The Plots Against Hitler

by Danny Orbach

  The conspirators never stopped hatching plots. This time, it was Tresckow’s turn, and Capt. Eberhard von Breitenbuch was the prospective assassin. Breitenbuch was the adjutant of Field Marshal Ernst Busch, Kluge’s successor at Army Group Center. “Tresckow took me to my private room . . . ,” he later related, “and asked me whether I was aware of my responsibility . . . I could end this war, with all of its horrors, all by myself . . . He spoke like a priest, with a persuasive power that did not allow you to contradict or to say ‘but . . .’”49

  Just like Bussche and Kleist, Breitenbuch was ready to sacrifice his own life, but he was loath to use explosives. Instead, he offered Tresckow his skills as a seasoned sniper; he would take Hitler down with a precise pistol shot. The plan seemed reasonable, as officers were allowed to carry guns in the Führer’s presence. Tresckow warned that, because of Hitler’s vest, the shot must be aimed at his head or neck. Now, the conspirators only had to arrange a suitable pretext for Breitenbuch to take part in Hitler’s staff meetings.50

  The moment came in March 1944. Breitenbuch was supposed to accompany his commander, Field Marshal Busch, to a meeting with the supreme leader. His duty was to carry the maps and documents and to assist Busch during his military briefing. The two men entered Hitler’s palatial chalet in Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps, with Breitenbuch carrying a Browning in his trouser pocket. However, when they were about to enter the meeting, a stern SS guard stopped the junior officer at the door. “No,” he said. “Today no entry for adjutants.” Breitenbuch waited for several hours in the anteroom, anxious that the assassination plot had been discovered. Every moment, he expected the SS guards to arrest him, but nothing happened. Breitenbuch swore that he would never go through such a nerve-racking experience again. Another plot had failed.51

  Spring 1944 passed, and the German military situation was becoming worse by the day. On June 6, the Western Allies invaded Normandy in the largest amphibious strike in history, and breached the defense of Fortress Europe. Numerous officers gathered that the war was lost. On the eastern front, the news was even worse. Summer 1943 had seen the Russians advancing westward toward Poland, threatening the eastern borders of the Reich. By July, the last German offensive, in Kursk, had failed to meet its goals. The conspirators, urged on by these developments, increased the pace of their preparations. Some, however, were moved by the Normandy invasion to rethink their plans. Would it be best to let the war run its course, so Hitler alone could bear the responsibility for the final collapse? What was the use of a coup d’état, when the Western Allies would demand the Reich surrender unconditionally on all fronts?52 Stauffenberg, who had no ready answer, turned to Tresckow for advice. The leader of the eastern clique was quick to respond and left no doubts about the required course of action: “The assassination of Hitler must take place coûte que coûte [cost what it may]. Even if it does not succeed, the coup d’état must be attempted. The point now is not the practical purpose, but to prove to the world and before history that the German resistance have staked their all and put their lives on the line. Beside that, nothing has any weight.”53

  So the die was cast. Stauffenberg, Tresckow, and their friends agreed that the “practical purpose” did not have “any weight.” Germany would probably be defeated and would have to surrender and even suffer occupation, though the conspirators still hoped to keep the Bolsheviks at bay. Maybe, they hoped, the coup would save the lives of millions: soldiers at the fronts, citizens in bombed-out German cities, and prisoners, both Jewish and Christian, in the camps. Stauffenberg himself confided to Nina, his wife, that though the occupation of Germany could no longer be prevented, the coup must still take place. “The decisive question is not the fate of this or that individual,” said General Beck, “and not even the consequences for the nation. The decisive, intolerable fact is that for years crimes have been committed in the name of the German people, and we have to put an end to it using all the means at our disposal.” Goerdeler had expressed similar thoughts in a draft letter written to an unidentified general: the German resistance had to destroy the regime not necessarily as a response to the military defeats but mainly because “during and preceding this war, more than one million POWs and civilians from the different nations, men, women and children, were murdered under orders.”54

  The psychological tension involved in the planning left its mark on the ringleaders. “The few survivors,” wrote Hardenberg, “will never forget these weeks of waiting that racked our nerves to breaking point.” Stauffenberg himself was hardly unaffected. In summer 1943, when he had taken it upon himself to lead the conspiracy, he was described as a young, energetic officer, “radiating an inner fire.” A year later, he had become a tired, irascible, and bitter man. He did not rate the chances of success, but he still agreed with Tresckow that the coup must take place. “The most terrible thing,” said his brother Berthold von Stauffenberg on July 14, “is knowing that we cannot succeed and yet that we have to do it, for our country and our children.”55

  After the failure of the previous assassination attempts, Stauffenberg decided to kill Hitler himself. Back in 1942, he had wondered whether there was an officer ready to do it. Now, it seemed, he was the man.56 The other conspirators insisted that he was invaluable for the coup, but they had to acknowledge that there was no alternative. Major General Stieff, the only other conspirator with access to the Führer, could not pull together enough courage for the job.57 On July 1, 1944, the commander of the Home Army, General Fromm, appointed Stauffenberg his chief of staff and promoted him to the rank of colonel. As part of his new duties, Colonel Stauffenberg had to participate in routine staff meetings with the Führer.

  By July 1944, the precarious situation of the resistance had deteriorated still further. The civilian leaders felt that they were being followed, and many feared that informers had infiltrated the movement. Furthermore, many civilian leaders were ignoring the strict rules of secrecy and compartmentalization observed in the military wing. In his diary, Hermann Kaiser used clumsy code names that could be deciphered by a five-year-old. For example, