Guarding Hitler

by Mark Felton

  Gersdorff stood next to Model as Hitler entered the covered courtyard at the head of practically the entire senior Nazi leadership circle. Behind Hitler was Hermann Göring dressed incongruously in a white uniform of his own design, and wearing red leather jackboots and makeup. Heinrich Himmler’s cold eyes stared out from behind his wire-framed glasses, lips pursed and disapproving while Hitler’s two senior military commanders, the tall, pompous and slightly rotund Generalfeldmarschall Keitel, and Grossadmiral Karl Dönitz, both grasping their ornate rank batons in their right hands, followed behind.

  Hitler had already delivered his short speech outside, and Gersdorff had listened as the German national anthem was played followed by the Horst Wessel, the Nazi’s unofficial anthem. Hitler now had thirty minutes to use up at the exhibition before the wreath laying ceremony commenced once more outside the Zeughaus.12

  Hitler moved towards Gersdorff’s section of the exhibition, the gallant Baron arming his bomb as the Führer approached. Gersdorff had ten minutes left to live and, determined to kill Hitler, he smiled and attempted to interest the Führer in the display of Soviet weaponry laid out on table before him. Hitler, a disinterested scowl on his face, moved along the tables with Gersdorff staying as close to Hitler as possible, all the time trying to talk to him.13 It is a measure of Gersdorff’s incredible bravery that he showed absolutely no outward sign of the impending violent end of his life, carrying on as if everything were absolutely normal. The RSD guards never suspected a thing. But suddenly Hitler, instead of asking questions about the weapons, ‘went – or rather ran – out of the side door,’ recalled Gersdorff. ‘During his short tour around the exhibition, he had barely looked at anything and had not said a word.’14 A tour that was supposed to have taken thirty minutes had lasted for barely two. Gersdorff considered attempting to follow Hitler from the courtyard but quickly realised that this forbidden behaviour would only alert the RSD and SS-Begleitkommando guards in the Führer’s vicinity and have led to his apprehension. Instead, Gersdorff made his excuses and locked himself inside a toilet cubicle. Frantically, he disarmed the bombs, succeeding with only seconds to spare.15

  Later that same day a fellow army officer approached Gersdorff and jokingly explained how he could have ‘killed Adolf today.’ Hitler, he said, ‘drove very slowly in an open top car down Unter den 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.’16 Gersdorff, white faced, just stared at him blankly. The following day Baron von Gersdorff was transferred back to Army Group Centre on the Eastern Front and his plot to kill the Führer was never discovered. Gersdorff survived the war, dying in Germany in 1980.

  The next man to step forward with a plan to kill Hitler was Hauptmann Axel Baron von dem Bussche-Streithorst, a 25-year-old half-Danish aristocrat who had been serving in the German Army since 1937. Standing 2 metres tall, the blonde haired, blue-eyed Bussche-Streithorst was selected to model some new winter uniforms before Hitler at the Wolf’s Lair, the event scheduled for 18 November 1943. The young officer seemed to epitomise the Nordic ideal that the Nazis aspired to, but in reality Bussche-Streithorst had been a bitter opponent of the regime since witnessing a mass shooting of 3,000 Jews at Dubno by the SS in 1942. Deeply traumatized by this horrific event Bussche-Streithorst reasoned that he had three ways to preserve his honour. He could die in battle, desert or rebel against the government that perpetrated such inhuman acts. He chose the latter option.

  Bussche-Streithorst’s plan was simple – he would emulate Baron von Gersdorff. He would conceal a landmine in one of the pockets of the uniform that he would model for Hitler, fitting the bomb with a fast-reacting hand grenade detonator, thereby overcoming the fusing problem that Gersdorff had faced during his attempt at the Zeughaus in Berlin. As Hitler approached him, Bussche-Streithorst would set off the detonator, embrace the Führer in a death grip and kill both of them. Courage ran in his family, for his first cousin was the Danish soldier Anders Lassen, who would win a Victoria Cross serving with the British Army in Italy in 1945.

  Arriving at the Wolfsschanze, Bussche-Streithorst waited for two days for the display to commence. But then crushing news arrived. The uniforms had all been destroyed during a huge British air raid on Berlin the night before the exhibition was to be held. It was a bitter blow. Bussche-Streithorst’s plan would most probably have succeeded. He volunteered to try again in February 1944 but before this could be arranged Bussche-Streithorst was severely wounded on the Eastern Front, losing one of his legs. He was permanently out of the assassination business, but he too survived the war, dying in 1993.

