Casablanca therefore posed another serious setback for the resistance and was particularly troubling to those who still hesitated or had not quite made up their minds. The policy of unconditional surrender led many to feel that to oppose Hitler would be to betray their own country, and only a very few were prepared to go that far, especially in wartime. It was only with great difficulty that Helmuth von Moltke managed to carry on in the aftermath of Casablanca. On the other hand, like many of his friends, Trott never got over his bitterness and accused the Allies of indulging in “bourgeois prejudice and hypocritical theorizing.” When he surfaced again in Stockholm in early 1944, still searching for influential intermediaries, he had developed, according to one of his Swedish friends, a look of “desperation.”14
The lesson of Casablanca, as of all the vain attempts of these years to communicate with the Allies, whether through Spain, Portugal, Turkey, or the Vatican, was that the resistance was on its own. The conspirators grew accustomed to “staring into the void” when they contemplated the prospects for a coup-both the void within Germany and, as was now plain, the one beyond. This strengthened their resolve not to predicate their enterprise on any national, political, or even material interest. They carried on not in the hope of success but solely as an act of self-purification.
There are many reasons for the impending failure of the German resistance: errors, inhibitions, clumsiness, indecision, and the vastly superior power of the opponent. Any fair-minded assessment must, however, also take into account the brusque dismissal the resistance received from those with whom it believed-mistakenly, as it turned out-that it was safely in league.
* * *
After the near exposure of Oster, Canaris barely managed to slip out of the tightening noose. Roeder may have been a skillful, experienced investigator, but he never succeeded in penetrating the clouds of deception created by the masters of that art at Military Intelligence. Where he expected to find a massive political conspiracy with elements of high treason, he could only uncover evidence of questionable dealings in foreign currencies, bogus exemptions from military service, and lax handling of money. When a few unguarded comments escaped his lips, Military Intelligence counterattacked with a fog of accusations, complaints about the investigation, and counterinquiries. They finally prompted Keitel, the most highly placed official in the department’s chain of command, to turn to Himmler. In the end, as the entire affair became hopelessly clouded and obscure, Dohnanyi and Bonhoeffer were merely indicted for a few nonpolitical offenses and Oster for being an accomplice.
Canaris sensed, however, that the fate of Military Intelligence was sealed, and that the bureau, with the maze of dark corridors that had been his fiefdom, could not long withstand the kind of scrutiny to which it would now be subjected by suspicious officials. In an early sign of what lay in store for it, Military Intelligence was ordered to relocate to Zossen. The official explanation was the disruption and destruction caused by the bombing of Berlin, but Keitel ordered simultaneously that the agency be reorganized and almost all its department heads replaced.
Only now did the severity of the blow suffered by the resistance on April 5 become clear. Along with its “managing director” it had lost its very core and with it went much of its internal cohesion. Months would be needed to repair the damage, but time was already short. There were further setbacks during that spring of 1943. Beck fell seriously ill and was incapacitated for several weeks. In addition, the opposition’s troubled relations with the Allies became generally known, undermining its attempts to influence the generals, though there were a few individual successes. Once again, profound pessimism began to spread among the conspirators. The certainty that an indomitable fate was at work and would follow its predestined course regardless of what they might say or do gave rise to bouts of resignation. As General Fritsch had written years earlier, Hitler was “Germany’s destiny for better or worse, and this destiny will run its course. If he tumbles into the abyss, he will take us all with him. Nothing can be done.” Erich von Manstein, too, explained his refusal to join the conspirators with the fatalistic comment that it was impossible to resist Hitler. General Edgar Röhricht remarked to Tresckow that one could not escape one’s fate, and even Canaris occasionally described Hitler as a “scourge of God” that must be endured to the end. General Adolf Heusinger, the chief of army operations, responded to invitations to join the conspiracy by claiming that an uprising would not change anything but only delay the inevitable and that Germans should simply resign themselves to the idea that there would be no rescue.15
