The Plots Against Hitler

by Danny Orbach

  Thus, a plan involving close cooperation between soldiers, shock troops, and (it was hoped) policemen was taking shape. In his talks with the conspirators, Halder predicted that the mobilization plans would be laid before him at least three days before the outbreak of the war. As soon as the final order to march was given, he would instruct Witzleben to start the coup. The troops of Brockdorff and Hase would occupy the capital, laying siege to the government quarter. In the best-case scenario, the police would cooperate. If Helldorff could not ensure that, his men would at least remain neutral. The shock troops of Heinz would spring out of their hideouts, storm the government buildings, and arrest the Nazi leaders. As mentioned, Heinz and Oster had quietly agreed to take Hitler down under the pretext of his attempting to escape arrest. Simultaneously, Witzleben would contact Hoepner to secure the vital armored units for the coup.

  Following these military measures, the conspirators would take over the radio stations. Their broadcast to the people would explain that they were only keeping public order and repressing a revolt of SS and Gestapo elements. A provincial martial law would be declared, followed by a new government, possibly a monarchy. Heinz, whose early career had been devoted to the cause of the former imperial family, was in touch with the former crown prince, Prince Wilhelm. According to several accounts, the latter showed some interest in the plans, corresponding with the conspirators in coded letters. On September 15, Witzleben told one of his officers that the plans were ready, and now the conspirators only had to wait for the final order to invade Czechoslovakia. The days ticked by, and on September 20, the leading members of the clique met again in Oster’s apartment. After they had left, Oster met privately with Captain Heinz and gave his final okay for the plan to assassinate Hitler.39 Now, everyone waited for the Führer, and for Chamberlain.

  But what about Himmler and his secret police? Taking into account the immense risks faced by the conspirators, it is astounding that the Gestapo knew nothing about this conspiracy, even many years later. That had to do, in part, with the close-knit structure of the conspiratorial network. In 1938, the group was a small, dense circle of friends and relatives, mostly of elite background. This made betrayal very unlikely. It also had to do with unbelievable negligence on the Gestapo’s part as far as traditional elites—the nobility and the army—were concerned. Most of its resources were spent on endless persecution of the networks of the beaten left, which they still considered the greatest threat to the regime. The right and the traditional elites were not considered such a menace, even though that was where the real danger to National Socialism lay. This negligence of the dreaded Nazi secret police was to be a persistent phenomenon that allowed the conspirators to survive and work until July 20, 1944.

  Everyone knew that the fate of Germany and Europe was now balancing on a knife-edge. On September 22, Chamberlain traveled again to Germany for negotiations, and he met Hitler in Bad Godesberg, near Bonn. As well as feeling the strain of foreign policy, Chamberlain also had internal political worries. He was told by some of his advisers that domestic opposition to his policy of appeasement was growing. Hitler was by no means calmer. William Shirer, who came to Godesberg to cover the conference, described the tense atmosphere in that town on the Rhine:

  Hitler was in a highly nervous state. On the morning of the twenty second I was having breakfast on the terrace of the hotel Dressen, where the talks were to take place, when Hitler strode past on his way down to the riverbank to inspect his yacht . . . Every few steps he cocked his right shoulder nervously, his left leg snapping up as he did so. He had ugly, black patches under his eyes. He seemed to be, as I noted in my diary that evening, on the edge of a nervous breakdown. “Teppichfresser!” [carpet eater] muttered my German companion, an editor who secretly despised the Nazis. And he explained that Hitler had been in such a maniacal mood over the Czechs the last few days that on more than one occasion he had lost control of himself completely, hurling himself to the floor and chewing the edge of the carpet.40

  These were days of immense pressure not only for Hitler and Chamberlain but also for the conspirators, who were waiting eagerly for a crisis in the Godesberg talks.41 Hitler raised the stakes at the last moment, as was his habit. To Chamberlain’s horror, the German leader roundly rejected his offer to cede the Sudetenland to Germany without a referendum. Hitler now wanted not only to annex the Sudetenland but to do so through a military occupation. “With the most profound regret and disappointment, Chancellor,” Chamberlain told Hitler on the morning of the twenty-third, “I have to state that you have made no effort to assist my attempts to secure peace.”42

