The Valkyrie Option

by Markus Reichardt

  Beria was not about to venture an opinion but Zhukov was more at ease. ‘Comrade General Secretary these are two commanders of opposing armies who have fought each other before. They have become legends to their own forces. I believe the main force here is the sentiment between soldier and commander. And they command armies that are not fighting as class enemies but merely over territory. Do you recall the various stories about fraternization between their troops and officers at various times during their campaign in North Africa? This is more of the same. The removal of Hitler has created this space. It is a temporary space.’

  So you are saying that the importance of this image should not be exaggerated.’ Comrade Marshall?’ Stalin was tense.

  ‘No Comrade, I would argue that while the motives of these men may have been of a more limited nature, the impact of the image is significant. The Germans are clearly using it as a propaganda weapon to demoralize their opponents into giving them the breathing space to withdraw. Therefore the importance of this image remains to be seen.’ That was as political as Zhukov was going to get.

  ‘And can they withdraw if the Anglo-Americans do not let them?’

  ‘Difficult to say. Rommel clearly has the initiative and a head start. If he can keep 10, say 15 kilometers ahead of the pursuing troops he will have achieved his objective. He may have to abandon a unit here, some supplies or heavy equipment elsewhere, but he will maintain the strategic initiative. He could get at least 80 per cent of his force out and they would be mostly the better ones. All he needs is some bad weather to keep the AngloAmerican planes off his back and he could pull it off.’

  ‘Were they offering us the same terms?’

  Molotov’s face barely moved when he spoke.’ In essence yes. However as the glorious Red Army has basically reconquered most of the occupied areas of the Soviet Motherland, the Rodina, they raised the issue of Poland, the Baltic States and Bessarabia. All of which is ours anyway, ..or will soon be.’

  Zhukov cut in. “They do not have the space to relinquish for such a strategy, except perhaps in the Baltic. Not without allowing our troops to move into all of eastern Europe.’

  ‘The British I can understand. They do not want us to bring eastern Europe within our area of influence. They fear that the installation of progressive regimes with threaten their class interests and those of their local reactionary allies. It is the Americans I am waiting for. What is your analysis comrades.’

  Beria was hoping Molotov would take the lead since his networks were not telling him much. Roosevelt’s decision to ignore communications front the Widerstand in 1943 had blindsided not only his own administration; it also prevented the MVD agents in the US administration from picking up anything. Beyond what the tiny remnants of the communist resistance in Germany could come up with, Beria had nothing. But Molotov was waiting for him’. He could not show ignorance. ‘We know that the two leaders have conferred. We were also told that the American President favours continuation of hostilities. Why they have not made any statements is not clear to us at this stage.’

  Molotov, now certain that Beria would not spring a nasty surprise on him, spoke with authority. ’There is no pact, no formal agreement between the British or the Anglo-Americans and the Germans. If there were, Berlin would have announced it to the world. That it has not done so suggests that battlefield decisions have outrun the political decision-making process. I suspect great divisions between the British and the Americans over future objectives. We should bring those to the fore by requesting a formal reaffirmation of the alliance. That should flush out the indecisiveness. ‘

  Stalin nodded ‘Go ahead. Have our ambassadors push each leader individually and let’s see what they say. Have our diplomats push the representatives of the smaller governments. Let’s see if this is still an alliance powered by American money, Britain’s time and Russian blood, hey comrades?’

  ‘And what of the German diplomats waiting for our response in Stockholm?’

  ‘Let them wait until we know more of our ‘allies’ intentions. In the meantime try extracting more information from them as to the men who now profess to lead Germany.’