The resistance experienced so many disappointments and anxieties, it saw so many valiant efforts turn to dust, that few of its members could help but be overcome by feelings of despair. Jens Peter Jessen, for instance, fell increasingly prey to such emotions and at times withdrew from society altogether. Tresckow, Olbricht, Hassell, and Johannes Popitz, by contrast, were less affected, while the irrepressible Goerdeler even began dreaming of what he called a “partial action,” by which he meant the assassination of a more accessible Nazi of secondary rank or some other spectacular deed that, if accomplished at just the right moment, would bring “the whole house of cards crashing down.” He was persuaded not to press ahead with his plans at a dinner in the home of former state secretary Erwin Planck, where the attorney Carl Langbehn, Hassell, General Thomas, and others argued that “Hitler’s prestige is still solid enough that if he’s left standing he’ll be able to launch a counterattack that will end in at least chaos or civil war.”16
At the fronts, the tides of war had now begun to turn. In early July Hitler attempted to regain the upper hand in the East through Operation Citadel, a massive panzer offensive against a Russian salient near Kursk; it ended in failure. A few days later the Allies landed in Sicily, creating a second front, and on July 25 Mussolini was overthrown. Tresckow, just released from his position on the staff of Army Group Center, canceled a vacation he had planned to take for health reasons and went to Berlin. Shortly after arriving he told Rüdiger von der Goltz, a cousin of Christine von Dohnanyi, that the war was lost and that “everything therefore must be done to end it soon.” That meant “the leadership would have to go.”17
At about the same time, Tresckow finally succeeded in convincing Colonel Helmuth Stieff, the only conspirator who had access to Hitler in the regular course of his duties, to keep his pledge to participate in an assassination attempt. This was a promising turn of events. Warned by Schlabrendorff that Kluge seemed to be backsliding in his absence, Tresckow then managed to persuade the field marshal to come to Berlin, where Tresckow sought to keep him in the conspiracy. He also arranged for Kluge to meet with Olbricht and Goerdeler, as well as with Beck, who had recently been released from the hospital. At the end of a long conversation about foreign affairs and the policy of the government to be formed after the coup, Kluge stated with surprising firmness that since Hitler would not make the necessary decisions to end the war and was unacceptable to the Allies as a negotiating partner he had to be overthrown by force. But now it was Goerdeler who voiced his adamant opposition, once again swept away by his optimism and his belief in the power of reason. He reminded the conspirators of the duty of the army commanders and the chief of general staff “to speak frankly with the Führer.” After that, he said, everything else would fall into place: “Anybody can be won over to a good cause.” Kluge and Beck could no longer be dissuaded, however, and shortly thereafter Goerdeler, suddenly fired with new enthusiasm, informed the Swedish banker Jakob Wallenberg that a putsch was planned for September. Schlabrendorff would then be sent to Stockholm to initiate peace negotiations.18
This announcement, like so many before it, was not to be fulfilled. First of all, Goerdeler probably cited far too early a date. The coup was apparently planned for the second half of October at the earliest. Then on October 12 Kluge was badly injured in an automobile accident and was laid up for a considerable period, which meant that no assas
sination attempts would be staged in the foreseeable future by the armies at the fronts. After so many failed attempts, Olbricht now turned with renewed vigor to an idea that had already been considered: using the home army for both the assassination and the coup.
