The same problem plagued the planning for July 20, influencing events in almost imperceptible ways. The conspirators’ euphemistic reference to the murder of Hitler as the “initial spark” tended to minimize the importance of the act, making it seem a mere prelude when in fact it was the key event. Perhaps that is why the conspirators devoted much less time and attention to planning the action at the Wolf’s Lair than to the deception and surprise attacks of Operation Valkyrie. Not every detail of the assassination attempt could be foreseen, of course, but even so at noon on July 20, 1944 Stauffenberg found himself forced to make many more hasty last-minute decisions than were really necessary. The questions that continually puzzle observers-Why didn’t Haeften arm the bomb? Why wasn’t Stauffenberg adequately informed about the reduced power the bombs would have in a wooden hut? Why was the second bomb left unused and simply thrown out of the car on the way to the airfield?-are best answered with reference to the unconscious aversion to the murder of a head of state.
Many highly placed officers were also dissuaded from joining the opposition by their vivid memories of Hitler’s amazing string of triumphs both before the war and in its early years. They belonged to a generation that had known nothing but defeat and humiliation, from the First World War to Versailles to the never-ending insults of the Weimar Republic. They were therefore all the more impressed by Hitler’s victories, scored time and again in flagrant defiance of the warnings and advice of experts. Hitler’s uncanny success did much to undermine the officers’ confidence in their own judgment, especially as they had been trained and were accustomed, like military strategists in all other countries, to think strictly in terms of outcome.
A number of officers were also cool toward the resistance because, by the time war broke out, the notion of Hochverrat, or betrayal of the head of state, had become conflated with the odious crime of Landesverrat, betrayal of one’s country, for which there was absolutely no tolerance within the army. The complete isolation of Hans Oster, notwithstanding the personal respect accorded him, was a case in point. Even Stauffenberg remarked at the beginning of the Russian campaign that a putsch was unthinkable in time of war.18 Halder expressed similar sentiments, and it is no accident that he helped plan coups only before the war or, in the case of the 1939 plot, at a time when it seemed the conflict could still be prevented from escalating into a world war.19
These were the dilemmas facing men like Rundstedt, Leeb, Sodenstern, and Kluge as they decided how they would respond to the impending assassination attempt and coup. They were by no means typical Nazi generals and they did not betray the conspirators, but neither did they provide encouragement or support. “Just do it!” is how General Heusinger responded on a number of occasions to requests from Tresckow’s circle to join the conspiracy.20 Like many others, Heusinger himself preferred to withdraw into a posture of more or less blind-or at least silent-obedience. A considerable number of these officers were capable of realizing that adherence to abstract ideals about a soldier’s duty would ultimately bring catastrophe on Germany and some, including Manstein and Bock, were expressly told as much by colleagues in the opposition. Most of them, however, continued to shrug their shoulders and seek solace in rationalizations, all the while nurturing the hope that disaster would ultimately be avoided, as it had been so many times in the past.
There were also those who, though they did not join the resistance, found the conflict of values unbearable and sought escape in death. This is the only way that Gerd von Tresckow’s insistence on incriminating himself can be understood. The commanding general at Cherbourg, Erich Marcks, was acting on a similar impulse when he headed into the front lines, telling those around him that a soldier’s death was the best a man could meet. Field Marshal Walter Model served the regime loyally for many years, but in mid-April 1945, while commanding his army group in the Ruhr valley, he was suddenly seized by the conviction that he had been serving a false master and a false cause; in despair, he committed suicide. His successor, Albert Kesselring, returned to business as usual; he inaugurated his command by complaining to his general staff that nowhere on his journey through the army area had he seen a hanged deserter, a sure sign of ineffective military leadership.21
A final reason for the reluctance of most officers to assist the resistance was its lack of support among the general population, a state of affairs continually lamented by voices in the army ranging from Chief of General Staff Halder to General Wagner. The upper echelons of the military were staffed largely by men of high social rank who had little truck with the common people, and in the wake of the Reichenau and Fritsch affairs, nothing so impressed them as Hitler’s ability to sway the masses and make himself their wildly acclaimed spokesman. An attempt was made to use Wilhelm Leuschner’s network of former trade union members to bring the opposition message to the people, but this single initiative was not enough to break the social isolation of the rebels. Inquiries conducted primarily by Julius Leber and Alfred Delp in late 1943 indicated that most industrial workers remained loyal to the regime, even as the war ground on. Security Service reports on the mood of the people in the days following July 20 concluded that Hitler was increasingly popular even in such traditionally “red” areas as Berlin’s Wedding, a heavily working-class district.22 Although the resistance had for years been concerned with the problem of how to reach the general population and enlighten it as to the criminality of the Nazi regime, a satisfactory solution was never found.
This was one of the main differences between the resistance in Germany and its counterparts in the occupied countries. These groups, too, represented only tiny minorities (not until after the war did everyone claim membership, as national pride demanded). Nevertheless they built genuine, viable resistance movements, which, unlike the opposition in Germany, could count on support from the general population. They had an infrastructure, bases, and battle-ready units. They also had a clear and simple purpose: to drive the enemy from the motherland. There were no torn loyalties, broken oaths, or concerns about treason, no need to engage in esoteric debates about the new order to be instituted after the Nazis were driven out. In short, the resistance movements in the occupied countries found moral, political, or nationalist justifications within themselves.
