by Danny Orbach
At the end of September 1939, Beck found out that his close friend, Gen. Werner von Fritsch, who had been removed from his post on fabricated charges of homosexuality, had been killed on duty. While walking in a field near the front, he had been spotted by a Polish machine-gun crew and was shot to death. Beck was certain that the death amounted to suicide. Fritsch could not bear his humiliation.
A little later, in early October, Beck invited Goerdeler to his house in Goethestrasse. The two of them agreed not to waver in their resistance against Hitler, no matter the costs. They were in constant touch with Oster, who was still working on expanding the clandestine network. Beck also maintained close contact with the Social Democratic leaders Leuschner and Leber, who had joined the resistance in late 1939.
In Goethestrasse, following the German atrocities in Poland, Beck and Goerdeler listened to the BBC. The announcer introduced a British general, a veteran of the Great War. The old officer asked where the upright Prussian officers he knew from the last war were. He lamented the death of Fritsch, who symbolized the proper spirit in his mind. The BBC played a German military funeral song: “Once I had a comrade / a better one you could not find.” Goerdeler turned to Beck. His eyes were wet with tears.30
9
Signs in the Darkness:
Rebuilding the Conspiracy
DOROTHY THOMPSON WAS an influential American journalist during the Second World War. She hosted an important radio show and was considered a distinguished expert on all things German. Contrary to others in the American elite, she sympathized with the German opposition and was familiar with it. In a series of shortwave broadcasts to Germany in summer 1942, she called from New York to a German acquaintance—a mysterious oppositionist known only as Hans—imploring him and his political friends to stop hesitating, rise up, and act. It was time to get rid of Hitler once and for all: “The last time we met, Hans, and drank tea together on that beautiful terrace before the lake, you told me: ‘Listen, Dorothy, there will not be a war’ . . . I said that one day you would have to demonstrate by deeds, by drastic deeds, where you stood, if the salvation of Germany depended on the answer to that question. And I remember that I asked you whether you and your friends would ever have the courage to act.”1
But the mysterious Hans (on whom more later) and his fellow resistance fighters were unable to do “drastic deeds,” and not necessarily because of insufficient courage. The failures of the German resistance in 1938 and ’39 had led it into a crisis related to basic structural constraints. As we saw in chapter 8, the network structure of the conspiracy, tailored to the reality of September 1938, did not fit with the altogether different world created by the war. Too small to do anything on its own, the network led by Oster, Goerdeler, and Beck did not have access to Hitler and was still dependent on Halder’s goodwill. Now, under the conditions of the escalating global conflict, cooperation from the higher echelons of the army was increasingly unrealistic. They were busy with the war, intoxicated with victory. Some of them were even bribed with promotions, medals, and enormous sums of money.2 In order to overcome their dependence on unreliable outsiders, the conspirators had to acquire an ability to stage a coup d’état mainly by themselves. For that to happen, the network had to be much larger and also had to undergo some important transitions in structure and strategy. Though Oster and others were constantly working to expand the network, by 1940 the transitions were still far off in the future.
It was hard to recruit new rank-and-file members while Hitler was scoring breathtaking victories in the west. In May 1940, German panzers stormed into France through the Ardennes Forest, considered by many to be impregnable to armored units. Large parts of the French army were destroyed in Belgium, along with the British Expeditionary Force. Between May 27 and June 4, the remnants of the beaten British troops—hundreds of thousands of them—were evacuated to England from Dunkirk in Belgium. Paris was occupied eleven days later, and French prime minister Paul Reynaud resigned. By June 21, the game was up. Hitler forced the French to sign an armistice in Compiègne Forest, in the same rail carriage where Germany had signed its humiliating armistice terms at the end of the Great War. Germany took vast French territories, Paris included, under its control. What was left was entrusted to the puppet regime of Vichy.
Hitler’s victories were confusing for die-hard German patriots like Beck, Goerdeler, and Hassell. They, too, remembered Germany’s humiliation after the Great War, but they could not bring themselves to rejoice in the military triumph of their country. It was, after all, the triumph of Adolf Hitler. Ulrich von Hassell, who became the de facto foreign minister of the resistance, poured his feelings into his diary: “No one can deny the magnitude of Hitler’s achievement, but they cannot cover up the real nature of his actions and deeds and the terrifying danger looming over all the sublime values . . . The weight of this tragedy can move one to despair, making it impossible to rejoice in the greatest national achievements . . . The masses are ruled by idiotic indifference, a result of seven years of being ordered around by loudspeakers.”3
Hassell, Beck, and Oster were still waiting for a military setback that might convince the generals to reconsider their support for the regime. Meanwhile, Hitler’s enemies abroad were having difficulties as well. The United Kingdom still stood upright, badly beaten, while its French ally was no more. In summer 1940, Britain was left alone, a small island of democracy confronting Hitler’s mighty Reich. The Nazi empire stretched from Poland in the east to France in the west, and ruled also Norway, Denmark, Belgium, and the Netherlands. But Winston Churchill, Chamberlain’s successor as prime minister, was not ready to surrender.