  At this stage of the war, nobody was very keen to earn medals

  Lt.-Col. Tony Leakey British 5th Royal Tanks[50]

  July 27th, afternoon

  SHAEF, London

  Between hasty puffs Eisenhower went through the summary of the morale report that the researchers of his Quartermaster had prepared on the initial effects of the coup in Germany and the new situation in France. The summary was simple: most American soldiers, frontline or not, wanted the fighting to stop. The prospect of being home by Christmas with a very much reduced chance of dying in combat was certain to sap fighting spirit when it came to launching new offensive action. The report went on to point out that two-thirds of all G.I.s were draftees rather than volunteers. Eisenhower knew from previous reports that by now the majority of troops fought more out of a sense of duty rather than patriotism. Any uncertainty in the purpose of the mission was certain to raise questions of what exactly that duty was. This was where the war in Europe differed from the Pacific conflict. At least with the Japs there was real hate on the battlefield.

  Worse, Eisenhower knew that these sort of reports or at least their summaries, would be trickling back to Washington within days. Like few other generals he was aware of just how significant public opinion was to his Commander in Chief’s strategy development or consistency. If Roosevelt came to believe that the majority of the American people would not support a continuation of the war just to get the boys home this Christmas, then the Allied war effort in Western Europe would be in grave danger of becoming a farce. The British, he knew were still fuming over Monty’s dismissal and unlikely to help matters. Monty he knew had been popular with even the American troops. His sacking had been necessary and in many ways sweet revenge, but it would not help when it came to allied morale. If things did not get going pretty soon, he would be blamed.

  But at this moment he had no real alternative; how could he push his men to regain the strategic initiative? If he couldn’t find a way soon, he might as well pack up and go home.

  July 27th, evening

  The Chancellery

  Berlin

  President Beck met with his 'ceasefire committee' for the first time that evening. The mood around the table was one of dashed hope. Rommel's telephonic report back had been greeted with excitement until the reality had sunk in that the western allies had committed themselves to nothing. Indeed the massive bomber raid launched that night seemed to indicate that at best Germany had gained a few days advantage in the face of the advancing belligerents. Unaware of the enormity of the blow that Kammhuber's raid had inflicted, everyone assumed that the bomber offensive would continue, indeed possibly intensify as the allies ground troops struggled to catch up with the retreating Wehrmacht. Indeed the daytime raid by planes of the American 8th US Air Force on the Essen and Dortmund railway yards suggested nothing had changed.

  In the absence of a formal declaration from either London or Washington, there was little that could be done. Moscow had not formally replied either. Beck had closed the meeting with a weak attempt at humour about the soldier’s lot being one of having to hurry up and wait. Beyond that they had a report from von Witzleben that by that morning every unit of the unit of the Wehrmacht had taken a new oath of loyalty; one to the Constitution and not to any singular person in particular. Germany’s military had long had an oath of loyalty to the office of the Head of State, first the Kaiser, the constitutional president. In 1934 some of the Wehrmacht’s own leaders had co-operated with Hitler to change the oath to one of loyalty to Hitler himself. It had been a powerful tool for stifling opposition and for keeping those uncertain about the morality of Hitler’s crimes in a fence-sitting position. Hundreds, if not thousands of soldiers had found it impossible to cross the line drawn by the oath of loyalty and so had just gone along. That Beck had promised himself would change, the new
oath reverted to the office of the President and swore loyalty to country and its constitution. Beck knew that with the administration of the new oath, the plotters would benefit from the same phenomena. With Hitler dead and a new oath to the Constitution and the office in place, those harbouring resentment or doubt would have to cross the same hard line that had kept millions of German soldiers in check for so long. When everyone had left he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes; briefly ever so briefly he felt a sense of hope. Now all they could do was wait.