In addition, they enjoyed psychological and material support from the Allies. When Anthony Eden told Bishop George Bell in the summer of 1943 that the German resistance, in contrast to the movements elsewhere, had never demonstrated a thoroughgoing determination to oppose the regime, Bell responded that the others had been promised liberation in return for their efforts while the Germans were offered nothing more than unconditional surrender.23 Although the clear aim of all resistance movements was the overthrow of Nazi rule, for the Germans that meant surrendering their homeland to bitter foes, not only from the West but also, and much more terrifying, from the East. It is hard not to appreciate the psychological torment of those Germans who abhorred Hitler and were horrified by his crimes yet knew what Stalin had proved capable of, from the Red Terror to mass murders in the forest of Katyn.
The view toward the West was different, but as we have seen, there was never a meeting of minds between the German resistance and the American and British governments. The objections raised by Eden were undoubtedly justified. But the psychological warfare waged by the West, the most important manifestation of which was the bombing campaign, has been rightly deplored.24 Contrary to expectations, it did not demoralize the German people but rather tended to rally them around the Nazis in a gesture of defiance that benefited the regime at a time when it had grown increasingly concerned about the atmosphere of anxiety, apathy, and war weariness following the reversals of the winter of 1942-43. Paradoxically, the Allied bombing campaign only succeeded in driving the people back into the arms of the regime, as they heeded the instinct to stand together in times of mortal danger. Meanwhile the opposition grew even more isolated.
* * *
Thus, the decision to join the resistance also meant, for a German, withdrawal from the social mainstream and personal loneliness. It meant the rearrangement of one’s entire life and reliance on the few people who shared one’s views. Long-term friendships were severed and relations with the outside world were necessarily tainted by suspicion, deception, and duplicity. Deciding to resist the Nazis meant placing one’s family and friends in serious danger. Writing to his British friend Lionel Curtis in June 1942, Moltke described the awkward lengths to which he and all the other conspirators had to go in their daily lives. Oster and Tresckow never once dared to meet or to speak directly, for example, despite the countless questions they had to resolve or clarify.25
All these special circumstances gave the resistance its highly individualistic, insular character. Postwar analyses have blamed the bourgeoisie, the army, the churches, the traditional curriculum in the schools, and various other social factors for the Germans’ failure to resist the Nazis more resolutely. In actual fact, no institution, no ideological current from either the left or the right, no tradition, nor any social class proved sufficient to confer on its members or adherents immunity from Nazi blandishments. Resistance was entirely a matter of personal character, whether it occurred in the bourgeoisie, the unions, or the army. The conspirators’ social background or intellectual training provided them at most with support against occasional doubts or the temptation to give up. The German resistance has thus quite properly been called a “revolt of conscience.”26
The large role played by personal determination and individual strength of character turned out, ironically, to be one of the reasons the resistance failed. It explains the lack of a unifying ideology, the disagreements, and the characteristic indecision. One person’s views were apt to raise the hackles of someone else, whose convictions would in turn be denounced by still others. The ensuing rounds of discussion and debate soon degenerated into arguments over basic philosophies that demanded to be resolved, everyone seemed to believe, rather than simply papered over with easy compromises. The result was the inaction that in retrospect makes the German resistance look like nothing more than a passionate debating society. Moltke’s elation at Freisler’s conclusion that Moltke did nothing, arranged nothing, and planned no violent acts-that he merely thought-remains one of the keys to understanding the resistance. German philosophy is often said lo be rather removed from reality, and this characterization certainly holds true for the German resistance. All the discussion papers, draft constitutions, cabinet lists, and endless debates about a new order were at least partially an escape from the practical needs of the moment. Only a few conspirators avoided the temptation to indulge in theorizing. Indeed, it seems likely that if Stauffenberg had not appeared on the scene the conspirators would have spent the rest of the war discussing with great profundity the many insurmountable problems impeding them.
Closer examination also reveals that a deep melancholy settled over the conspirators as a whole (excluding, of course, the indomitably optimistic Goerdeler). Even Tresckow was said to suffer from it; Yorck was described at one point as having been “very serious and sad the last few weeks,” and Trott observed just before the assassination attempt: “If this colossus Hitler falls, he will drag us all into the abyss.”27 At some deeper level, the conspirators all seemed to realize that their chances of success were small. The assassination of Hitler would not necessarily liberate Germany from Nazi tyranny. All it would do for certain was free German soldiers from their loyalty oaths and possibly rouse some senior officers from their moral slumber. But those results would not necessarily have been any more decisive than the successful launch of Operation Valkyrie. The real struggle would have only then begun, and its outcome would by no means have been certain. Goerdeler’s objections to violence were based not only on moral principles but on practical political considerations as well: he feared it might lead to civil war, thereby destroying the last of the conspirators’ hopes; to defeat on the battle fronts, especially in the East; and to chaos and lawlessness. Finally, Germany might be forced to surrender unconditionally, a result he hoped to the end to avoid.