* * *
What was lacking above all was an assassin. Around August 10, however, Tresckow had been introduced at Olbricht’s house to a young lieutenant colonel who would be taking up the duties of chief of staff of the General Army Office on October 1. He had been badly wounded in a strafing attack while serving on the North African front in April. He had lost his right hand as well as the third and fourth fingers of his left, and he wore a black patch over his left eye. After a lengthy stay in the hospital, he had asked the surgeon, Ferdinand Sauerbruch, how much longer he would need to recuperate. On hearing that two more operations and many months of convalescence would be necessary, he shook his head, saying he didn’t have that much time-important things needed to be done. While still in the hospital he explained to his uncle and close confidant Nikolaus von Üxküll, “Since the generals have failed to do anything, it’s now up to the colonels.”19 His name was Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg. Stauffenberg imbued the resistance with a vitality that had long been lacking but that now served to encourage Olbricht’s cautious deliberations and heighten Tresckow’s determination. He seemed to send an electric charge through the lifeless resistance networks as he quickly and naturally assumed a leadership role. This effect stemmed not only from the infectious energy that so many of his contemporaries have described but also from his unusual combination of exuberant idealism and cool pragmatism. He was familiar with all the complex religious, historical, and traditional reasons that had repeatedly stood in the way of action, but he had not lost sight of the far more basic truth that there are limits to loyalty and obedience. He was therefore able to put aside scruples about treason and the breaking of solemn oaths. Possessed of a finely honed sense of what was appropriate under the circumstances, he dismissed the foreign policy concerns of almost all the other members of the resistance, simply assuming that a German government that had overthrown the Nazis would be able to negotiate a peace treaty despite the Casablanca declaration. Most important, he was determined to act at all costs. Like Tresckow, he rejected the tendency of the resistance to make its actions contingent on circumstance-a failing that had first become apparent in 1938 and had resurfaced that spring in the collapse of the Oster group.
Stauffenberg was a scion of the Swabian nobility, related to the distinguished Gneisenau and Yorck families. When he was seventeen he and his brothers had joined the circle of intellectuals and students led by the famous poet Stefan George. Although he stood vigil at George’s deathbed in December 1933, along with some friends, he was not a true disciple. Like many other young officers, he had welcomed Hitler’s nomination as chancellor in 1933 and had agreed, in theory at least, with some of the Nazi platform, especially unification with Austria and hostility to the Treaty of Versailles. By the time of the Blomberg and Fritsch affairs, however, he had already begun to have serious doubts about the Nazis, doubts that Hitler’s recklessness during the Sudeten crisis only hardened, “That fool is headed for war,” he said. But when war was finally declared he threw himself into his chosen profession like a devoted soldier. His response to the numerous atrocities was that once the war was over there would be plenty of time to get rid of the “brown plague”—a reaction he shared with many of his colleagues.20
Stauffenberg proved to be a brilliant staff officer and was promoted to the army high command in June 1940. Since the launching of the Soviet campaign he had become familiar with the army’s organizational inefficiency and the complicated tangle of competing military hierarchies. Moved by his sense of “outrage that Hitler… was too stupid… to do what was required,” he strove stubbornly, though ultimately in vain, to form units composed of Russian volunteers so as to undermine the Nazis’ senseless policies toward the “peoples of the East.” At first his critical view of the regime was spurred by technical, military, and national concerns. Gradually, though, moral issues came more and more to the fore, and in the end all these considerations played their part in a decision best summarized by his laconic answer to a question asked of him in 1942 about how to change Hitler’s style of leadership: “Kill him.”21
The historian Gerhard Ritter has written that Stauffenberg had “a streak of demonic will to power and a belief that he was born to take charge” without which “the resistance was in danger of becoming bogged down in nothing but plans and preparations.”22 Once, when a member of the high command, appalled by the needless sacrifice of German soldiers and the staggering brutality being inflicted on the Soviet civilian population, asked Stauffenberg if it was possible to impress upon Hitler the truth of the situation, the young officer shot back, “The point is no longer to tell him the truth but to get rid of him,” a remark that sharply repudiated Goerdeler’s incurable optimism.23 At headquarters in Vinnitsa in October 1942 Stauffenberg spoke out openly before a gathering of officers about the “disastrous course of German policy in the East,” saying that everyone had remained silent even though it sowed hatred on all sides. Many witnesses have also reported his criticisms of generals who considered honor, duty, and service to be not binding ideals but simply grounds for making excuses; one report speaks of his contempt for all the “carpet layers with the rank of general. 2I
Stauffenberg’s entry into resistance circles caused an enormous shift in the distribution of power and influence without his doing anything in particular. It was inevitable that he would spark conflicts as well as hopes. Goerdeler and his close associates were particularly vexed by the eclipse of the civilian groups, which they felt should dominate the resistance, and began to mutter derisively about Stauffenberg’s lofty political ambitions and vaguely socialist tendencies. Soviet and East German historians later turned this grumbling to their advantage by depicting Stauffenberg as having moved close to Moscow in his political sympathies. But this myth, its somewhat grotesque origins, and the intentional exaggerations it underwent have all been investigated and disproved.25
What is clear is that Colonel Stauffenberg was far from the flunky whom the sell-confident Goerdeler had always expected and previously always found in his collaborators from the military. In Stauffenberg a far more politically minded officer stepped forward, one who had no intention of simply putting himself at the beck and call of some group and its “shadow chancellor.” What distinguished Stauffenberg from Goerdeler was less the former mayor’s conservative, bourgeois values than his reluctance to employ violence and his rationalist delusion that Hitler could be made to see the error of his ways. Stauffenberg considered this as far-fetched as the highly contemplative opposition shared by many in the Kreisau Circle, which he derided as a “conspirator’s tea party.” As the man who would soon lead the actual coup attempt, he almost inevitably found himself at odds with both groups of conspirators, although for different reasons. On the whole, he felt closest to Julius Leber, the undogmatic Social Democrat with whom he shared the realistic political views and normative pragmatism of a man of action.