  Albert Speer was not one of those waiting. Still Minister for Armaments he looked around his office with a growing sense of unreality. In his hands he held the life-size portrait of Adolf Hitler that he had just taken down. The lighter spot on the wall seemed particularly glaring. Beyond that most things looked the same – apart from the missing hooked crosses that had gone from some of the ornaments and from the Reichsadler, the German eagle emblem that still adorned many things. And yet everything had changed – the Führer was gone – dead. Albert Speer owed Hitler everything. The Führer had plucked him from relative obscurity of an architectural existence and moved him along through the layers of power until he – in theory – had become the head of Germany’s war effort. It sounded grander than it was because of Hitler’s habit of dividing the structures of state for the purpose of keeping his paladins off-balance as well as his terrible tendency to give the last man who had seen him his way. All of this had divided the war effort. He was Minister of Armaments, but the Wehrmacht’s three services each ran their own planning and purchasing offices. Although they in theory reported to a single co-ordinating office which in theory reported to him, their constant interference from the provincial Nazi leadership which did not wish to see this that or the next factory converted from the production of luxury or consumer articles to armament manufacture a major problem for increasing weapons production. They tended to get their way if their pleas reached the open ears of Martin Bormann and through him Hitler. And then there was the business empire of the SS, Heinrich Himmler’s state apart. The result was at best duplication and turf squabbles, at worst complete chaos.

  With a sense of irony he reached for the folder of recent memoranda on his desk. A few days ago, just hours before Stauffenberg’s bomb had killed the Führer, he had written Hitler a warning about the state of things. For a moment he held the document in his hand, scanned some of the key phrases. ‘the great strength of the enemy’s systems is their ability to use organisationally simple methods. By contrast the Reich’s organization is that of bureaucratic command economy obsessed with refinement for refinements sake. As a result, the Reich’s weapons while of superior quality are outclassed by the sheer flood of weaponry produced by the enemy art of improvisation.’[51] Even had Hitler lived, the memorandum, even if read, it would have made little difference, the Führer simply had too many forces to please.

  Ever since the beginning of the war Hitler – mindful of the devastating effect of the allied blockade on German morale in the First World War - had resisted the full-scale conversion of the German economy to a war footing. Only in 1942 when it was clear that the war with Russia would drag on had he even allowed the forcible conversion of key raw material consuming non-military production to military purposes. The fact was that due mainly to the opposition from the Gauleiter, there were still substantial segments of the economy which were not on a war footing and which were draining real resources away from the military machine.

  Speer looked around uneasy, not sure where to place the picture that he held in his hand. Psychologically Hitler’s departure was dislocating but it was also liberating. Hitler was gone but Germany was still a mighty power, besieged but mighty. At no stage in the war had her armaments output been as high, never before had there been that many men in the forces. The technocrat Speer had in vain tried to streamline Germany’s war effort for nearly two years. There had been success but there remained so much unrealised potential. Two things had now changed, his position and his ministry’s infrastructure had survived and both the party and more importantly the SS were as good as out of the picture. This offered an opportunity.

  To all intents and purposes the war looked set to continue at least for another few months until Rommel’s forces could accomplish what looked like it would turn into a fighting withdrawal from France and the Low Countries. By the time they had completely withdrawn, it would be winter and things would slow down. Assuming that the western allies would not make a separate peace, their forces were likely to move again the moments the winter allowed it. That meant that the war was likely to go on for something like another 6 months. Once the western allies entered Germany, the new Chancellor had indicated, he would not resist them. Instead it was his intention to allow the Reich to be occupied by them as much as possible to forestall the Bolsheviks. That meant the Wehrmacht would need to hold the Reds as far away from the Reich’s borders as possible. They would need all the resources he could muster for this short-term effort. And Speer knew just where to squeeze those resources from.

  The three men who entered his office a few minutes later would help him do this. Karl Otto Saur, Head of the Technisches Amt (Technical Office), Walter Schieber Rüstungslieferungsamt (Armaments delivery office) and Hans Kehrl head of raw materials and planning – the only civilian of the three. Together they always dreamed about the realisation of a centralised war effort. Before the three had even sat down Speer began outlining his plan. It was a short presentation, one that merely confirmed what all three had been itching to do for over a year. Confident of their support, Speer headed for a meeting with the new Chancellor.

