The Plots Against Hitler

by Danny Orbach

  Following the surrender, Germany was swept up in a revolutionary maelstrom. The leaders of the Social Democratic Party took over Berlin and declared a republic from the balcony of the Reichstag. The kaiser abdicated, clearing the way for struggles between left and right. Finally, right-wing “free battalions” (Freikorps) joined the Social Democratic government against the Communist revolutionaries in a campaign of bloody repression. The kings of the German states were deposed one after another. Germany was in chaos.

  Many German aristocrats, seeing themselves as the natural elite, far superior to the “rabble” and common folk, were, of course, afraid of the revolutions and their aftermath. Countess Stauffenberg feared that the revolutionaries would soon reach Württemberg. On November 9, two days before the armistice was signed, an angry mob of demonstrators tried to break into the royal palace but was blocked by Count Alfred and his loyal group of noblemen and servants. The revolutionaries dispersed, but not before replacing the royal standard with a red flag and installing their own guard outside. Claus, Berthold, and Alexander, who were still in school, heard the thunder of drums and saw the demonstrators crowding in front of the palace. The king decided to resign. “I will not let blood spill only for my own sake,” he told the Stauffenbergs with tears in his eyes. Claus, only eleven years old, was furious and unforgiving. “When he says that, what does he mean? The king is not the issue here. The monarchy is.” From that moment on, Claus admitted later, he ceased being a monarchist. The Treaty of Versailles only made things worse for German aristocrats such as the Stauffenbergs, and for many other patriots as well. In that year, Claus refused to celebrate his birthday, “the saddest day in my entire life.”6

  The economic situation in the new republic was not encouraging. The war reparations burdened the defeated country, and from 1921 to 1923, it was hit by hyperinflation. Savings disappeared, and the quality of people’s lives sank precipitously. Many suffered from malnutrition or shivered in the winter cold. The Reich government had to face daunting political challenges. In 1920, a right-wing militia attempted to overthrow the government in the Kapp Putsch, followed by Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. In the same year, France invaded the Ruhr area to help itself in the wake of unpaid war reparations.

  What were Stauffenberg’s political opinions in these stormy years? His friends related later that, in spite of his reservations, he was against all violent insurgencies, irrespective of political orientation. Christian Müller, one of his early biographers, wrote that Claus and Berthold had agreed to serve the democracy and did not support the Hitler putsch, though they were never among the supporters of the republic.7

  Maybe as a reaction to the gloomy reality, the brothers increasingly turned to spiritualism and metaphor. If it was impossible to achieve greatness in this world, maybe it could be achieved in the world of letters. They joined a literary circle led by the notable poet Stefan George. This man, a romanticist with mystical ideas, assembled a group of young admirers, who referred to him reverently as “the Master” (der Meister). Alexander and Berthold joined the circle in the early 1920s. George’s ideas, associated with the New Right ideology of “people’s community” (Volksgemeinschaft), stressed the role of an aristocratic avant-garde as the carrier of sublime spiritual values, love of fatherland, and patriotic service. His disciples, both Christians and Jews, saw themselves as the secret elite of the worthy, designated to bring salvation one day to the fatherland under the genial leadership of der Meister.

  The group’s meetings, as noted by Peter Hoffmann, were “bathed in a mystic, luminous haze.”8 The members read poetry and discussed art, music, literature, and philosophy. Young, educated aristocrats ventured to escape the misery of the real Germany for an imaginary “Secret Germany” led by Master George. Berthold and Claus quickly became favorites and were lauded by the Master as perfect, sublime beings. Berthold was praised for his determination, sincerity, natural charisma, and beauty. Claus, who joined a little later, was no less admired. He won a great honor when George decided to carry his poems wherever he went, which he would do for years to come.9

  In the ideal world imagined by George, power of spirit and greatness of soul alone determined one’s social status, not money or political cunning. Classical culture, well known and admired by educated Germans of the time, served as a model for George and his circle. When some of them, Berthold included, visited Italy, they knelt before Roman statues, and placed a wreath at the sarcophagus of an ancient German emperor “in the name of Secret Germany.”10

  George’s most lasting and most important lesson for Stauffenberg was that one must have a purpose in life, some higher calling or heroic mission to be fulfilled regardless of circumstances. That purpose has to naturally grow out of romantic attachment to ancient history and must be in the service of people and nation. Claus had internalized this message by 1924, as he wrote in a poem that the sublime deeds of ancient heroes and their “glory-crowned blood” moved him to transcend day-to-day limitations. “How can I orient my life,” he wrote, “if not in the highest sense?”11

  In 1924, Claus needed a mission. Exactly what mission, he had yet to determine. He could have chosen a nonpolitical, a Nazi, or an anti-Nazi one. He had already thought about the leadership of high-minded, noble people. Later on, in 1944, he clearly expressed this idea in his “oath,” written for his closest confidants as a unifying common pledge in their fight against Hitler. In that important document is a crystallized version of the Secret Germany ideology: a sense of calling, elitism, belief in natural leadership, and the importance of secret comradeship:

  We believe in the future of the Germans.

  We know that the German has powers which designate him to lead the community of the occidental nations toward a more beautiful life.

  We acknowledge in spirit and in deed the great traditions of our nation which, through amalgamation of Hellenic and Christian origins in the Germanic character, created Western man.

  We want a new order which makes all Germans supporters of the state and guarantees them law and justice, but we scorn the lie of equality and we bow before the hierarchies established by nature . . .

  We want leaders who, coming from all classes of the nation, in harmony with the divine powers, high-minded, lead others high-mindedly, with discipline and sacrifice . . .

  We pledge to live blamelessly, to serve in obedience, to keep silent unswervingly, and to stand for each other.12

  In 1925, Claus had perhaps not decided yet what his sublime calling was, but he had come to a decision about where to begin. To the astonishment of many of his friends, who were certain that he would study architecture, Claus declared that he was going into the army.

  The Reichswehr of the Weimar Republic was not the venue of Stauffenberg’s heroic dreams, but it was at least a starting point. During a hike in the hills near Lautlingen, he spoke with a friend about the “painful birth of a new Germany,” about the duties of the state and the possibility of influencing it, and about his personal career aspirations in the army.13

  Stauffenberg, still a sickly youth in 1925, did not pass the physical entrance exams easily. The Reichswehr authorities were not eager to accept the pale young man who frequently suffered from head- and stomachaches. A well-connected relative, however, eased his passage into the army, and he was finally admitted to the cavalry. The first year he spent in intensive cavalry training in Bamberg, a small picturesque town in Franconia. On July 28, he wrote a friend from the George circle about four nerve-racking weeks of sickness, but he insisted that he still felt committed to his profession of choice.14 In October 1927, he qualified and was admitted as a cadet to the Dresden Infantry School, where he began three years of officer training.

  All the while, society was changing fast. In 1924, hyperinflation was reversed by means of a currency reform, the economic crisis was subsiding, and the political situation stabilizing. With higher standards of living than before, the public was losing its taste for radical parties of both right
and left. Germany made several unprecedented scientific and cultural achievements. In the thriving universities, luminaries such as Albert Einstein, Erich Fromm, Theodor Adorno, and Edmund Husserl, to name just a few, paved new ways in physics, psychology, philosophy, and other fields of learning. The high tide of art, science, and high culture was followed by a new, modern popular culture. The big cities of Germany were brimming with cabarets, circuses, and other forms of light, affordable entertainment. Most people learned to live in peace with the Weimar Republic.

  The republic did impressively in foreign policy, too. The Treaty of Locarno was signed in 1925, beginning a new honeymoon in European politics. Under the leadership of Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann, the greatest statesman the republic ever had, Germany recognized its new western border. The French and Belgians finally left the Ruhr. In 1926, Germany joined the League of Nations, and two years later it signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawing war as a means of solving interstate conflicts. Many Europeans stopped seeing Germany as a menace to world peace, and its prominence in the continent grew economically, scientifically, and culturally.

