The Plots Against Hitler

by Danny Orbach

  Kristallnacht, in a clear example of the phenomenon of revolutionary mutation discussed in chapter 3, helped to turn strictly social relations into conspiratorial ones. Popitz decided to break with the regime and became a member of the inner circle of the resistance.

  Goerdeler, for his part, did not blame the Nazis alone. True, he said, “Germany is controlled by 10,000 of its worst elements . . . a gang of thugs and murderers who recognize no human or moral law.” Hitler desired to destroy “Jews, Christianity and capitalism” in order to take over the world.9 Yet the British were also responsible for Kristallnacht, as they did nothing to protect the Jews. They had given in to Hitler in Munich and indirectly fueled his sense of impunity.

  Goerdeler prophesied that the “persecution of the Jews will continue with even greater ferocity. The persecution of the Christians will be intensified, and an onslaught on the capital will follow.”10 Ulrich von Hassell, too, was close to despair:

  I write under the gloomy impression of the abominable persecution of the Jews . . . Our international reputation has never been compromised so badly, not since the Great War . . . Still, my main concern is not the international consequences . . . but that our life in Germany is being controlled ever tighter by a system capable of such things . . . Actually, there is no doubt that here was an organized, formal anti-Jewish persecution campaign, set to take place simultaneously, on the same night, all over Germany. Truly a disgrace.11

  The only conspirator who did something tangible was the deputy commandant of the Berlin police, Fritz von der Schulenburg. Upon hearing that Jews had been arrested after Kristallnacht, he immediately released those under his charge, declaring that they had violated no law. “A small bureaucrat,” Goebbels spitefully called him in response.12

  A few months elapsed. The winter was almost over, and war was drawing nigh. Luck did not favor the conspirators: Gen. Erwin von Witzleben, their most powerful ally in Berlin, was transferred to command an army in western Germany. Other conspirators found themselves pushed to the margins. General Halder was unresponsive to communications from the resistance. Now, as Hitler scored success after success, was no time for a coup d’état. The conspirators, still fixated on the strategy of 1938, could not imagine a revolt without Halder’s cooperation. Witzleben, too, seemed deep in despair. Hitler’s policy, he confided to one of his officers, would lead to a world war and the destruction of Germany. Yet one should not look for easy solutions such as retiring from public life.13 According to the pattern of September 1938, the conspirators still hoped for a diplomatic defeat, a setback, something to push Halder over the fence.

  In contrast to the disoriented conspirators, who lacked initiative and concrete plans, on March 15, Hitler occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia, in gross violation of the Munich agreement. Czech independence was taken, and the occupied country turned into the “Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.” Emil Hácha, the last sovereign Czech president, was forced to sign the death sentence of his country. On the same day, the Wehrmacht marched in Prague. Hitler declared: “The provinces of Bohemia and Moravia were part of German living space for a millennium . . . Czechoslovakia, showing a lack of basic capability to exist, is disintegrating . . . The German Reich cannot tolerate incessant chaos in these regions, which are vital for its own, as well as for general, peace and security. Therefore, in tandem with the laws of survival, the German Reich decided to interfere and to take reasonable action to restore basic order in central Europe.”14

  The British public was outraged. Foreign Secretary Halifax, already skeptical about appeasement, called on the prime minister to change his policy forthwith.15 Even Chamberlain himself could not remain indifferent to this violation of the Munich agreement. Reluctantly, he declared that Britain and France would not tolerate further German aggression, especially toward Poland, the next prospective victim of National Socialist foreign policy: “In the event of any action which clearly threatened Polish independence . . . His Majesty’s Government would feel themselves bound at once to lend the Polish Government all support in their power. They have given the Polish Government an assurance to this effect. I may add that the French Government have authorized me to make it plain that they stand in the same position in this matter.”16