  The next morning Speer called Kehrl – “He bought it Hans – we are really in charge all the way and guess who will help us enforce it. The former blackshirts – the SS. All weapons procurement will be centralised via us – even the various Wehrmacht branches have to come through us, never mind the SS. Weapons, raw materials, logistics, conversion of civilian production to military; it all rests in our hands.‘ Moments later a very astonished and excited Kehrl put down the receiver and stood up. Very slowly he removed his Nazi Party badge that he had worn since 1933 the year Hitler had come to power. Over the past days he somehow had overlooked it, but now its removal seemed important to Kehrl, one of the few US-educated managers. He looked briefly at the circular emblem with the hooked cross – he had last seen the Führer in late June – slowly he put it into the desk drawer. He had joined early on because of the sense of purpose that Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP had appeared to give Germany a purpose of working determinedly at pulling itself out of the misery of the Depression. That purpose had been lost along the way as Hitler’s divide and rule policies crippled the ability of the energies of the Volk to be harnessed for a great purpose. That in Hans Kehrl’s eyes had been the beginning of his disillusionment. This new lot certainly seemed to understand what needed to be done. Eagerly the technocrat Hans Kehrl started hitting the phones to revitalize and streamline Germany’s war effort for one last major push. Suddenly duty had meaning again.

  While Kehrl began barking down the Reich’s telephone lines, deputy foreign minister Adam von Trott was engaged in another struggle to focus Germany’s resources, or put differently avoid political gridlock. Three days after the coup, a deputation German aristocrats and intellectuals had sought out Goerdeler. These were the men and women of the Kreisau Circle, so-called after the East Prussian estate on which they had secretly met to debate their opposition to Hitler, the legitimacy of his regime, the morality of overthrowing his regime, the shape a new Europe should take. All of these discussions had led to a substantial body of documents in which they had set out their thoughts. When the Gestapo has swooped on the Kreisau estate they had found many of these documents and begun arresting the cream of Germany’s nobility but they had not begun prosecuting by the time the coup took place; the Kreisau circle was after all only a debating club, and the Gestapo had been busy.

  Goerdeler and Adam, who had been ca
lled into the meeting due to his links to the group, had listened impassively as Helmuth James Molkte grandson of Germany’s great imperial Field Marshall of the 19th century, expounded on the need to build a new Germany built not democratic principles but on corporatist structures, a Europe united around a common aim of preventing Soviet or American hegemony, a Europe designed to preserve national culture. Goerdeler had brought the meeting to a close after two hours and dumped the Kreisau’s desire for political engineering on Adam’s desk. Although the Chancellor had made extensive use of the excellent international connections of the Circle members, his time in Gestapo cells had made him realise that most of what had taken place at Kreisau had been talk; sincere talk but talk. Most of the civilians in his cabinet had at one stage or another intermingled with the men and women of Kreisau over the past two years, but as cabinet members they were here to make decisions not debate. Dumping them in the deputy foreign minister’s lap offered the best opportunity to deflect their debating energies towards using their connections to broaden negotiations with the western allies.

  Adam had repeatedly warned the Chancellor prior to the coup that the former’s expectations of especially western responses to the removal of Hitler were widely optimistic. Now sitting around a table with men who could trace their noble ancestry back four hundred years, who were intermingled by marriage with virtually every noble house north of the Alps, the deputy foreign minister realised that Goerdeler’s optimism possibly had some substance.

  First though there was a real need for a reality check. On the table before him lay three 20 page documents with titles such as European Federalism and The Christian-European tradition as a basis for Co-operation in Europe written by Kreisau men in late 43 and early 1944. This was the stuff of pure dreamers, proposals for the establishment of a European parliament, a European security council, a new form of state and local government, a system to overcome class divisions in an industrial society.[52] If the Government approached the western allies with this stuff they would die laughing. And yet these men had something to offer. Helmut James von Molkte, was a case in point; A descendant of Germany’s greatest Field Marshall since Frederick the Great, he had grown up with all the privileges of one of the most prominent German junker families but had chosen not to pursue a military career, instead studying in England and travelling abroad extensively before becoming a lawyer. The closeness of his family’s links to Britain had been immortalized in his middle name James.