  Stauffenberg, isolated in his military bubble, did not experience the full extent of these political and social transformations. He had spent the good years of the Weimar Republic doing backbreaking field training, playing cello, reading, and riding his beloved horse, Jagd (“Hunt”). On January 1, 1930, he passed the qualifying exams with special honors, and one year later he received his first command post as an officer. Elitist though he was, he nevertheless enjoyed working with soldiers. “I manage well with subordinates, farmers and soldiers . . . ,” he wrote. “And not with people on my own education level, whose friendship is nothing but egoism, and their pride no more than foolish arrogance.”15 Still, he was a strict, uncompromising commanding officer who expected a lot from his men. Orders had to be obeyed efficiently, precisely, and without delay. In his command posts, as well as in other things, Stauffenberg always strove to be better than others.

  In 1929, when Stauffenberg was still training in the cavalry school, dark clouds moved in over the Weimar Republic. The good years would soon be over. October 3, 1929, witnessed the death of Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann, the person who symbolized the stability of the republican regime. None of his successors had sufficient prudence, talent, or international standing to lead Germany through the challenges ahead.

  Three weeks after Stresemann’s death, on a day retrospectively called Black Thursday, the New York stock market crashed. The American economy plunged, taking most European states with it. The crisis was especially potent in Germany, which was still dependent on American loans. Suddenly, the “rich uncle” across the Atlantic had no more money to spend, and the Weimar bubble burst. The middle class, having barely recovered from the hyperinflation, was especially hard hit. The number of unemployed rose quickly, and by January 1930, more than three million men, 14 percent of the workforce, were registered as jobless. Hopeless millions all over the country were easy prey for Adolf Hitler and his propagandists. Their success was enormous. In the elections of 1930, the Nazi Party turned, almost abruptly, from a marginalized group at the edge of the radical right to the second-biggest party in Germany. Hitler, the obscure demagogue mocked and abused by many, became one of the most important figures in national politics.

  Stauffenberg later said that he followed the rise of the new movement “with interest” and was impressed by its rapid political success. In 1933, when President Hindenburg appointed Hitler chancellor, the young officer was quite happy with the result, believing Hitler’s takeover to be what Germany needed most at the moment. As a soldier, Stauffenberg could not vote, but even a year before, in 1932, he preferred Hitler for president over Hindenburg.16 Just like many other German conservatives, he believed that the new leader would moderate his views after taking power. Moreover, National Socialist promises to strengthen and expand the army were certainly welcome, as was the Nazi commitment to breaking the “shackles of Versailles.” Stauffenberg, who believed in national unity, also hoped that the new government would forge the nation into a truly unified community (Volksgemeinschaft).

  It is less clear whether Stauffenberg was influenced by the anti-Semitic wave that swept through Germany after 1933. His brother Berthold told the Gestapo, more than ten years later, that he and his younger brother “accepted National Socialist principles of race” but believed that they were “exaggerated.”17 According to other testimonies from Stauffenberg’s friends, he deplored the persecution of the Jews, especially the boycott of 1933, which he and his friends saw as “shameful.” Some attested that he supported a restriction on the number of Jews in journalism and public service but opposed violent anti-Semitism. A testimony from 1936 is also very instructive: “Do you mind that I’m Jewish?” a British officer asked him during a short visit to London. “No,” replied Stauffenberg, explaining that it was enough that he was a British officer, just as Stauffenberg himself was a German officer.18 Hence, Stauffenberg’s initial National Socialist inclinations did not necessarily mean that he shared the regime’s anti-Semitic ideology, at least not in full.