  Chamberlain’s position was weak. He knew that Hitler had unabashedly lied to him when saying that the Sudetenland would be his last territorial demand. Czechoslovakia was conquered, the Munich agreement violated, and Chamberlain had done nothing in spite of his guarantee of Czech territorial integrity. In the same speech, he justified his behavior on practical grounds: Czechoslovakia would have been ruined in a war, and Britain would have had no chance to save it. His own private notes reveal the distress he felt and his desperate attempts to justify the betrayal of Czechoslovakia before his own conscience.17 The prime minister was no naive fool, however. Though he yearned for peace, he had also prepared for the worst. Now, much more rapidly than in 1938, the British were rearming. War was approaching.18

  In his modest house at Goethestrasse in Berlin, General Beck was following events by radio, realizing that his dark prophecies were all about to be fulfilled. Germany was close to another world war. He opposed the occupation of Czechoslovakia, a violation of an international agreement not justifiable by any real German interest. Goerdeler and Oster were of the same opinion. The latter, still holding his powerful position in the Abwehr, kept working toward one goal: the prevention of an international disaster. Even now, with the conspiracy at its nadir, Oster skillfully filled the role of connector, constantly orchestrating the flow of information, orders, and instructions inside the conspiratorial clique.19

  In order to reinforce the opposition in the Abwehr itself, Oster recruited a “special adviser” (Sonderführer), a rank reserved for civilians working inside the Wehrmacht. The new recruit was the anti-Nazi jurist Dr. Hans von Dohnanyi. After Dohnanyi was expelled from his previous workplace, the justice ministry, for his openly anti-Nazi views, Oster installed him in the Abwehr.20 Formally tasked with briefing Oster and Canaris on international developments, he in fact devoted all his time to underground activity, assisting persecuted Jews and systematically documenting Nazi crimes. He collected evidence on corruption and murder, including documents indicating Goebbels’s personal responsibility for Kristallnacht. After the hoped-for coup, he and Oster planned to publish these documents, to prove to the German people that they had overthrown not a legitimate government but a criminal gang.21

  Meanwhile, Oster was trying to reinforce the old Berlin clique, win over new members, and open new channels to work within. As Halder’s cooperation was still seen as a necessary condition for the coup, the most important thing was to surround him with loyal confederates. For that purpose, Oster arranged for yet another conspirator, the head of the Abwehr sabotage section, Lt. Col. Helmut Groscurth, to be the liaison officer between himself and the army high command. An unrelenting enemy of Hitler and the regime, Groscurth looked with horror on the prospect of Nazi victory in a world war. A triumph for Hitler, testified a colleague many years later, was for him intolerable.22 Now, on the eve of war, he used his close working relationship with Halder to apply increasing pressure on the chief of staff. Nevertheless, Halder still refused, and he certainly did not recognize the occupation of Czechoslovakia as a good enough reason to overthrow the regime. The frustration of Oster and his friends mounted when they understood that Halder would not move unless he was convinced that Britain and France would fight Germany.

  Oster’s third important measure was to appoint an official leader for the movement. He and his lieutenants agreed that only a distinguished person such as General Beck, well regarded in the higher echelons of the army, could serve as the supreme leader of the conspiracy. Beck, fully disillusioned with the regime, was ready. Oster referred to him, at least formally, as his superior officer and commander. In 1939, for example, Oster gave the following instructions to Dr. Josef Müller, an Abwehr conspirator sent to negotiate with the Allies th
rough the Vatican in Rome:

  Dr. Müller, you are now in the central headquarters of the German Abwehr . . . serving also as the directorate of military opposition under General Beck. If you work with us . . . you’ll never get your orders from the Abwehr. Even Admiral [Canaris] will tell you that you are no longer bound to obey his orders. For us the wishes of General Beck are equivalent to orders, and if you work with us—you have to accept General Beck as your commander . . . The tasks I give you—are the tasks given to you by General Beck . . . Our—that is, General Beck’s—request for you, is to get in contact with the Pope. You should ask him if he is ready to contact the British government and clarify whether they will enter peace negotiations with the German opposition.23

