What tore this “band of brothers” apart more than anything else were their repeatedly dashed hopes for an assassination. In February Goerdeler wrote to Beck complaining about Stauffenberg’s failure to keep his promises and proposing to revive his own pet project of a bloodless coup. Through a number of intermediaries Goerdeler managed to contact Chief of General Staff Kurt Zeitzler to request that Hitler arrange an interview with Hitler or even a debate between them to be broadcast over the radio, during which Goerdeler intended to “eliminate” the Führer by prompting him to give up or resign. When this initiative failed, Goerdeler wrote Zeitzler an epistle of more than twenty pages outlining his ideas. Fortunately, Goerdeler’s staff did not forward it.39
Such initiatives aroused only scorn and contempt from Stauffenberg, and though they were a genuine expression of Goerdeler’s irrepressible confidence and courage, they only served to widen the gulf between the two men. Differences in age and temperament figured, of course, in their disagreements, but so did the fact that Goerdeler was a skillful, cosmopolitan bureaucrat, and Stauffenberg an impatient and still young man of action. The deeper reason for the discord was that Stauffenberg, conscious of the key role he was playing and encouraged by Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenburg, the former regional commissioner in Silesia, drew increasingly close to Wilhelm Leuschner and Julius Leber, without concerning himself with how much Goerdeler “suffered from his distant attitude,” in the words of one contemporary. “Again and again Goerdeler complained, They’re trying to cut me out. They don’t tell me anything anymore.”40
Stauffenberg was indeed becoming convinced that Leber would make “the better chancellor,” although Leber himself, along with Wilhelm Leuschner and the trade unionist Jakob Kaiser, believed that the persistence of the stab-in-the-back myth from World War I made it inadvisable to place a Social Democrat or a labor leader “all too visibly in the front rank of those responsible” immediately following the removal of Hitler. Moreover, although Stauffenberg was closer to Leber on domestic policy, he knew that in foreign affairs he had more m common with Goerdeler, who had developed an eleven-point program that he wanted to present to the Allies, still believing, even in the summer of 1944, that a negotiated peace was possible. This program stipulated that Germany would retain its 1914 borders, as well as Austria and the Sudetenland, and that it might even secure the return of parts of South Tyrol.41
Julius Leber took a much more sober view. He thought that unconditional surrender was inevitable, and therefore adopted an ever-cooler attitude toward Goerdeler. The main points of contention reveal how pronounced the divisions within the resistance had become. Leber, for instance, who was no friend of conservatives, came quite close to advocating the strong authoritarian state that Jessen, Hassell, and Popitz envisaged for the transition period; he agreed with them that “a dictatorship cannot be put on a democratic footing over night.”42 Meanwhile, for this very reason, the conservatives distanced themselves from Goerdeler, whose blind faith in democracy and sympathy toward the trade unions made them distrust him as the leader of a strong interim regime. In foreign policy Trott may have shared many of Goerdeler’s opinions, but Moltke and most of the Kreisau Circle did not. They continued to see Goerdeler as a man linked to business circles that would not be sufficiently accepting of a government that, in Yorck’s words, “included the working class and even left-wing Social Democrats.” And so, little by little, the resistance tore itself apart in controversies that bore little connection to the real world until everyone alternately agreed and disagreed with everyone else in one way or another, and the majority support for Goerdeler that had existed a year before was now gone. Indeed, the Gestapo agents who interrogated the conspirators after July 20 were not far wrong when they concluded that the attempts of the diverse resistance circles “to build a united front” had produced “a political monstrosity,” and that the conspirators were united “only in a negative sense, in their rejection of National Socialism.”43 The ties that bound them had in fact been broken.
This state of affairs was not overly apparent in the early summer of 1944, however, because at that point the dominant concern continued to be foreign policy-specifically, how the Allies would respond to a coup. Most opponents of the Nazi regime still found it hard to accept that they did not have a shred of hope. Even Stauffenberg harbored illusions about a negotiated peace, hurrying off to seek solace from Trott after some particularly sobering conversations with Leber. And when an embittered Trott returned from a trip abroad convinced that there was “no genuine desire on the part of the British and Americans to reach an understanding”—especially since the demand for unconditional surrender first expressed in the Casablanca declaration had just been underscored at the Teheran Conference-dreams of a separate peace with the Soviet Union surged briefly to the fore.