  At this point a brave new volunteer stepped forward – Hauptmann Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist-Schmenzin, a 22-year-old officer from a family with a long history of active opposition against the Nazis. Another exhibition of uniforms was scheduled for 11 February 1944. Kleist-Schmenzin decided to modify the Bussche-Streithorst plan slightly by using a mine concealed inside a briefcase, hoping somewhat optimistically that he could survive the blast that would kill Hitler by tossing the briefcase, with the mine’s detonator already triggered, at the Führer’s feet creating a little distance between himself and his target before the explosion. Again, such a plan, pre-July Bomb Plot, had a good chance of success, for the RSD was not yet completely vigilant regarding officers’ bags – they were more concerned about sidearms being carried in the presence of the Führer. But this ingenious plan failed because Hitler kept postponing the event before he finally cancelled it altogether. Von Kleist-Schmenzin was transferred back to regular duties. Unlike Gersdorff and Bussche-Streithorst he did not survive the war. He was arrested in the wake of the July Bomb Plot, and guillotined.

  With the failure of the Breitenbuch, Bussche-Streithorst and Kleist-Schmenzin plots, concern was growing amongst the resistance that very few officers still had regular access to Hitler, and therefore the opportunity to attempt an assassination was diminishing. And with senior officers’ aides now banned from conferences the chances of successfully introducing a bomb into Hitler’s headquarters or private home were growing ever more remote. What was needed was an officer of sufficient rank who would attend military conferences and still be in close proximity to the Führer. By mid-1944 only two men fitted this description. One was 43-year-old Generalmajor Helmuth Stieff, a man who was described by one senior plotter as ‘as nervy as a racing jockey.’17 The other was a man of immense personal courage, the new leader of the resistance movement who had played such an important part in recruiting the men who had already attempted to kill Hitler, Oberst Claus Schenk Count von Stauffenberg. Germany’s latest saviour was also its last great hope – the only plotter senior enough and brave enough to stand next to Hitler and kill him.

  The Stauffenbergs are one of southern Germany’s oldest and most distinguished aristocratic families. Claus von Stauffenberg was born at the family castle at Jettingen near Augsburg in 1907. He was commissioned into the Reichswehr in 1930 and took part in the invasion of the Sudetenland in 1938. He wrestled with his conscience regarding Nazi ideology, on the one hand supporting many of Hitler’s foreign policy goals, and on the other despising the brutality and racism of the Nazis. His strong Catholic faith was deeply offended by the ill treatment of the Jews, a reaction shared by many of his brother officers and fellow plotters.

  In 1939 Stauffenberg served with distinction in the Polish Campaign, and it was during this campaign that the anti-Hitler resistance first approached him. His uncle, Nikolaus Count von Uxkull-Gyllenbrand, spoke to him at length about the aims of the Resistance, but at this stage Stauffenberg was averse to breaking his oath of allegiance to Hitler and declined to join. As with many of his class, the breaking of an oath was practically inconceivable under any circumstances because it impugned an officer’s family honour.

  Stauffenberg won the Iron Cross First Class during the invasion of France, but what he saw and heard in 1941 during Operation Barbarossa, the in
vasion of the Soviet Union, both appalled and disturbed him. The mass execution of civilians, the roundups and the deliberate alienation of conquered populations, disgusted Stauffenberg leading him to finally join the Resistance in 1942. His conscience overrode his strong sense of patriotism and loyalty when the true amoral nature of Nazism was revealed to him. But like all of the other plotters, overcoming a reluctance to commit treason was a terrible internal struggle, as Kershaw notes: ‘In a war, distinct from treachery against one’s own country, from betrayal to the enemy, was chiefly a matter of individual persuasion and the relative weighting of moral values.’18

  Posted to the Organisational Department of OKH, Stauffenberg tried to soften German occupation policies, also attempting to recruit local volunteers for the German armed forces. He wrote a proposal concerning the correct treatment of Soviet prisoners of war. Unfortunately, none of his proposals were adopted, adding to his frustration and determination to affect a change of leadership.

