. His bullying, threats, and vicious outbursts-for years the trivial secrets of his success-did not serve him anymore. Now, if ever, was “the right psychological moment” for which so many of the generals claimed they were waiting. For the first time, as one observer noted, Hitler was unable “to shirk responsibility; for the first time the critical murmuring was directed squarely at him.”39 Beck sought out Erich von Manstein, commander in chief of Army Group South; Goerdeler contacted Olbricht and Kluge; and Tresckow attempted to win over Guderian and then spent some time on leave in Berlin to position himself near the center of activity. From inside besieged Stalingrad, the voice of Helmuth Groscurth was heard once again through one of his officers, whom he succeeded in having flown out. “Only an immediate attack against the Russians,” the messenger informed Beck and Olbricht, could stave off disaster in that “city of fate.” But Manstein refused, and the officer sent by Groscurth to Rundstedt found the visit so depressing that he abandoned all hope. Captain Kaiser succinctly summarized the commanders’ excuses: “One will only take action if orders are given, and the other will only give orders if action is taken.”40
A small group of Munich students were the only protesters who managed to break out of the vicious circle of tactical considerations and other inhibitions. They spoke out vehemently, not only against the regime but also against the moral indolence and numbness of the German people. Under the name White Rose they issued appeals and painted slogans on walls calling for an uprising against Hitler. They also established ties with like-minded students in Berlin, Stuttgart, Hamburg, and Vienna. On February 18, 1943, Hans and Sophie Scholl were arrested while throwing hundreds of leaflets from the gallery of the atrium at Ludwig-Maximillian University in Munich. Their motives were among the simplest and, sadly, the rarest of all: a sense of right and wrong and a determination to take action.
The Nazis, having long based their power on the assumption that self-interest and the fear of standing out would suffice to keep the population under control, were stunned by this effrontery. The People’s Court, under its president, Roland Freisler, was sent to Munich for a special session. In a trial lasting less than three and a half hours, Hans and Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst were sentenced to death. The executions were carried out later the same day. Their mentor, the philosopher of music Kurt Huber, suffered a similar fate a few days later, as did other members of the group. Although Hans and Sophie Scholl could easily have fled after dropping their leaflets, they submitted without resistance to the university porter who came after them shouting, “You’re under arrest!” Apparently they hoped to set an example of self-sacrifice that would inspire others. “What does my death matter if by our action thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?” Sophie Scholl asked after reading the indictment. The only visible result, however, was a demonstration of loyalty to the regime staged right in front of the university just two hours after her execution. Three days later, in the university’s main auditorium, hundreds of students cheered a speech by a Nazi student leader deriding their former classmates. They stamped their feet in applause for the porter, Jakob Schmied, who “received the ovation standing up with his arms outstretched.”41
In the meantime, back on the eastern front, Tresckow had so expanded his influence over Kluge that the field marshal had grown to tolerate conspiratorial activities in his immediate surroundings and not infrequently even supported them. As the military situation worsened, he seemed eager to discuss removing Hitler and overthrowing the regime, although he still preferred that the Führer be eliminated by “accident” or killed by an officer from far away, or even by a civilian. Tresckow resolved to go for broke. Strolling with Kluge and Gersdorff near army group headquarters, he suggested that “that man” finally be removed. When Kluge replied, as he had so often, that he agreed but could not bring himself to commit murder, Tresckow threw all caution to the wind. “Field Marshal,” he said, “beside you walks someone who made an attempt on Hitler’s life not so long ago.” Kluge is said to have stopped in his tracks, seized Gersdorff by the arm, and asked in great agitation, “For heaven’s sake, what did you do?” As Gersdorff replied that he had only done what the situation called for, Kluge took “a few more steps, threw his arms out in a theatrical gesture, and said, ‘Children, I’m yours.’”42
The field marshal did more than ever to support the conspirators during the
summer of 1943, although he never acted without Tresckow’s prompting. He extended and strengthened his contacts with the civilian opposition, attempted to win the support of other military commanders, and dispatched Lieutenant Colonel Voss to see Rundstedt in Paris. Eventually he even sent Gersdorff to see Manstein in hopes of persuading him to take part in a joint action and asking if he would “assume the position of chief of the army general staff after a coup.” The records of the discussion in Army Group South headquarters in Saporoshe speak volumes not only about Manstein but about the attitude of most of the officers: their indecision, their narrow-mindedness, their ambivalence, and ultimately their servility. Gersdorff s notes begin with the short summary he presented of his mission:
ME: Field Marshal Kluge is extremely concerned about the course of the war. As a result of the antagonism between the OKW and the OKH and Hitler’s ever-clearer amateurishness as a leader, the collapse of the eastern front is only a matter of time. Hitler must be made to realize that he is headed straight for disaster.
MANSTEIN: I fully agree. But I’m not the right person to say so to Hitler. Without my being able to stop it, enemy propaganda has portrayed me as eager to seize power from Hitler. So he is now very distrustful of me. Only Rundstedt and Kluge could undertake such a mission.
ME: Perhaps all the field marshals should go together to the Führer and hold a pistol to his chest.
MANSTEIN: Prussian field marshals do not mutiny.
ME: There are enough instances of it in Prussian history…In any event, Prussian field marshals have never been in a position like the one they’re in today. Unprecedented situations require unprecedented methods. But we, too, no longer believe that a joint action would have any chance of success. In Army Group Center we have long been convinced that every effort must now be taken to save Germany from catastrophe.
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