The Journey of Anna Eichenwald

by Donald Hunt

  At exactly 5:00 a.m. the detonator was compressed. The explosion was equivalent to 1,000 pounds of TNT and rattled windows for almost two miles. The concussion shock wave was felt by Werner and his comrade. As the smoke cleared they could see that the middle truss had been blown off of the mooring and had fallen into the river. The weight of the fallingsteel truss pulled the opposite end lose as well and the entire structure now was in the river. Three minutes after the explosion the two men disappeared into the Black Forest.

  Maria Schmidt had worked out a routine to care for her needs and the needs of Werner’s father. She had three milk cows, a dozen laying hens, and a large vegetable garden. Her first chore was to milk the cows and then gather the eggs. Her day usually started at 5:30 a.m. June 8, 1944 was no different. She had no radio and traveled into Heidelberg with neighbors about once a month for supplies. A neighbor had stopped by the day before to share the news of the invasion. Maria had thought little of the war and had not seen one person in uniform since the night she was terrorized by the Gestapo. She had little understanding of the true meaning of the invasion, but simply thought that eventually it might bring Werner home – if he was still alive.

  There were days when Maria worked the farm and talked openly to Werner as if he were there. On those days she enjoyed his company and her work-day passed quickly. But as time went on, those days were fewer and fewer. On other days she convinced herself that he was not alive. She was trying to adjust to the idea that she would not see him again and her life on the farm would be a solitary existence.

  Sunrise was about 6:00 a.m. in early June and Maria always took a kerosene lantern to the barn. She placed straw in the trough for the milk cows. For a brief moment she had a feeling she was not alone and glanced around but saw no one. She picked up the milk pale, and then he spoke. “Maria!”

  She turned toward the voice as he stepped out of the shadows.

  “Maria!”

  She looked into his face in disbelief and then dropped to her knees on the straw covered floor. She buried her face in her hands and began to sob. He kneeled beside her taking her in his arms. Now, with her arms around him, she finally believed he was not an apparition. God had returned to her the man she had loved since she was 12 years old. Once able to speak, she asked four or five questions. But Werner stroked her hair and pleaded quietly.

  “I have been walking for 24 hours. Let’s get some breakfast and I will tell you my story.”

  * * *

  Ten days after the Normandy invasion Heidi was walking to her flat from the hospital after working the evening shift. As she was approaching the apartment complex a man standing in a group of trees said the word ‘freiheit’ (freedom). This code was used by the resistance. Heidi paused but was suspicious. She knew it could be a trap.

  “It’s Landis.”

  She walked into the clump of trees. “I must talk with you,” he said.

  “There’s a small park two blocks from here that should be safe,” Heidi whispered. They walked silently to the park and sat on a park bench. The street and the park were deserted as the Leipzig black out was in effect.

  “Max has been betrayed,” he said. “We found his body today. He went missing three days ago. He was shot in the back of the head and looked as if he had been tortured. If he had talked, we would have already been arrested.”

  Heidi paused to absorb this news. She could feel the adrenalin hit her blood stream as her heart began to pound. She had one question. “Do you feel we are out of danger?”

  “Yes, but I will not contact you for a month or so. It’s possible we are being watched, who knows. Stay vigilant.”

  He then got up and disappeared into the darkness.

  Chapter 16

  Conspiracy

  By the afternoon of June 6th, American and British forces had penertrated up to two miles into

  France. Hitler finally had received the bad news at Berchtesgaden. That day at 4:55 p.m. he gave what his field commanders could only view as a bizarre order. It was that the bridgehead must be “annihilated” and the beach head “cleaned-up” no later than midnight that night. Even Rommel seemed to take the order seriously and telephoned it to Seventh Army Headquarters. General Pemsel was on the other end of the line and gave a blunt reply to Hitler’s order…. ‘Impossible’!