Upon realizing that Churchill would continue fighting, Hitler made up his mind to invade the British Isles. The main struggle would be in the air, as the Royal Air Force and the British fleet had to be destroyed as a precondition for an amphibious invasion. Britain was hit hard, and some of its towns were badly damaged by the air raids of the Luftwaffe. But by autumn 1940, the RAF was still in the air and Hitler understood that an invasion was not feasible. The amphibious assault, code-named Operation Sea Lion, was canceled.
Unable to win over Halder or other senior generals, or to do something by themselves, Oster and his men were still trying to grow their network, readying it for independent action. They did most of their recruitment through liaison officers, many of them civilians scanning the fronts to locate potential recruits from those with anti-Nazi sympathies. When a likely person was found, an initial conversation took place, and then he was directed to one of the commanders, or “connectors,” for further clearing. Most new recruits were ordered to expand the network further, thus achieving what is called in network-analysis theory a “viral effect,” namely, a state of affairs in which every new recruit recruits others, and the network grows exponentially. Needless to say, the ever-present danger of exposure by the Gestapo, the wartime conditions, and the Nazi sympathies of most officers dampened such an effect. But still, the network grew.
For reasons of security, new recruits were given partial information only, and were in some cases told that the movement had been established only recently, in order to keep hidden the coup plans of 1938 and ’39. Col. Hans Crome, an anti-Nazi officer and member of the resistance, told his Soviet captors how he was recruited:
In October 1941, an old friend of mine, Dr. Jessen, a professor of economics at Berlin University, arrived in Paris. Dr. Jessen had met me several times before arriving in Paris and knew my negative attitude toward Hitler. For that reason he informed me without any fanfare that an illegal organization had been established in Berlin in 1941, whose goal was to remove Hitler and his political system and to stop the war . . . When Dr. Jessen asked me to join the organization, I naturally agreed without hesitation.4
Now, Crome had to justify the trust given to him, while obeying strict procedures of information security:
Discussing practical issues about the organization, we decided that I would actively recruit new membe
rs to the organization and assume the role of liaison officer between the Berlin headquarters and General Field Marshal Witzleben . . . In conclusion, Dr. Jessen suggested that I come into contact with Generals Oster and Olbricht, who were in charge of the organization’s practical issues and whom he informed of my joining the organization upon returning to Berlin . . . I agreed with Dr. Jessen in summer that year that an SS man named Langbehn would arrive in Crimea to contact me and provide a secret password with Jessen’s signature. We also agreed that I would inform General Oster about new recruits [using code words] via official correspondence.5
Recruitment, however, was not enough. The network had gotten bigger, but in the first two years of the war, it was as yet unclear what it could do—what the point of it was. Bereft of support from senior generals, operational capabilities, or access to Hitler, the resistance resorted to waiting patiently as well as diving into an ocean of plans, hopes, and dreams.
10
On the Wings of Thought:
Networks of Imagination
BEING UNABLE TO do anything tangible against the regime, leading members of the resistance spent the first few years of the war in meticulous preparation for a post-Nazi Germany, something that seemed remote but still inspiring. After all, the resistance had to be engaged in some sort of positive activity other than recruitment, and if a coup d’état was not feasible, what was there to do apart from plan? Opinions were exchanged, memoranda written, cabinet lists and shadow governments formed. With the building of a clandestine network in the real world being slow and frustrating, the conspirators turned also to networks of imagination. This intellectual work was a means for friends to exchange ideas about the future of the country, to re-create the conspiracy as an imagined political community with its own president, prime minister, cabinet posts, laws, regulations, and constitution. It may seem absurd in retrospect, considering that the war and its atrocities were raging all around them, but for the conspirators it was vital. Had not General Halder, for instance, complained in 1938 and ’39 about the conspirators’ failure to adequately prepare a political basis for a new regime?