  Posted to the Afrika Korps in Tunisia in 1942, he was promoted to Oberstleutnant and made Operations Officer of the 10th Panzer Division. During Rommel’s advance through the Kasserine Pass in early 1943 Stauffenberg’s job meant that he was constantly driving between units in his Horch staff car. On 7 April Royal Australian Air Force P-40 Kittyhawk fighter-bombers pounced on the convoy that he was travelling in. Stauffenberg suffered appalling injuries including losing his left eye, right hand and several of the fingers on his left hand.

  After three months of hospitalisation in Munich, Stauffenberg recovered and was awarded the Wound Badge in Gold and the German Cross in Gold, one of Nazi Germany’s most prestigious awards for bravery. After a suitable period of convalescence, he was promoted to Oberst and appointed Chief of Staff to Generaloberst Friedrich Fromm, Commander-in-Chief of the Replacement Army. Fifty-five-year-old Fromm could be best described as a ‘fence sitter’. He never fully committed himself to Stauffenberg’s plotting but he did agree to keep quiet in return for a high position in any post-coup government. In the end, when push came to shove, Fromm sided with Hitler with devastating consequences for Stauffenberg and the other plotters.

  The Replacement Army had a dual role in Nazi Germany. Its primary job was to train soldiers as replacements for first line divisions. Secondly, in the event of a coup against Hitler, or internal disorder, the Replacement Army was to activate Operation ‘Valkyrie’. The original Valkyrie plan, as created by General der Infanterie Friedrich Olbricht’s staff, would see Replacement Army formations activated to guard vital points across the Reich. Awarded the Knights Cross for personal bravery during the invasion of Poland, Olbricht had been appointed Chief of the Armed Forces Replacement Office at OKW in 1942. Olbricht had been wary of the Nazis since the early 1920s, and joined the plotters.

  Unfortunately, only Fromm could activate Valkyrie, so from the beginning the plotters, led by Generalmajor von Treskow and Stauffenberg, sought to enlist a reluctant Fromm to their cause. After the failure to assassinate Hitler on his plane ride back from Smolensk on 13 March 1943, Olbricht felt that the original Valkyrie plan was inadequate and that the Replacement Army should be used to overthrow Hitler and his government even without Fromm’s cooperation. Treskow created ‘Valkyrie II’, providing for the swift gathering of army units into battle groups ready for action.

  During August and September 1943 Treskow revised and further expanded the plan, issuing new secret orders. The operational orders now began with the words: ‘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 to seize power for themselves.’19 There followed detailed instructions for Replacement Army battlegroups to occupy the main government ministries in Berlin, Himmler’s headquarters at the Hochenwald in East Prussia, radio stations and telephone exchanges, other Nazi offices and the concentration camps. The plan relied upon tricking the Replacement Army into working for the plotters in eradicating the Nazi government by creating a false coup attempt by the SS. The ordinary troops would believe that the Nazi leadership was traitorous and had to be removed. Treskow was confident that the troops would obey as their orders came from Replacement Army Headquarters and looked genuine.

  The Allied invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944 convinced 36-year-old Stauffenberg that the writing was on the wall for Hitler’s Germany. In his opinion, it was the sacred duty of loyal German officers to get rid of the Führer and to conclude an immediate armistice with the Western Allies to prevent further pointless bloodshed and the ultimate destruction of Germany.

  From September 1943 Stauffenberg had been the driving force behind the resistance, and behind every plot to kill Hitler. As the failures mounted, Stauffenberg was becoming increasingly doubtful that the resistance would succeed. ‘The assassination must be attempted,’ urged Stauffenberg’s friend and fellow conspirator von Treskow. ‘Even if it fails, we must take action in Berlin.’ Treskow believed that they had to show the Allies that not every German was like Hitler.

  Stauffenberg had first met Hitler in person on 7 June 1944, the day after D-Day. He accompanied his boss, Fromm, to a military meeting at the Berghof. Hitler greeted the war-scarred hero warmly, carefully taking the Count’s one remaining mangled hand into both of his and staring intently into Stauffenberg’s one eye, as was his wont with new faces at headquarters. Stauffenberg was unfazed by Hitler’s intense greeting and could not see the so-called ‘hypnotic magnetism’ that so many other officers claimed that Hitler exuded. The meeting was limited, aside from Fromm and Stauffenberg, to Hitler, Göring, Himmler, the crawling sycophant Keitel, and Albert Speer. Stauffenberg presented a revised draft of Operation Valkyrie to the Führer for his approval and signature, though this plan was not the one that Treskow, Olbricht and Stauffenberg would actually transmit to the Replacement Army. Hitler listened attentively and then signed the plan into official policy, undoubtedly pleased that he was so well protected by his Wehrmacht forces.

