A two-hour discussion followed, which Hossbach only recorded cursorily in his transcript. The military leaders expressed concerns. They had nothing against an Anschluss of Austria and an annexation of Czechoslovakia. In typical Wilhelmine fashion, they saw German hegemony in Central Europe as a worthwhile goal, even if they did not share Hitler’s racist belief in the need for “living space.” But they worried that Hitler’s impatience would spark new European hostilities and inevitably lead to a second world war. Fritsch and Blomberg were of one mind that “England and France must not emerge as our enemies.” Even in the event of a Franco-Italian war, Fritsch pointed out, France would still be capable of concentrating large numbers of forces on Germany’s western front. Blomberg drew attention to the fact that the West Wall, Germany’s series of western fortifications, was far from complete and that Czech fortifications would hinder German advances “in the extreme.” Neurath objected that “a Franco-Italian conflict was by no means as imminent as the Führer seemed to assume.”
Hossbach’s report does not say how Hitler reacted to these objections, but apparently he merely reassured his audience “that he was convinced England would not take part in any war and did not believe that France would commence hostilities.” It was exactly this optimistic prognosis that led to the criticism of the military leaders. Yet despite his scepticism, Blomberg was in no way prepared to oppose Hitler’s wishes. On the contrary, in early December he issued the “First Supplement to the Order on Unified Preparation for War of the Wehrmacht of 24 June 1937,” which reflected the ideas Hitler had put forward the previous month. It read: “If Germany has attained full military readiness in all areas, the military preconditions will have been laid to wage an offensive war against Czechoslovakia and to bring the solution of the German space problem to a successful conclusion, even if one or another of the major powers attacks us.”69 Blomberg was, of course, mistaken if he truly believed that the annexation of Czechoslovakia would resolve “Germany’s space problem” as Hitler saw it. For Hitler, such an annexation was only the first stage in a war for living space encompassing all of eastern Europe.
Despite Blomberg’s compliance, Hitler must have sensed that parts of the Wehrmacht leadership still had serious reservations about his risky strategy. Fritsch’s first reaction to Hitler’s revelation was to cancel a multi-week holiday in Egypt that he had planned for some time, but Hitler succeeded in reassuring him “that the chance of conflict cannot be regarded as that imminent.” The relationship between the Führer and the commander of the army had by no means been irreparably ruptured, as some historians have contended,70 but it had noticeably cooled. Moreover, Hitler seems to have been particularly disappointed by Neurath’s attitude, which reminded him of the reservations German diplomats had expressed ahead of the remilitarisation of the Rhineland in March 1936. Neurath would testify before the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal that in mid-January 1938 he had warned Hitler that “his policies would necessarily lead to a world war” and “that many of his plans could be realised, albeit more slowly, through peaceful means.” But the dictator, Neurath testified, had simply replied that he was “running out of time.”71 Whatever the truth may have been, Hitler must have known that his plans would not attract the sort of unconditional support from military leaders and top diplomats to which he believed himself entitled. What could be more logical, especially after he had got rid of Hjalmar Schacht, than to grind down the last remaining pillars of his conservative coalition partners? And chance now gave Hitler the opportunity for a major clear-out among the upper echelons of both the military and the Foreign Ministry.