The first proposal for an “alternative governmental structure” was written by Ulrich von Hassell, after long deliberations with Goerdeler, Beck, and Popitz. Hassell proposed the replacement of the totalitarian regime with a Rechtsstaat—a conservative state in which the rule of law would reign, based on fairness, justice, and Christian values. After the overthrow of the Nazi regime, the conspirators would establish an interim military dictatorship followed by an authoritarian regime, most probably a monarchy. Hassell, never a democrat, did not want to restore the Weimar Republic or anything similar. He desired a strong government not responsible to an elected parliament, whose role would be to ensure basic rights such as life, property, honor, and justice. The Nazi Party would be dissolved and banned, nor would other parties be allowed. Instead, the country would be ruled by a coalition of government, army, and business elites. Germany would propose a “just peace” to its enemies and would consequently leave all “non-German” territories. It would, however, keep Austria, the Sudetenland, Danzig, and the Polish Corridor. The Reich would still strive for hegemony in Europe, but peacefully, not militarily, as a natural outcome of its geographical, economic, and cultural power.1
The plans drafted by Dr. Carl Goerdeler, the dominant figure in the conservative part of the resistance, were more complicated and influential than those made by Hassell. They were most thoroughly expressed in “The Goal” (Das Ziel), which he probably wrote at the end of 1941. The document depicts in detail Goerdeler’s vision concerning all spheres of life in “New Germany.” It is divided into a philosophical introduction and three main topics of discussion: foreign policy, internal policy, and constitutional structure. The philosophical introduction is the key to the document and is, in fact, a discussion on human nature and reciprocal relations between citizen and state, under the curious slogan “the totality of politics.” On the one hand, wrote Goerdeler, man is a selfish creature, struggling and competing against others to promote private interests. On the other hand, he carries a divine, spiritual spark, which may lead him to achievements for the benefit of society. The role of the state is to create a balance between these two poles and to form a peaceful space in which people would be able to compete without doing harm to their neighbors. Meanwhile, society must cultivate the good elements in human nature through spiritual and moral support, allowing human beings to peacefully and freely develop their talents. The state should be not artificial but rather “organic,” a term Goerdeler repeated again and again in “The Goal.” It must be based on a confederation of “natural” communities, an alliance between localities and families united to ensure the collective good. In that sense, Goerdeler incessantly wavered between Enlightenment ideas, such as natural rights, individualism, and the power of reason, and anti-Enlightenment, conservative ideologies perceiving the state as an “organism” and putting stress on “natural” communities. An ardent disciple of the European Enlightenment, and a critic at the same time, he oscillated between these two poles throughout his life.
Holding this hybrid view, Goerdeler abhorred the idea of a totalitarian, ever-meddling government, out of a liberal concern for human and civil rights and a worry that such a government would enforce a “nonorganic” order, the worst enemy of human freedom and dignity. This indicated Goerdeler’s animosity to National Socialist totalitarian ideology, with its methods of coercion, deprivation of freedom, and an education system intended to turn human beings into obedient machines. However, in a more conservative spirit, he maintained that modern democracy would fail as well. Its underlying materialism distanced man from God and, just as bad, subordinated citizens to the artificial rule of mass parties, which had nothing to do with the real interests of voters. Goerdeler’s solution was a hereditary monarchy led by an emperor who would appoint a Reich chancellor, who in turn would lead the state as long as he enjoyed the emperor’s confidence. At the same time, Goerdeler wanted to avoid dictatorship by significantly curtailing the authority of central government. Its role should be mainly restricted to foreign policy, national security, public order, justice, and infrastructure. Most decisions related to the life of the citizens would be taken by mayors and local parliaments, elected by votes from all Reich citizens of both genders. Citizens would vote only for candidates from their immediate environment, whom they knew and respected, instead of for political demagogues on the national level, known to them only through stupefying propaganda and mass rallies.
Compared to Hassell’s unabashed authoritarianism, Goerdeler’s vision was liberal: full freedom of speech, of religion, and of the press, and property rights would be ensured. All would be allowed to speak their mind, and no party would be banned—not even the Nazi Party. Nevertheless, the criminals among the party leaders would be prosecuted, and the property looted by party organs would be restored to its rightful owners. All civil servants appointed because of their Nazi affiliations would be reviewed, and might be demoted. However, Goerdeler did not agree to deprive any person, even a Nazi, of basic rights such as freedom of speech. As far as foreign policy was concerned, his plan was very similar to Hassell’s: peace would be made, and Germany would withdraw from most occupied territories, except for Austria, the Sudetenland, Danzig, and the Polish Corridor. It would also form an alliance with Great Britain and the United States, thereby restoring its lost African colonies from the Great War. (It would not exploit these colonies economically but rather develop them for the indigenous peoples.) Nazi criminals would face the full force of the law, and the state would compensate all victims of Hitler.2
The two proposals, both Hassell’s and Goerdeler’s, may seem authoritarian from today’s point of view. Some scholars have argued that there was no real difference between the German resistance and the Nazi regime, or that the “resistance was fighting a regime with which it essentially concurred.”3 This argument is problematic, not only because its defin
itions of both democracy and Nazism are simplistic and inaccurate but also because it ignores the crucial issue of interaction between the different groups in the conspiracy. The proposals of Hassell and Goerdeler were not “platforms” of the resistance but merely two opinions among many. The Social Democratic leaders in the conspiracy had naturally different ideas, and so did the Kreisau Circle, discussed in detail later in this chapter. As the draft cabinet list of the conspiracy shows, the future regime would have been a coalition between all of these different groups. Regardless of their viewpoints, the mere fact that there were many groups required a certain degree of pluralism, which was likely to lead to a regime that was at least somewhat democratic. This is true regardless of the pressure the Western Allies would likely have applied against an authoritarian regime in post-Nazi Germany.
Furthermore, even authoritarian proposals such as Hassell’s differed greatly from the Nazi regime itself. Almost all conspirators, regardless of political orientation, agreed to liberate the inmates of the concentration camps, to give up on unbridled territorial expansion in both east and west, and to withdraw from most occupied territories. The ideas of “living space” (Lebensraum) and genocidal anti-Semitism—two cornerstones of Nazi ideology—were completely absent from their proposals.4