  Oster clearly distinguished the normal military chain of command from the clandestine network of the resistance. Müller should always prefer the latter over the former. General Beck was portrayed as the supreme commander, whose authority represented the entire organization (“we”). Oster’s instructions to Müller reflect the slow transition that the Berlin clique was undergoing after the 1938 failure. The network expanded, slowly but surely, beyond the intimate circle of friends formed by Goerdeler, Oster, and Gisevius two years before. As it did so, an image of a supreme commander was necessary to impress newcomers and to create a feeling that they were joining a secret organization led by a distinguished authority figure. The image of “the General” was supposed to inspire confidence and awe, while day-to-day power remained with Oster as the most important connector in the network. Beck was far from being a puppet, and gradually did demonstrate leadership, but as far as the network was concerned, he was never at the center. In the German resistance, as in many other organizations, there was a huge difference between formal power (“the tasks given to you by General Beck”) and actual power (“the tasks that I [Oster] give you”).

  At the same time, the network was expanding in the civilian, political sphere. Oster surmised that it was better for the resistance to be backed by a broader political base, so it could win at least some popular support after a coup d’état; not only officers and civilians associated with the conservative right should be won over but also politicians from the moderate left, the Social Democratic Party, and the former labor unions. Witzleben, for example, was afraid that the workers might crush an incumbent revolt by way of a general strike, just as they had in 1920 (but not in 1933!). Accordingly, he told Goerdeler, active support from labor leaders was a very important requirement.24

  This was the background for the contact created by Oster and Goerdeler with Wilhelm Leuschner, former minister of the interior of the state of Hessen and a member of the Social Democratic Party. Already in 1938, he knew about the plans and was keen to work with conservatives against Hitler and the Nazi regime. A moderate, easy-going politician, he was able to transcend old party rivalries and cooperate closely with Goerdeler, Oster, and Beck. As a man of compromise, he even agreed to grant his conservative colleagues the restoration of the monarchy if they conceded as far as labor and social rights were concerned. His sphere of influence attracted other Social Democratic activists and politicians–turned–resistance fighters, among them Prof. Adolf Reichwein, a director in the Berlin Folklore Museum, and Dr. Julius Leber, a former Social Democratic parliamentarian.

  Leber came to the resistance fresh from a concentration camp, where he had been interned for four years. Instead of breaking him, he later testified, the tortures he endured gave him the ability to know, see, and judge himself better.25 After his release, in 1938, he owned a small business, which the conspirators would use during the war as a hideout (in addition to Leuschner’s beer-can factory and Reichwein’s office in the Berlin Folklore Museum). Beck took care to visit Leu-schner often, wearing black sunglasses for camouflage, to keep communication channels between conservatives and Social Democrats open.

  In tandem with the old strategy of 1938, the conspirators attempted not merely to ensure Halder’s support but also to reach understandings with London, with equally disappointing results. In 1939, there were no concrete plans for a coup d’état. Witzleben, the only conspirator with control over troops, was isolated in Kassel and could not do much alone.26 Still, Oster hoped that British cooperation might give Halder the impetus to change his mind. Perhaps it was still possible to remedy the debacle of Munich. These negotiations, though, were even more farcical than they had been the year before. The envoys of the conspiracy, for one, were uncoordinated and contradicted each other. Even worse, they all wanted to keep many of Hitler’s territorial acquisitions, and they were seen more and more by the British as rabid German nationalists no different from the Nazis. Josef Müller, in Rome, didn’t fare any better, and the credibility of the conspirators in British eyes, very low to begin with, steadily deteriorated. The best the emissaries could get was an equivocal statement of support from Chamberlain, which failed to impress Halder or any other high officer.27