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The beginning was a marital scandal. In September 1937, while strolling through Berlin’s Tiergarten park, War Minister von Blomberg met a woman thirty-five years his junior named Margarethe Gruhn. The 60-year-old general field marshal, who had been widowed eight years previously, immediately fell in love, but Gruhn came from lowly circumstances, and Blomberg needed Hitler’s permission to marry her. On the occasion of the state funeral for Erich Ludendorff on 22 December 1937 in Munich, the field marshal asked for the Führer’s approval, introducing his fiancée as a “stenographer” and a “girl of the people.” Hitler and Göring agreed to act as witnesses at the wedding—in the interest, they later claimed, of combating class conflicts and social prejudice.72 The civil marriage ceremony took place on 12 January 1938 with only Hitler, Göring, Blomberg’s five children from his first marriage and the mother of the bride in attendance. Not even Fritsch and Raeder were invited. The newly-weds embarked on their honeymoon immediately after the ceremony. The newspapers ran a brief announcement: “On Wednesday 12 January, Reich Minister of War General Field Marshal von Blomberg wed Fräulein Gruhn. The Führer and Colonel General Göring served as witnesses.”73
But soon after the wedding, rumours began to surface about the young spouse’s former life. Prostitutes reportedly told each other: “It’s nice that one of us can rise in the world like this.” In fact, Gruhn had come under the scrutiny of Berlin’s vice squad several years previously. Around Christmas 1931, she had posed for pornographic photos and had been officially registered as a prostitute the following year. In December 1934, one of her customers had reported her to the police for allegedly stealing his gold watch. Berlin Police President Wolf-Heinrich von Helldorff got wind of these extremely embarrassing stories, and on 21 January 1938, he presented General Wilhelm Keitel, the head of the Wehrmacht office in the War Ministry, with the prostitute registration card and a mugshot of Margarethe Gruhn. Because Keitel had not met Blomberg’s wife, he sent Helldorff to Göring, who confirmed the woman’s identity. “This is a catastrophe,” Göring allegedly said.74
On the evening of 24 January, when Hitler returned to Berlin from a three-day visit in Munich, Göring was waiting for him at the entrance to the Chancellery. The two immediately withdrew to Hitler’s private quarters, where Göring showed the Führer Gruhn’s file, including the pornographic photos. Hitler was shocked—not because the obscene images offended his prudishness,75 but because he immediately realised that the scandal would reflect badly on him if it became public. As he had been a witness at the marriage, he now had good reason to fear that he would become the object of mockery inside and outside Germany. For two days, Hitler completely retreated from the public eye, conducting all meetings in his private quarters and not even appearing at mealtimes as usual. “His behaviour gave the Chancellery an uncanny atmosphere,” recalled his assistant Below. “In the general absence of any information, everyone there felt edgy, worried and afraid.”76
All the members of Hitler’s entourage who saw him during this time confirmed that he was not acting: the scandal had shaken him to the core. In addition to worrying about a loss of prestige, he felt disappointed in his minister of war, whom he had trusted deeply. His personal assistant Fritz Wiedemann recalled: “He paced up and down in his room, a broken man, his hands behind his back, shaking his head and muttering: ‘If a German field marshal can marry a whore then anything is possible in this world.’ ”77 Goebbels, who arrived at the Chancellery at noon on 25 January, tried in vain to lift Hitler’s spirits. “A tense mood,” the propaganda minister noted. “Unpleasant situation with Blomberg. Still not cleared up. The Führer is very sombre and sad.”78 That morning, Hitler had held a private discussion with Friedrich Hossbach about the affair. Blomberg had put him in a “most difficult position,” Hitler said, by concealing his wife’s true past. As much as he regretted “having to lose such a loyal colleague,” he concluded, Blomberg’s position had become “untenable.”79
Hitler ordered Göring to confront Blomberg with Gruhn’s file in the War Ministry and to get him to declare the wedding null and void. It was the only way, Hitler said, to avert a scandal. But to Göring’s and Hitler’s astonishment, Blomberg rejected this suggestion. His love for his wife knew no bounds, he told Keitel. His decision was likely made easier by the fact that Göring had already informed him that he could not stay on