  On June 17th, the field marshals enticed Hitler to come for a firsthand look. They met in an elaborate bomb shelter originally for use during the abandoned invasion of England. Hitler was curt and quickly made it clear that he held his field commanders responsible for the allied successes. Rommel argued that the superior Allied Air, Naval, and troop strengths made the situation ‘hopeless,’ though Hitler scoffed at the notion. Rommel pointed out that fighting close to the beaches left their troops vulnerable to the heavy naval bombardments. He argued for a pull-back 12 miles out of range of the big guns and a regroup for a counter attack. Hitler would not listen to any proposal for a pull-back.

  ‘Retreat’ was not in his vocabulary. He seemed to believe that was part of his ‘military genius’. The meeting lasted six hours including lunch. Rommel and the others noticed that for the entire length of the meeting, two SS officers stood behind Hitler watching the others. They even tasted his food before he ate.

  Once again, on June 29, Rommel appealed to Hitler to face the reality of defeat on the Eastern front and now in the West. If Germany would capitulate perhaps a million lives would be saved. Rommel’s reception was frosty and blunt. Germany now had “miracle weapons” that would bring victory. On July 15th, Rommel put his thoughts in a letter to Hitler. The next day he said to his Chief of Staff, General Hans Speidel, “I have given him his last chance. If he does not take it, we will act!”

  Two days later, Rommel’s staff car was strafed by a low flying Allied fighter. He was critically injured but survived. This was a crushing blow to the conspirators who looked to him as their pillar of strength.

  For months the conspirators had needed something positive and toward the end of June they got it. Their intellectual and emotional leader, Klaus von Stauffenberg, was promoted to full colonel and made chief of staff to General Fromm, the Commander of the Home Army. Now he could issue orders in Fromm’s name but more importantly, he had direct access to Hitler. Deep in the recesses of his mind he felt the coup would be successful, and a new anti-Nazi government would be established. He had even shared with Dr. Goerdeler his desire for the Allied invasion to fail. One evening, in discussing their fate, he said, “If the British and Americans suffered a bloody set-back, they might be more willing to negotiate with a new anti-Nazi government.” Goerdeler agreed.

  “Even though they have said they will insist on ‘unconditional surrender’ they might go easier on a non-Hitler government. Besides, I am certain Churchill fears a Russian takeover of Europe.”

  “All the more reason to move on with the plan,” Stauffenberg concluded.

  But the younger men involved in the conspiracy were not totally convinced. There was much more at risk than their careers. Failure would mean execution. They had to come to grips with that fact.

  There were non-military members of the conspiracy as well. In the spring of 1942, two Lutheran clergymen traveled to Stockholm on hearing they might have an audience with Dr. George Bell, the Anglican Bishop of Chichester. One of the travelers was Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This remarkable man had earned a doctorate in theology from the University of Berlin at age 21. He was too young to be ordained and went to the U.S. for a year of post-graduate study. After spending time in London, he returned to Germany in 1935 to teach. Soon he became involved in forming the ‘Confessing Church’, a group that opposed the anti-Semitic Nazi policies. In 1939, he joined the resistance and was soon barred from preaching or teaching by the Gestapo.

  On the trip to Stockholm he traveled incognito using forged papers from Colonel Oster of the Military Intelligence Office (Abwehr). His o
pposition to Hitler was based on moral grounds, not political. He felt he must be a witness against the tyranny of the Nazi Reich. In discussing the issue with the Bishop, Bonhoeffer provided him with a list of conspirators. But the list fell into the wrong hands and later would be used against him.

  Klaus von Stauffenberg was a war hero and looked the part. He was a strikingly handsome man even missing his right arm and left eye and ear. The eye patch gave him the distinguished look of an aristocrat. On the weekends he and wife Countess Nina spent countless hours discussing the plight of their country and their efforts to change the course of history. She was never involved directly in the coup. In the event of failure, she had to survive to raise and care for their children. But she felt as strongly as her husband about the Nazis and would gladly have given her life for the cause.

  Along with other issues, their discussions included the “RoteKappelle” affair (Red Orchestra). The term ‘Red Orchestra’ was used by the Gestapo to describe a resistance group of about 75 individuals, 40 percent of whom were women. They were headed by two men, Havro Schulze-Boysen, an intelligence officer, and Avrid Hamack, a brilliant young economist. The group collected information on Nazi human rights violations. Documented violations and Nazi secrets were communicated to foreign embassies. It was very secretive, but a group so large was dangerous.