  In November 1933, Stauffenberg married Nina von Lerchenfeld, the daughter of an old diplomat, whom he first met at a ballet soiree. The dashing young officer was popular at such aristocratic events. At first, Nina kept her distance from Claus, unlike other women, who fell for him at first sight. Only later, when Nina came to know him, did her initial reserved attitude turn to love, which was to last till death.19 In December 1933, the couple married at the Gothic cathedral of Bamberg. Claus came to his wedding wearing his helmet, telling his bride with all seriousness that “to marry is to be on duty.”20

  His married life was guided by traditional notions. His wife bore five children, three boys and two girls. As a father and husband, he was strict and uncompromising—military-style—and required cleanliness, order, and discipline. When he returned home from work, he expected the food to be ready on the table. The children were ordered to put their belongings, including their shoes, in the right place. Furthermore, Nina was not allowed to participate in all aspects of his life. The George circle, for example, was an exclusively male club. When his friends from the circle visited, he always asked Nina to stay in their bedroom or to leave the house altogether.

  Still, he loved his family and never showed violence, verbal or physical. He took every opportunity he could to play at home with his children and spend quality time with his wife, entertaining her with his cello playing or sitting beside her on the floor reading English novels for hours. Years later, Nina became privy to her husband’s secret war against Hitler.

  In early December 1933, when Nina and Claus returned from their honeymoon in Italy, bad tidings greeted them. Der Meister, Stefan George, had passed away in Switzerland. Only the inner members of Secret Germany attended the funeral; among them were Claus and Berthold. Berthold, who had been appointed by George as his heir, said that the “best part” of his life ended with the Master’s death.21 Claus grieved similarly.

  Stauffenberg’s military career progressed quickly. In 1934, his regiment was dissolved as part of the military expansion plans, and he was appointed a riding instructor in the Hannover Cavalry School. His evaluations were outstanding. Stauffenberg’s commanding officer wrote in a formal report that he recognized in him an “iron will, discretion, extraordinary spiritual qualities and high tactical and technical abilities. [Stauffenberg] is an example in his treatment of NCOs and enlisted men, taking pains to educate his subordinates. Besides he is an excellent rider, with true love and understanding for the horse.” The commanding officer had some criticism, too. “Claus is very much aware of his military abilities and intellectual superiority, and sometimes speaks arrogantly, but never with an intention to insult.”22 In 1936, Stauffenberg won a promotion and was admitted to the military academy in Berlin, in the course reserved for prospective General Staff officers.

  His classmates in Berlin noted that Stauffenber
g already had some doubts about National Socialist policy. “He hated German nationalist arrogance,” wrote one of his colleagues later, “but above all he was an aristocrat who kept trying to bridge, at least on the soldierly level, his personal views and formal Reich policy.”23 He was still impressed by Hitler’s foreign-policy achievements, especially because they had not yet led to war. Unlike General Beck, then chief of the General Staff, Stauffenberg was certain that Hitler would not provoke a world war. He told one of his friends that a man like Hitler, who served in the Great War and was well familiar with its horrors, would never open a conflict between Germany and the entire world.24 In June 1938, during a study tour in the Rhine Valley, he expressed his unorthodox views clearly: Franco-German relations would have to be improved. The two nations must find a way to overcome past difficulties, putting an end to aggressive, hegemonic thinking. “If the Western world did not disintegrate in the Great War,” he said, “that was only because the crucial battle on the Rhine was averted.”25

  Stauffenberg had no contact with the resistance in 1938, and, contrary to later legends, he was not involved in the September 1938 conspiracy. But he, too, had become afraid of a European conflict. “That lunatic will make war,” he said furiously after the occupation of all of Czechoslovakia in 1939.26 After Kristallnacht, he started to ponder the possibility of a violent coup. But his misgivings faded away after the German victory in the Polish campaign, and for a few months he turned back into a Hitler supporter.

  Like most Germans, Stauffenberg heartily disliked Poland and held it responsible for Germany’s humiliation after the Great War. He wanted to teach the Poles a lesson and to bring Danzig and the corridor back to the fatherland. And if England and France declared war, Germany would defeat them as well. The war had the “high aim of self-preservation” and could be won only “in a good, long fight.”27