The resistance based its hopes on Stalin’s well-known comment of February 1942 that although individuals like Hitler might come and go, the German people would remain. If the Soviet dictator was hinting at some disagreement with the intransigent policy of the Western powers, he took a step further in this direction in the summer of 1943 when he began approaching the German opposition through their contacts in Stockholm and through the National Committee for a Free Germany established in Krasnogorsk, near Moscow, by German prisoners of war and emigrants. Like the attempts to forge ties in the West, however, these contacts were soon undermined by distrust and suspicion. Heretofore the activities of the Communist-inspired groups led by First Lieutenant Harro Schulze-Boysen and Arvid and Mildred Harnack had gone virtually unnoticed by the rest of the resistance, despite a few personal ties between them. The group known collectively as the Red Orchestra (after its Gestapo nickname) consisted of both hard-core Communist ideologues on one side and a motley assortment of dreamers and visionaries on the other. Their arrest in August 1942 aroused little more than feelings of empathy among the rest of the resistance, which cared little for their use of political theory to mask the many concrete similarities between Hitler and Stalin. The leftists’ continued embrace of the old dream of a historic mission shared by the “profound” German and Russian cultures, as opposed to the “superficial” Western cultures, further alienated the other factions. As a result not even the loosest of ties were forged, especially as Moscow itself was apparently not interested in developing this group into a cell or even a center of political resistance. Rather, the inner circle of the Red Orchestra was used as an intelligence-gathering service for the Soviet Union.
Thus the question of establishing contacts with the Soviet Union arose at this point only as a tactical ploy to elicit more interest from the Western powers. But the resistance soon dropped this plan too. One of the strongest pieces of evidence against Stauffenberg’s alleged Communist sympathies is that he turned down the appeals of the National Committee for a Free Germany with the comment, “I am betraying my government; they are betraying their country.”44 Stauffenberg not only supported the attempts of men like Goerdeler, Trott, and Gisevius to reach some kind of understanding with the Western powers but later joined in those efforts himself. Although the Gestapo was eager after July 20 to find some evidence of collusion between the conspirators and the Soviet Union or one of its agents, they failed to find any.
There was yet another aspect to this question-namely, the resistance’s connections with the Communist underground. Only isolated remnants had survived the shocking announcement of the Hitler-Stalin pact, so that it was difficult to determine their strength. The uncertainty prompted Leber to respond positively to various Communist overtures. Although there was still no question of including the Communists in the conspiracy, there was talk of an “opening to the left,” and of determining how the Communist leadership would react to a coup.
After much argument, a discussion of the issue was finally held in Yorck’s house on June 21. There were violent differences of opinion. Leuschner opposed any sort of rapprochement, insisting that the Communist apparatus h
ad been infiltrated by the Gestapo. The Kreisauers Theodor Haubach and Paulus van Husen were also dead set against establishing any contacts. Only Adolf Reichwein advocated “a kind of socialist solidarity,” the outgrowth of his “almost embittered socialism.” The reticence of many of the participants was greatly reduced, however, when Leber reported that he had been contacted by “two well-known Communists” and pointed out that “he had shared a bunk with the two men in a concentration camp for five years.” Although the misgivings abated, it is still not clear whether they were totally dispelled. Stauffenberg, at any rate, seems to have favored a meeting.45
The next day, June 22, Leber and Reichwein went to meet two members of the central committee of the Communist Party, Anton Saefkow and Franz Jacob, in the apartment of a Berlin physician. When they arrived, however, they found that Saefkow and Jacob were accompanied by a third man, who had not been mentioned in the agreement. More disturbingly, one of the Communists greeted Leber by his full name, though this, too, ran counter to their agreement. Leber must have regarded their salutations as a sort of kiss of Judas. In any case, he apparently realized immediately that the meeting was a terrible mistake that posed an enormous danger not only to him but to the entire conspiracy, just as it was gathering its strength for another, perhaps final attempt on Hitler’s life.