  A second group was run by agent Leopold Trepper. This group was in fact a Soviet espionage network. One of their undercover men in Belgium was caught and became a double agent trying to save his own skin. His treachery eventually led to the arrest of both Schulze-Boysen and Hamack and their wives. In all, more than 100 members of the Red Orchestra were captured, and most were executed. Hitler’s orders were to have them killed by hanging. But there were no gallows in Germany. Executions had always been carried out by ax beheading. So, the hangings were carried out by strangulation of these ‘traitors’ with ropes hung from meat hooks. One young nursing mother was allowed to wean her young son and then was hanged.

  The Stauffenbergs and all of the others exhibited bravery even beyond that of the front line troops. An encouragement to all of these brave men and women was Major General Henning von Tresckow. Born in 1901, this distinguished soldier was first in his class at Knegs Kademic (the Prussian Military Academy). He initially supported National Socialism until the Night of Long Knives in June of 1934, when Hitler personally led SS troops in a bloody purge against the Storm Troopers headed by his erstwhile comrade, Ernst Rohm. It was easy for the Nazi warlord to kill a colleague once he was considered ‘in the way.’ Rohm had been fiercely loyal to Hitler, but was a crude man and suspected of being homosexual. In the following days, many non-Nazis were murdered as well, including retired General Kurt von Schleicher and his wife. Their execution was ordered by Hermann Goering to ‘settle an old score’.

  It was then that von Tresckow decided to oppose the Nazi Reich. He came from a long tradition of military service and continued to serve with distinction. Over several years he was involved secretly in several attempts on Hitler’s life. All failed. All for different reasons. In 1944, he was the chief of staff of the Second Army on the Russian Front. He sent a message to encourage the conspiring group in Berlin, which said in part

  “We must prove to the world and future generations that the men of the German Resistance movement dared to take the decisive step and hazard their lives on it.”

  His letter inspired the doubters and revived the conspiracy.

  It was clear that the plan’s success rested directly on the shoulders of Klaus von Stauffenberg. An unfortunate incident on July 4, 1944 forced the hand of the plotters. Julius Leber was a socialist and trade-union leader. He had become a close personal friend of Stauffenberg. Another socialist, Adolph Reichwein, the Director of the Folklore Museum of Berlin, joined Leber to influence the conspirators to inform the Communists of the plot. Stauffenberg was initially cool to the idea but became convinced it might be useful to know what the Communists would do in the event the putsch was successful. So he reluctantly agreed for Reichwein and Leber to meet with underground Communist leaders. His parting words were, “Tell them as little as possible.”

  The meeting took place the following week in East Berlin. The Communist leaders actually knew a good bit about the plot and wanted to know more. They requested a second meeting to take place on July 4th. Stauffenberg was asked by Leber to attend but he refused. At the meeting the Communist brought a third man they introduced as “Rambo”. Unknown to the Communists, he worked for the Gestapo.

  These men were non-military and likely did not fully understand the risk they were taking. The Gestapo rules of engagement were egregiously harsh. There were no second chances. All of the men, Leber, Reichwein and the Communists, were arrested. The conspiracy was now in peril. Would Leber and Reichwein crack under Gestapo torture? Even brave men had limits. The ill fated meeting had indeed forced their hand.

  Klaus von Stauffenberg knew that time was short. The burden of this monumental task was constantly on his mind, yet the more he thought of it, the more he was certain it must be done and certain it was worth the risk. It was not just another battle in the war. It was a way to redeem the Volk - the millions of ‘good Germans’ who had followed Hitler down the dark path of social Darwinism. Now Himmler’s death squads were on their heels. Like wolves after prey, they had the scent and were in a frenzy for the kill.