* * *
In early September 1943 Stauffenberg and Tresckow set about revising Olbricht’s plans for a coup once again, with an eye to correcting the inadequacies that had become apparent during the March attempt. Ironically, the original plans were based on a strategy that had been designed by Olbricht’s staff and approved by Hitler for dealing with “internal disturbances”—that is, an uprising by the millions of so-called foreign workers in Germany, possibly at the instigation or with the help of the Communist underground or enemy paratroopers. Under the code name Operation Valkyrie, the diffuse, scattered elements of the “reserve army”—trainees, soldiers on leave, and training staff and cadres-would immediately be united and transformed into fighting units. After the experiences of March Olbricht developed a second stage of this plan and had it approved in late July
1943. Henceforth “Valkyrie I” designated a strategy to ensure the combat readiness of all units and “Valkyrie II” provided for their “swiftest possible assemblage” into “battle groups ready for action.”
Tresckow and Stauffenberg hit upon what many have called the “brilliant” idea of further tailoring these official plans, which Olbricht apparently considered adequate, to the specific needs of a coup by adding a secret declaration, to be issued immediately upon Hitler’s assassination. It would begin: “The Führer Adolf Hitler is dead! A treacherous group of party leaders has attempted to exploit the situation by attacking our embattled soldiers from the rear in order to seize power for themselves!” The Reich government, the announcement continued, had “declared martial law in order to maintain law and order.” Simultaneously, government ministries and Nazi Party offices would be occupied, as would radio stations, telephone offices, and the concentration camps. SS units would be disarmed, and their leaders shot if they resisted or refused to obey.
Thus the conspirators succeeded in standing Operation Valkyrie, and the plan for dealing with “internal disturbances,” on its head. Stauffenberg and Tresckow’s additional declaration would pin the blame for the uprising that they themselves were staging on the Nazi Party, a strategem intended to pacify those who would probably oppose the coup if they knew the true situation. The entire plan to overthrow the regime, therefore, depended on an enormous hoax carried out in large part by scores of officers and troops obliviously following orders.
Since the success of the undertaking relied considerably on the element of surprise which, in turn, would set in motion blind adherence to the automatic chain of command-secrecy was of the essence. All written information was handled by Tresckow’s wife, Erika, and by Margarete von Oven, who had been Hammerstein’s secretary during his days as chief of army command. Both women wore gloves when they worked so as not to leave fingerprints. All meetings were held out of doors at various locations in the Grunewald, but they often had to be canceled and then, with great difficulty, rescheduled because of Allied air raids, breakdowns in public transportation, or other unforeseeable events. One evening a group of conspirators were returning from one of their meetings in the Grunewald when an SS van came screeching to a halt directly beside them on Trabenerstrasse. Margarete von Oven was carrying all the documents about the uprising under her arm, and “when the SS men poured out, each of them thought the conspiracy had been discovered and they would be arrested at once. But the SS men paid no attention to the three passersby and disappeared into a house.”26
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