Although both sides had previously agreed to meet again on July 4, Leber did not attend. Reichwein showed up alone and was arrested along with Saefkow and Jacob. The next morning the Gestapo nabbed Leber in his apartment.
* * *
By this time the war was entering its final phase. On June 6, 1944, the Allies had begun their invasion of Normandy. Just over two weeks later they had firmly established a beachhead and shipped one million men, 170,000 vehicles, and over 500,000 tons of materiel across the Channel. What is more, on June 22 four Soviet army groups, outnumbering the Germans six to one, broke through the thin, porous line of Army Group Center between Minsk and the Beresina River. They drove deep behind the German positions, isolating three pockets containing twenty-seven German divisions-far more than at Stalingrad-which they surrounded and quickly destroyed.
Henning von Tresckow, who had been restored to his position as chief of general staff of the Second Army on the southern flank of Army Group Center, was once again pressing for immediate action against Hitler. Stauffenberg had always believed that the invasion of France was a point of no return, alter which a coup would be only a futile gesture any hope for a negotiated “political” settlement would die. The fear of having arrived on the scene too late dominated all his thoughts and made him extremely impatient.
Stauffenberg sent Tresckow a message through Lehndorff asking whether there was any reason to continue trying to assassinate Hitler now, since they had missed their last opportunity and no political purpose would any longer be served. Lehndorff returned promptly with Tresckow’s response, which signaled a final break from all concern with external circumstances, which had so often paralyzed the conspirators, as well as from political goals of any kind: “The assassination must be attempted, coûte que coûte. Even if it fails, we must take action in Berlin. For the practical purpose no longer matters; what matters now is that the German resistance movement must take the plunge before the eyes of the world and of history. Compared to that, nothing else matters.”46
8. THE ELEVENTH HOUR
On July 1 Stauffenberg was promoted to the rank of colonel and simultaneously assumed his new duties as chief of staff to the commander of the reserve army. General Fromm had always been a vigilant, cautious, opportunistic man, whose suspicions that Stauffenberg and Olbricht were plotting a coup had long since hardened into certainty. It seems all the more curious, therefore, that he went to such lengths to have Stauffenberg appointed to his staff. Fromm may simply have wanted to use Stauffenberg, who had written a report that drew extremely laudatory reviews from Hitler, to escape the disfavor into which he had himself fallen. “Finally a general staff officer with imagination and intelligence!” Hitler is said to have remarked.1 It is also possible that Wehrmacht adjutant General Rudolf Schmundt recommended the brilliant young officer-who had been widely noticed and even considered as a possible successor to General Adolf Heusinger, the chief of operations-in the hope of reviving Fromm, who had “grown tired.” In any case, when Stauffenberg first met with his new boss and intimated that he was indeed considering a coup, Fromm merely thanked him for his frankness and let the matter drop. Stauffenberg’s successor on Olbricht’s staff was Colonel Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim, whom Stauffenberg had known since their days together at the War Academy.2
Of crucial importance to Stauffenberg and to Olbricht, who now had to do without Stauffenberg’s services, was the fact that the new position gave Stauffenberg the access to Hitler that the conspirators had long sought. No longer would they need to arrange presentations of new uniforms or other difficult events. On June 7, the day after the Allied invasion of Normandy, Stauffenberg had already accompanied Fromm to a discussion at the Berghof, Hitler’s Obersalzberg headquarters. Stauffenberg recalled that Hitler seemed “in a daze,” pushing situation maps back and forth with a trembling hand and casting repeated glances at him.3 Now, barely one week after his new appointment, Stauffenberg found himself back at the Berghof once again.
It is not clear whether he intended to assassinate Hitler then, but he did take a bomb with him and the other conspirators were warned in advance. It had always been assumed in resistance circles that Göring and Himmler would also have to be killed in any attack on Hitler. As things turned out, they were not present at this meeting, which may explain why Stauffenberg did not set off the bomb. It may also be, however, that he was still counting on Helmuth Stieff, whom he went to see when he learned that Stieff would preside at the following day’s long-postponed presentation of new uniforms at Schloss Klessheim-an occasion identical to the ones at which Bussche and Kleist had planned to blow themselves up with Hitler half a year earlier. But when Stauffenberg informed Stieff that he had brought “all the stuff along,” Stieff declined the mission.