  What disappointed Chamberlain lifted the spirits of the German conspirators. Now, they could once more hope that Britain would not surrender and that Hitler’s radical demands would be met with a declaration of war. For a while, Oster was worried about the fact that Hitler stayed in Godesberg. He had to be in Berlin to allow the conspirators to arrest or kill him. “The bird,” according to Oster’s metaphor, “has to come back to its cage.”43 And indeed it did come back, on the afternoon of September 24.

  The events in London offered some encouragement. Chamberlain’s behavior in Godesberg had been so conciliatory that it had evoked opposition even among his closest associates. On the night of September 24, while driving from the Foreign Office to his home, Foreign Secretary Viscount Halifax had a serious conversation with his friend and confidant Undersecretary Sir Alexander Cadogan. For the last few days, the latter had insisted that Hitler was not interested in a reasonable peace and that war, after all, was inevitable.44 Halifax, formerly an avid supporter of appeasement, was close to being convinced. At a decisive cabinet meeting on the morning of September 25, he echoed the sentiments of Kleist and other emissaries of the conspiracy, and expressed his new ideas before Chamberlain and the other ministers. Hitler, he argued, would not be content with a solution to the Sudeten question. In fact, “so long as Nazism lasted, peace would be uncertain . . . For this reason [Halifax] did not feel that it would be right to put pressure on Czechoslovakia to accept . . . If they rejected [Hitler’s proposal] he imagined that France would join in, and if France went in we should join with them . . . If [Hitler] was driven to war the result might be to help to bring down the Nazi regime.”45 Chamberlain could not believe his ears. In one of the notes he exchanged with Halifax during the meeting, he wrote, “The complete change of view since I saw you last night is a horrible blow to me. But of course you must form your opinions for yourself. It remains however to see what the French say. If they say they go in, thereby dragging us in, I do not think I could accept responsibility for the decision.”46

  The two statesmen continued to exchange heated notes throughout the cabinet meeting. Halifax apologized to Chamberlain for his sudden change of mind, and confessed that he’d been kept awake all night by his anguish over the Czech question. The prime minister answered sardonically that “night conclusions are seldom taken in the right perspective.” For a moment, it seemed that Chamberlain’s policy was about to collapse. But it did not. Most ministers, apart from Halifax, First Lord of the Admiralty Alfred Duff-Cooper, and two or three others, were still behind the prime minister. Another surprising turn took place that same night, when Chamberlain convened the cabinet again and told the ministers that the French were determined to stand by the Czechs.47

  On September 26, an encouraging development also took place in Berlin. Admiral Canaris, the chief of military intelligence and Oster’s boss, finally decided to support the anti-Nazi uprising. He and Oster both knew that Hitler had rejected Chamberlain’s proposals at Godesberg. The coup was closer than ever.

  Events in London were no less dramatic. Chamberlain was distressed to hear that the mission of his close adviser Horace Wilson had ended in failure. Hitler had yelled at him and was not ready even to listen to Chamberlain’s letter. Wilson warned the Führer that “if France, in fulfillment of her treaty obligations, should become actively engaged in hostilities against Germa
ny, the United Kingdom will feel obliged to support France.” Hitler’s response was furious: “If France and England strike, let them do so! It’s a matter of complete indifference to me. Today is Tuesday. By next Monday we shall be at war.”48