  Desperate men often make foolish decisions. The group had convinced themselves that killing Hitler would not be enough. The cabal must eliminate Goering and Himmler as well. These two were the only men who could galvanize the Nazis against them. With all three gone, the top field marshals would surely join them. There would be no choice, especially with Rommel on their side. Goering and Himmler usually attended the daily military planning conferences and it was felt that all three could be taken out with one bomb. The plotters were in possession of several of the special English-made bombs obtained through Colonel Oster of the Abwehr. All of the conspirators were in agreement - all three should be killed.

  On July 11, Stauffenberg was summoned to military headquarters at Obersalzberg. His task was to brief Hitler on the supply of badly needed replacements. The night before his trip he carefully placed one of the English-made bombs in his brief case and concealed it. The plane ride from Berlin was uneventful. The bomb fuse was to be triggered by a chemical contained in a small glass vile that would dissolve the wire holding the detonator pin. Once in contact with the chemical, the wire lasted approximately ten minutes before the firing pin was released. When Stauffenberg entered the room, he noticed that Himmler was not at the meeting. After his report, he stepped out and called Berlin to confer with General Olbricht. Together they decided not to set the bomb. On his return plane trip, he could not help thinking that it all could have been over.

  A disconsolate Stauffenberg returned to meet with his comrades. Each had ideas of what to do next, but none was certain. Dr. Goerdeler wanted to fly to Paris and try for an armistice that would free German forces in the West to reinforce their flagging forces on the Russian front. General Beck argued that a separate peace with the Allies was a pipe dream but continued to feel that killing Hitler to save the honor of Germany was noble. Stauffenberg agreed.

  On the evening of July 16, the Stauffenbergs invited a small group of friends and family to their home at Wannsu, an hour from Berlin. The group included Stauffenberg’s brother, Berthol, who was an advisor on international law at naval headquarters, and Lt. Colonel Caesar von Hofacker, a cousin who was a liaison officer to the Western Field Commanders. Hofacker had just returned from the Western front and had two important items to report. One, the war was going poorly and second, Rommel continued to back the conspiracy. They talked late into the night and all agreed that it was critical that Germans – not the Allies – should rid Germany of their homegrown tyrant.

  On the following day, Goerdeler was tipped off by friends at police headquarters that
Himmler had issued an order for his arrest. Reluctantly, he went into hiding. A day later, Klaus von Stauffenberg spent the morning playing with his children and then returned to Berlin after a cheerful good-by to Nina. On the afternoon of the 19th he was again summoned to meet with the Supreme Commander to report on the progress being made in the training of replacement troops for the Eastern front. The news from the Ukraine was not good. The situation was rapidly deteriorating. His report would be given at Fuehrer headquarters at 1:00 pm, July 20th.

  Just after six o’clock the following morning, Colonel Stauffenberg drove with his adjutant, Lieutenant Werner von Haeften, past Berlin’s bombed out buildings and on to the airport for the flight to Rastenburg. He had worked on his report until almost midnight. In his briefcase, along with his report, was the English-made bomb wrapped in a shirt. General Beck had informed key officers in the garrisons around Berlin that Thursday, the 20th, was the day. The meeting would be at the “Wolf’s Lair” at Rastenburg in East Prussia.

  The plane was the personal craft of General Edward Wagner, the First Quartermaster of the Army and a ringleader in the plot. It was old but reliable. The pilot was instructed to have the plane refueled and ready for the return to Berlin no later than noon. The bomb would be detonated by the breaking of the glass capsule containing the chemical that dissolved the firing pin wire.

  The Wolfsschanze headquarters was in a heavily wooded area of East Prussia. It was almost impossible to see from the air for obvious reasons. The area was surrounded by electrified barbed wire fences and mine fields and patrolled around the clock by the SS. There were three check points on the way to the inner compound where Hitler lived and worked. Since Hitler had personally summoned Stauffenberg, he was waived through with little fanfare. He and his adjutant arrived at 10:49 and had a late breakfast with Captain von Moellendorff, adjutant to the camp commander. The one person Stauffenberg needed to see before giving his report was the communications chief, General Fellgiebel. They met in the communications office and went over the final plan in detail. Fellgiebel was to notify Berlin of the bombing and isolate the compound by shutting off all communications, telephone, telegraph and radio, for three hours. He was critical to the plot’s success.