in his post regardless of whether he separated from his wife or not. On the morning of 27 January, Hitler received the field marshal, who appeared in civilian clothing, for one final audience. He and his wife immediately travelled abroad so that his dismissal would attract as little notice as possible. Hitler gave him 50,000 marks’ worth of foreign currency to underwrite the extended trip.80
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But the troubled times were not over. Hot on the heels of the Blomberg affair followed an even more serious incident in which Werner von Fritsch was accused of being a homosexual. Later, on the evening of his forty-ninth birthday in April 1938, Hitler would tell his assistant Gerhard Engel, “The thing with Fritsch would have never got rolling, if the minister of war had not played a dirty trick on him,” adding that his trust in his generals had suffered a “major blow.”81 Historians long thought that Fritsch fell victim to a deliberate intrigue ordered by Hitler, but it appears that Hitler was telling the truth as far as he knew it to Engel.82 Just as the Nazi leader had been surprised by the truth about Blomberg’s wife, he does not seem to have harboured any intention of getting rid of the other main sceptic from the November meeting. However, with characteristic cunning, he did take the bull by the horns and turn an unpleasant surprise to his own advantage. André François-Poncet later remarked that the Blomberg–Fritsch double scandal was a fascinating case study “for anyone interested in the role that imponderables play in history.”83
On the evening of 24 January, Hitler was still in shock at Göring’s information about Blomberg’s wife and pondering how to react when he suddenly recalled an incident from 1936. That summer, Heinrich Himmler had shown him a police file casting suspicion upon Fritsch of having had sex with a rent boy named Otto Schmidt, who had subsequently tried to blackmail him. At the time an outraged Hitler had refused to open an investigation and ordered the file to be destroyed. But now, already made mistrustful by Blomberg’s behaviour, Hitler began to worry that there might have been something to the story. In any case, he wanted to be certain before he promoted Fritsch, the highest-ranking officer in the army, to the post of war minister as Blomberg’s successor, so he ordered the Gestapo to reconstruct the police file. That did not prove very difficult since Reinhard Heydrich, defying Hitler’s original order, had kept the most important parts of the file in a safe. The police report about Fritsch was on Hitler’s desk the following evening.84
On the morning of 25 January, after informing him of the Blomberg affair and swearing him to secrecy, Hitler told Hossbach about the accusations against Fritsch. Hossbach recalled Hitler saying: “The colonel general will have to go since he is compromised by his homosexuality. He [Hitler] had the evidence in his hands and had possessed it for some years.”85 Hossbach was horrified. His only explanation for the situation was that Hitler was sick of the army commander and wanted an excuse to get rid of him. Convinced of Fritsch’s innocence, he asked for permission to question the colonel general himself. Hitler categorically refused. Nonetheless, late the following evening, Hossbach drove to Fritsch’s official apartment at Bendlerstrasse 25 and acquainted him with the accusations. “A filthy, rotten lie” was Fritsch’s response.86 The following morning, Hossbach informed Hitler about his act of disobedience. As far as he could tell, the Führer seemed to take the news “completely calmly.” Indeed, Hossbach described him as being relieved when he heard his account of how the army commander had reacted. “If that’s so, everything would be fine, and Fritsch could become minister,” Hitler apparently said.87
But here Hitler proved to be a master actor yet again. In reality, he was seething at his underling’s disobedience, and it must have taken all of his self-control to conceal his true feelings. The dictator was anything but relieved. On the contrary, the mood in the Chancellery on 26 January was one of impending catastrophe. “The worst crisis of the regime since the Röhm affair,” Goebbels noted. “I’m completely shattered. The Führer looks like a corpse. I feel most sorry for him. I find Blomberg’s behaviour incomprehensible…And now Fritsch is a Paragraph 175 case. He gave me his word of honour that it’s not true. But who can believe it?”88
Both Hossbach and Fritsch believed that the whole affair was a sinister intrigue perpetrated by the Wehrmacht leadership. They doubted that the witness in question even existed and demanded that Fritsch be allowed to confront him. After some hesitation, Hitler agreed. When Fritsch, dressed in civilian clothing to avoid attracting attention, arrived that night at the Chancellery, Hossbach greeted him with the news that the witness was already there. The day before, four Gestapo officials had travelled to the Börgermoor penal camp in north-western Germany to collect the convicted blackmailer Otto Schmidt and take him to Berlin. “I want to see the swine!” Fritsch exclaimed and stormed up to the first-floor library where he was to meet with Hitler and Göring.89