  The next day, the moment of truth came. Hitler, in an attempt to foment warlike spirit in the populace, ordered General Witzleben to march his armed soldiers in the streets. Witzleben had to obey, but he later told Gisevius that “he would have liked best to march his men right into the Chancellery.”49 Hitler watched the parade from the balcony of his office. A veteran of the Great War, he remembered well the popular enthusiasm with which marching soldiers were received. Now, however, he was disappointed and frustrated in the extreme. Relatively few bothered to line the streets, and most who did, did not linger for long. Even party members were not as enthusiastic as expected. In some working-class districts, braver souls greeted the soldiers with clenched fists. “I had not been standing long at the corner,” wrote William Shirer in his diary, “when a policeman came up the Wilhelmstrasse from the direction of the Chancellery and shouted . . . that the Führer was on his balcony reviewing the troops. Few moved. I went down to have a look . . . Hitler looked grim, then angry, and soon went inside, leaving his troops to parade by unreviewed. What I’ve seen tonight almost rekindles a little faith in the German people. They are dead set against war.”50

  The conspirators were increasingly nervous. On the day of the parade, a noisy quarrel broke out between Gisevius and Oster. Oster told his friend that Hitler would, in the end, prevail and that the “Western powers would yield.” Gisevius told him that he “deserved a post in the propaganda ministry.” The two ringleaders, torn between hope and fear, were waiting at Abwehr headquarters. Loyal coconspirators were posted in other key positions: the Wehrmacht high command, the Ministry of the Interior, police headquarters, and the foreign ministry. All were on high alert and regularly reported new developments to Oster.

  In London, preparations for war had already begun. In the cabinet, Chamberlain found himself increasingly isolated. His last proposal, to send a telegram to Prague with a request to accept Hitler’s demands, was rejected by most ministers, led by Duff-Cooper and supported by Halifax. Chamberlain still believed that war was not inevitable, as he declared in a statement to the nation that day:

  How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing . . . I am myself a man of peace to the depths of my soul. Armed conflict between nations is a nightmare to me; but if I were convinced that any nation had made up its mind to dominate the world by fear of its force, I should feel that it must be resisted. Under such a domination, life for people who believe in liberty would not be worth living; but war is a fearful thing, and we must be very clear, before we embark on it, that it is really the great issues that are at stake.51

  On September 28, early in the morning, Heinz ordered his men to leave their safe houses and gather in the army high command. He distributed rifles, ammunition, and hand grenades, which he had received from Oster and Canaris. Everything was ready for the final assault. Heinz knew that when his men stormed the chancellery, they would be greeted by Erich Kordt, a resistance agent in the foreign ministry, who would open the doors for them. According to Terry Parssinen, “The silence of predawn Berlin was broken by the click-click-click of ammunition being loaded in carbines and automatic weapons. Now, before he could turn his young lions loose on Hitler’s Reich Chancellery, he had only to hear word that Brockdorff’s twenty-third division was on the march from Potsdam [to Berlin].”52

  The atmosphere seemed especially ripe for an insurgency. The leaders of the army were no less tense than ordinary Germans. On the evening of September 27, Oster gave Gisevius the Führer’s reply to Chamberlain, which was understood by the conspirators as a German refusal to negotiate over Czechoslovakia. The next morning, Gisevius raced with the letter to Witzleben, and he gave it to Halder as the final piece of evidence. Halder was furious. Taking advantage of his indignation, Witzleben pressed him to see Brauchitsch and win him over to the putsch. After a while, Halder returned with good news. Brauchitsch was furious, too, and would most probably support the conspirators.53

  Gen. Walther von Brauchitsch, commander in chief of the army and usually an obedient servant of the Nazi regime, understood that a war would mean the end of Germany. He told Halder that he would like to check the situation again before deciding, and drove to the Reich Chancellery to find out the truth. Everything was ready for the putsch. Witzleben rushed into Gisevius’s office. “Gisevius, the time has come!” he exclaimed.54

  When Brauchitsch entered the chancellery, he faced a completely unexpected development. At 11:00 a.m., the phone rang in the office of Erich Kordt. The Italian foreign minister was on the line, and he asked to be connected with his ambassador, Bernardo Attolico. Mussolini then took charge from Rome, and ordered his ambassador in Berlin to invite Hitler to a “peace conference” in Munich along with Chamberlain, in order to sort out the Sudeten question.