  On August 23, 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression pact, ensuring among other things the partition of Poland between the two dictatorships. Hitler’s star was again on the rise, Halder avoided the conspirators, and even Oster understood that no one would agree to revolt against Hitler now, after such a tremendous achievement. The conspirators could only sit and watch Germany and the rest of Europe drift toward a second world war.28

  As German nationalists, the conspirators found themselves in an uneasy position. On the one hand, they advocated, like most other Germans, restoring the territories “stolen” from Germany in the wake of the Great War. But they did not want these territories to be taken by Hitler. Goerdeler and Hassell understood that Hitler would not be satisfied with these territories but would go on to occupy all of Poland and, if unchecked, the entire European continent. They had no plans, few allies in the high command, and no cooperation with the British. Witzleben, disgruntled and isolated, had to be updated by Gisevius on developments in Berlin. Halder and Brauchitsch were in the mood for war, not resistance. On August 31, the Germans staged a final ploy to excuse the impending attack on Poland. One hundred and fifty concentration camp inmates, clad in Polish uniforms, were led to “attack” a German broadcasting station on the Polish-German border. The Nazi reaction was, of course, swift and brutal.

  Admiral Canaris watched the events in horror, unable to change the course of history. On the afternoon of August 31, one day before the invasion, he foresaw a dark future for his beloved fatherland. Gisevius, who encountered him at the Wehrmacht high command, was taken to a dimly lit side corridor. “That is the end of Germany,” Canaris told him, his voice choked with tears.29

  The resistance of the Polish army was heroic but short-lived. The German armies stormed Warsaw from the north, south, and west. Göring’s Luftwaffe bombed Poland ruthlessly, grinding fortifications, military camps, factories, and towns into dust. Countless civilians were pulverized from the air. Warsaw was destroyed in a cruel bombardment, which did not stop even after the city had surrendered. SS squads marched with the army, leaving blood and destruction behind them. Under Hitler’s orders, the invaders massacred the Polish nobility and intelligentsia, along with Jews and other “undesirables.”30

  This time, the British were not ready to give up. On September 1, the British ambassador in Berlin delivered a formal note from his government: “Unless the German Government are prepared to give His Majesty’s Government satisfactory assurances that the German Government have suspended all aggressive action against Poland and are prepared promptly to withdraw their forces from Polish territory, His Majesty’s Government will without hesitation fulfill their obligation to Poland.”31

  Britain and France were ready for war. General Beck, following the events from his home, was expecting the worst. To him, there was no chance that Germany would survive an armed conflict with the Western powers.32 At 9:00 on the morning of September 3, Viscount Halifax gave the final ultimatum to the German government: “I have accordingly the honor to inform you t
hat, unless no later than 11 a.m., British summer time, today September 3, satisfactory assurances to the above effect have been given by the German Government and have reached His Majesty’s Government in London, a state of war will exist between the two countries as from that hour.”33

  The British ultimatum was rejected. At 12:06 p.m., Neville Chamberlain declared war on Germany.

  That same day, at 9:00 p.m., Germany turned the declaration of war into reality. A German submarine sank without warning the British passenger liner SS Athenia. In all, 120 civilians, including 28 Americans, perished in an act that violated international law. The Second World War had begun.

  8

  The Spirit of Zossen:

  When Networks Fail

  THE CONSPIRATORS WERE paralyzed. In September 1938, they had hoped for war. Now that it had come, they were completely unprepared, their networks perhaps a little denser but lacking any operational power.1 During the autumn months, they kept meeting and working on hypothetical plans. The dark prophecies of Ludwig Beck, who foretold a French attack on the exposed western front, were unfulfilled for now except for a halfhearted French offensive, which was easily blocked. The French and British declared war but were slow to move and did very little for seven months. This period was nicknamed Sitzkrieg (the Sitting War, also known as the Phony or the Twilight War). The conspirators decided that their next opportunity would come before the “real” war, namely, when Hitler ordered the army to march westward. The generals were thrilled by the easy conquest of Poland, but many of them were still afraid of open war with England and France.