The dictator got straight to the point, saying that he wanted to hear the truth. If Fritsch admitted to having a homosexual relationship, he would be sent on a long holiday like Blomberg, and that would be the end of it. The colonel general once again protested his innocence—but he made a crucial mistake. Ever since Hossbach had told him about the accusations levelled against him, he had racked his brains about where they might have come from. He recalled that in 1933 and 1934, as part of the Winter Relief campaign, he had treated an unemployed Hitler Youth to lunch, which they had regularly taken together in his private apartment. As Fritsch related this story at length to Hitler, it truly awakened the Führer’s mistrust. Fritsch was allowed to read his police file, and while he was doing so, Schmidt was brought into the room, where he exclaimed, “Yes, he’s the one!” Fritsch protested that he had never seen Schmidt in his life, giving Hitler his word of honour. But astonishingly the German head of state chose to believe a small-time criminal over the highest-ranking German military officer. Fritsch was ordered to submit to Gestapo interrogation the following day. He left the Chancellery, outraged at how he had been treated. That very evening he sent Hitler a letter stating: “Until the restoration of my honour, which has been besmirched, it is impossible for me to carry out any of my official duties.”90
Fritsch was interrogated in the Gestapo headquarters in Berlin on the morning of 27 January, and he was forced to confront the witness against him for a second time. Despite intensive cross-examination, Schmidt stuck to his story, while the colonel general asserted his innocence with equal vigour. Ultimately it was one man’s word against the other’s. “Who knows what’s right and what’s wrong here?” noted Goebbels. “In any case, the situation is impossible. The investigations will continue. But it looks as though Fritsch will have to go.”91 Hitler, who, Goebbels found, had grown “haggard and grey,” cancelled both his traditional speech to the Reichstag on 30 January and a planned cabinet meeting. On 28 January, Hossbach was brusquely dismissed. Hitler could not forgive him for disobeying orders.92
Since the Gestapo investigations had failed to establish any clarity, Hitler charged Justice Minister Gürtner with preparing a judicial report on the Fritsch case. “A devilish situation,” Goebbels opined, adding that however it ended, the damage had been done.93 By the end of January, the report, which had been prepared by Gürtner’s personal adviser, Senior Governmental Counsel Hans von Dohnanyi, was ready. It was devastating for Fritsch since it concluded that the accusations raised against him “had not yet been conclusively refuted.” The superficially harmless story involving the Hitler Youth was regarded as an “incriminating moment.” On the other hand, the report also stated that the “decision over guilty or innocent would remain a matter for a judge’s verdict.” Gürtner did succeed in getting a regular trial scheduled in front of the Reich War Court.94 For his part, Hitler was now completely convinced of Fritsch’s guilt. “Fritsch has been unmasked as a 175er,” Goebbels quoted him saying on 31 January. “While the incident may lie three years in the past, the Führer believes that it did happen. Fritsch denies everything, but that’s what these people always do. He too will have to go.”95 On
3 February, Fritsch was ordered to submit his immediate resignation. After everything the army commander had gone through with Hitler in the past few days, Fritsch was glad to comply. “It is impossible for me to work with this man,” he wrote.96
Who would succeed Blomberg and Fritsch? Although he had already seized a plethora of offices and responsibilities, Göring would have liked to get his hands on the War Ministry, but Hitler gruffly rejected the idea. “He does not even know a thing about the Luftwaffe,” Hitler told Fritz Wiedemann. “Even I have a better understanding of it!”97 In his final audience on 27 January, when asked to suggest someone to replace him, Blomberg spontaneously broached the idea of Hitler taking command of the Wehrmacht personally. That afternoon, Goebbels suggested the same, even going a step further than the general field marshal by proposing that the War Ministry should be disbanded in favour of separate army and navy ministries. “That would be the most logical solution,” Goebbels argued.98 Hitler immediately adopted the idea and began discussions with Keitel on 27 January about the Wehrmacht’s future organisational structure.
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