Goerdeler may well have understood the uncertain consequences of Hitler’s assassination better than those who advocated it. Stauffenberg, however, thought in different terms. Determined to overthrow the Nazi regime, he knew that there was no realistic alternative to violence. He felt it was absurd to attempt, as Carl Langbehn and Johannes Popitz had, to turn the Nazis against one another or to undermine the system from within. No less unrealistic, to his mind, was Goerdeler’s hope that a public debate with Hitler would trigger a broad popular uprising. If there were no alternatives worth discussing, then the only way to break out of the conspirators’ “little debating circle,” as Stauffenberg called it, was clearly to assassinate Hitler and stage a coup.
Like Goerdeler, Stauffenberg was still confident that an anti-Nazi government would be able to work out an arrangement with the Allies and avoid unconditional surrender. Julius Leber sought in vain to disabuse him of this illusion. In a paper apparently written by Stauffenberg himself and left behind in army headquarters on Bendlerstrasse on July 20, the hope was expressed that Germany would remain a “significant factor in the constellation of powers” and that the Wehrmacht would be an “effective instrument” in bringing about negotiations “on an equal footing” with the Allies.28 The tenacity with which Stauffenberg clung to this misconception has often been noted. Perhaps, as some commentators have speculated, he needed it as much as he needed his moral outrage in order to take action.29 After all, any clearheaded assessment of the situation could only have led to the conclusion that events should be allowed to play themselves out to the bitter end. The historian Gordon Craig regards the German conspirators as incurable “romantics,” and his characterization is probably apt, even in respect to Stauffenberg. But the critical undertone of that judgment denies them the dignity of their efforts, however desperate, impulsive, and irrational they may have been.
The particular heroism of the German resistance resides precisely in the hopelessness of the conspirators’ position, in what one historian calls the “last hurrah of a lost cause.”30 Utterly without support or encouragement from within or without, they carried on the struggle even though, by the end, no national or tangible political interest could be advanced. Thus the assassination attempt of July 20 was launched in the spirit of Tresckow’s words to Stauffenberg: “coûte que coûte”—do it “whatever the cost.” Stauffenberg surely knew that the political goals he was serving by killing Hitler were now a mere fantasy. To the Allied demand for unconditional surrender he and his friends responded with an equally unconditional determination to act, motivated at this point by only the most abstract and general ideals: the dignity of humankind, justice, responsibility, self-respect. It is revealing that all discussion of the “right psychological moment,” which had played so prominent a role in the debates of previous years, had long since ceased.
In the end success or failure no longer mattered very much. All that remained was to make a dramatic gesture disavowing Hitler and everything his regime stood for. Tresckow’s words to Stauffenberg have become the most memorable phrase of the resistance because they convey this idea in its most forceful form and express the need for action regardless of the political or practical consequences.
The July 20 attack was, therefore, primarily a symbolic act. Those who point disparagingly to the hopelessness of the conspirators’ undertaking or the inadequateness of their planning fail to see the real significance. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that the decision to attack was a decision for martyrdom. Schulenburg made this explicit late in the evening of July 20 when the idea of taking flight came up again: “We must drain this cup to the dregs,” he said to Hans Fritzsche, “we must sacrifice ourselves.”31
Given that spirit, accusations of treason and disloyalty weighed relatively lightly on the conspirators, and concerns a
bout the success of their mission could no longer hold them back. A few days before the coup attempt Tresckow confided to a friend that “in all likelihood everything will go wrong”; asked if the action was necessary nevertheless, he replied simply, “Yes, even so.”32 That is the key without which nothing can be understood. The purpose of July 20 was the gesture itself; it was its own justification. The conspirators believed that failure would not detract from the idea behind the attack. Some seem to have believed that failure would actually cast their actions in an even purer light. As Stieff replied when asked what had driven him to do what he had done, “We were purifying ourselves.”33
It is fitting that the conspirators had their great moment in court, when, free of the burden of reality, they could focus on their thoughts, principles, and beliefs. They utilized fully the few opportunities that the raging Freisler allowed them. Despite his efforts at humiliation, they managed to prevent the regime from using the trials as a crowd-pleasing spectacle. Public reports of the trials were quickly cut back and then stopped entirely in what was probably the most searing propaganda defeat the regime had ever suffered.
The German resistance has been called a unique phenomenon because it sought, in an era still imbued with nationalistic fervor, to oppose the policies of its own government-and at a moment when that government was enjoying one victory after another. To counter those triumphs, the resistance could offer only its conviction that no amount of success justified the government’s crimes.34 Also remarkable was the evolution that the thinking of many members of the resistance was forced to undergo in extremely trying circumstances: despite the considerable power of tradition, conservatives and others began to question and ultimately to abandon such narrow concepts as the nation-state, a process that never advanced, however, beyond the initial stages. But the laudatory early accounts of the resistance tended to ignore the sympathy that many opponents of the regime originally felt for Hitler, or at least for some of his aims, and depicted these men as timeless heroes, divorced from their times. These accounts miss the drama that shapes so many of the conspirators’ lives. More to the point, they make the participants stranger and even more remote than they may already have seemed.
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