  During the meeting Stauffenberg was afforded the opportunity to study Nazi Germany’s most powerful leaders up close. He was disgusted and repulsed by what he saw. ‘He . . . described the atmosphere as degenerate and foetid and claimed that he had found it hard to breathe. Of his fellow participants, he noted, only Albert Speer gave the impression of normality. The others . . . were “patent psychopaths.” ’20

  On 6 July Stauffenberg was summoned from Berlin to the Berghof for a second time. On this occasion he brought British plastic explosives and time pencil fuses with him inside his briefcase. He hoped to persuade Stieff to attempt an attack on Hitler during a scheduled demonstration of uniforms at Castle Klessheim near Salzburg, but Stieff lost his nerve and demurred. The only plotter determined enough to attempt assassination and with direct access to Hitler was now Count von Stauffenberg. His war injuries had thus far kept him from becoming an assassin, but now he was left with no choice.

  Stauffenberg made his first personal attempt to kill Hitler at the Berghof on 11 July 1944. He had returned to the Obersalzberg for another conference but this time had taken the precaution of stationing a plane at Salzburg Airport ready to fly him straight back to Berlin once Hitler was dead. In Berlin, Olbricht was ready to illegally activate Operation Valkyrie once he had received news from Stauffenberg of the Führer’s demise. The bomb, again inside Stauffenberg’s briefcase, was carried into Hitler’s presence without his RSD bodyguards being any the wiser. But Stauffenberg noticed that Himmler was absent from the meeting. In a quiet conversation with Stieff, his fellow plotter persuaded him to postpone the attack until such time as the entire Nazi leadership was present. Stauffenberg reluctantly agreed, completed his briefing and left for Berlin. On reflection, he felt that he should have killed Hitler when he had had the opportunity and allowed the Replacement Army to deal with Himmler and the SS. A bomb inside the large living room at the Berghof would probably have succeeded. Hitler had once again escaped death.

  Stauffenberg was not prepared to
wait much longer. In the meantime, Hitler had changed headquarters once again, moving back to the Wolf’s Lair in East Prussia, and it was here that Stauffenberg was given another opportunity to kill the Führer and enact Operation Valkyrie.

  Chapter 9

  Valkyrie

  ‘It is now time that something was done. But the man who has the courage to do something must do it in the knowledge that he will go down in German history as a traitor. If he does not do it, however, he will be a traitor to his own conscience.’1

  Count von Stauffenberg, 1944

  Oberst Claus Schenk Count von Stauffenberg carefully placed his brown leather briefcase against one of the thick wooden table supports, making sure that it was as close to Adolf Hitler as he dared. The hot and stuffy conference room was crowded with senior officers, aides and stenographers, the huge wooden table festooned with maps and charts. Hitler, pale and drawn and wearing spectacles, stood halfway along the table listening to the latest bad news from the Russian Front. His marked stoop and greying hair made him look older than fifty-five. It was evident to all those gathered in the room that the Führer was becoming increasingly agitated, as Generalleutnant Adolf Heusinger, Chief of the General Staff of the Army, presented his pessimistic strategic assessment and recommendations for the Eastern Front.2

  The conference hut windows were open, for it was another hot and sticky day deep in the marshy East Prussian forest. The date was 20 July 1944 and Hitler had only minutes to live. Stauffenberg stood erect a few paces from his Führer, standing next to 37-year-old Oberst Heinz Brandt, Heusinger’s aide and brilliant equestrian who had won a gold medal at the 1936 Olympics. Stauffenberg’s calm exterior masked his rising panic. Stauffenberg was the epitome of the kind of Wagnerian hero so adored by the Nazis. The Count was handsome, with a military bearing, but horribly disfigured by his war injuries. He wore a black eye patch and his right hand was missing from the wrist. Most of the fingers of his left hand were also gone. This crippled but proud warrior represented the last chance for Germany. Both Stauffenberg and his fellow plotters had come so close to killing Hitler on numerous occasions. They felt sure that Hitler’s uncanny ability to sidestep death could not last forever – one of their attempts would be bound to get him.