This response reinforced Stauffenberg’s resolve to carry out the assassination himself. Upon learning of his new appointment in June, he had begun accustoming himself to the idea-over the objections of Beck-and had informed Yorck and Haeften of his intention. No one had ever proposed that Stauffenberg himself be the one to kill Hitler, both because of his severe war wounds and because the plans for a coup made his presence in Berlin indispensable. In view of what he termed “our desperate situation,” however, he decided that there was no other way. In early July he began to make the necessary preparations (arranging, above all, for an airplane to fly him back to Berlin) and to think through the changes that would have to be made to the plan to accommodate his dual role as assassin and leader of the uprising in the capital.
It is revealing that Stauffenberg’s decision to take so much upon himself raised no practical objections from the other conspirators, though it considerably increased the hazards of their undertaking. Only the surgeon Ferdinand Sauerbruch advanced serious reservations following a meeting held at his house. Stauffenberg, who had stayed behind, told him about what was planned, at least in part. Sauerbruch’s qualms at first focused on Stauffenberg’s still seriously weakened physical condition but ultimately broadened to include many other concerns as well.4
Stauffenberg’s fellow conspirators, by contrast, were troubled once again mostly by deep philosophical concerns. In lengthy discussions running from early spring until June, Stauffenberg finally managed to assuage the theological and ethical objections that Yorck and other members of the Kreisau Circle had to killing Hitler. He made especially great strides in this regard when he was able to confront the “hairsplitting scholars of the loyalty oath” with evidence of orders from Kaltenbrunner prescribing “’special treatment’ for 40,000 or 42,000 Hungarian Jews in Auschwitz.”5 Nevertheless, Hans-Bernd von Haeften wrestled to the very end with his anxi
eties about assassination, tied in knots as he was by professional codes of honor, ethical maxims, and, most important, religious strictures. When, early in the year, his brother Werner returned from a meeting with Stauffenberg and announced that he had agreed in principle to be the assassin the conspirators needed, Haeften asked: “Are you absolutely sure this is your duty before God and our forefathers?” But then, as the daily toll of the dead and injured mounted, he was tormented by the thought that he had dissuaded his brother and saved Hitler.6
Hans-Bernd von Haeften thus became entangled in a hopeless web of philosophical and religious reflection. His confusion can be seen in the solution he ultimately embraced: that Hitler ought to have been killed before Stalingrad, “if at all,” but that now that everything “was going downhill and luck was deserting him,” there could be “no blessing in tyrannicide.” Similarly, Moltke opposed murdering Hitler for a long lime, then came to favor it, and finally, when he knew that the end of his life was near, expressed great joy that he had only “thought” about it. Men like Beck, Steltzer, and Yorck were also deeply religious. Their involvement in the resistance was based to a large extent on their spiritual convictions. Of course they wanted to save their country and mankind and to put an end to the unspeakable practice of mass murder, but they were equally or perhaps even more concerned with saving their own souls.
Stauffenberg, on the other hand, considered the oath of loyalty to have been invalidated countless times. His religious and ethical beliefs led him to the conclusion that it was his duty to eliminate Hitler and the murderous regime by any means possible. His friends recalled that in the days and weeks preceding the assassination attempt he liked to recite Stefan George’s poem “The Antichrist,” which speaks in broad, phantasmagoric images about the chaotic confusion of senses and reason that ushers in and accompanies the Antichrist’s ascension. Although Stauffenberg was a great admirer of George, he always had an eye for simpler, rougher truths, and he led the debate within the resistance back to the political realm where it really belonged. Germans found themselves in a position, he argued, where they must inevitably commit some crime-either of commission or of omission. A few days before July 20 he added: “It’s time now for something to be done. He who has the courage to act must know that he will probably go down in German history as a traitor. But if he fails to act, he will be a traitor before his own conscience.”7
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