  Chamberlain’s capitulation was far-reaching. After Hitler had accepted Mussolini’s proposal to organize the peace conference in Munich, the British prime minister gave a jubilant speech before his parliament. As far as he was concerned, he had prevented a major disaster not only for Britain, which was unprepared for war, but for Europe as a whole: “I have something further to say to the house yet. I have now been informed by Herr Hitler that he invites me to meet him at Munich tomorrow morning. He has also invited Signor Mussolini and Monsieur Daladier. Signor Mussolini has accepted and I have no doubt Monsieur Daladier will accept. I need not say what my answer will be.”55

  The “peace conference” took place in Munich between September 29 and 30. Chamberlain and Édouard Daladier had accepted without much debate the Italian proposal, actually a slightly softened version of Hitler’s conditions at Godesberg: the Sudetenland would be given to Germany, through military occupation. The Czechs were not allowed to take anything out of the area, not even cattle or agricultural equipment. So the fate of Czechoslovakia was sealed while Chamberlain probably continued to believe that this would be Hitler’s last territorial demand, as he had promised it would be again and again.56 But, as a popular German joke of the time went, only in his tomb would Hitler’s last territorial demand be met. When Chamberlain returned to the balcony of his office in Downing Street, he waved the Munich memorandum in front of cheering crowds: “We, the German Führer and Chancellor and the British Prime Minister, have had a further meeting today and are agreed in recognizing that the question of Anglo-German relations is of the first importance for the two countries and for Europe. We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic of the desires of our two people never to go to war with one another again.”57

  “I believe it is peace in our time,” he declared. The crowds waved and cheered. During the next days, Chamberlain’s bureau was flooded with endless letters of support from Britain and all over the world. But praise was not the only reaction. Halifax was still skeptical, and First Lord of the Admiralty Alfred Duff-Cooper resigned from his cabinet post in protest. Winston Churchill gave a characteristically prophetic warning:

  We are in the presence of a disaster of the first magnitude which has befallen Great Britain and France. Do not let us blind ourselves to that. It must now be accepted that all the countries of central and eastern Europe will make the best terms they can with the triumphant Nazi power. The system of alliances in central Europe upon which France has relied for her security has been swept away, and I can see no means by which it can be reconstituted. The road down the Danube Valley to the Black Sea . . . has been opened . . . It seems to me that all those countries of Middle Europe, all those Danubian countries, will, one after another, be drawn into this vast system of power politics . . . radiating from Berlin.58

  After a short moment
of hesitation, the Czech president, Beneš, decided to give up. He resigned, and his successor allowed the Germans to occupy the Sudetenland unhindered. In a stroke, Czechoslovakia had lost its fortifications, two-thirds of its coal mines, and its natural, geographical protections. It was dying, and the coup de grâce was only a matter of time. “We are abandoned. We are alone,” said Beneš’s successor in an address to the nation that night.59

  Almost as miserable were the conspirators in Berlin. After the high hopes that their time had come, they had been blocked by Britain’s inability to curb Hitler’s foreign policy. “Never, since 1933,” bemoaned Erich Kordt in his memoirs, “was there such a good chance to free Germany and the world.”60 Now the heartbroken conspirators met in Witzleben’s apartment and put the plans for the coup in the fireplace. There they burned, along with a great deal of the young Berlin clique’s hope and self-confidence. Never again would they have at their disposal an armored division, a friendly commander in Berlin, shock troops, and a sympathetic chief of staff.61 The independence of Czechoslovakia had almost gone, the last chance of peace in Europe was missed. The conspirators were angry and vengeful. Naturally, they heaped their scorn on Chamberlain. More than six years later, Halder told the international tribunal at Nuremberg, “I had already passed the order to Witzleben for starting the coup when the information reached us that Chamberlain and Daladier were coming to Munich and, therefore, I had to withdraw my order . . . The coup d’état was justified before the people by saying that Hitler was provoking a war and that without a violent coup d’état war could not be prevented. Now that wasn’t possible any longer.”62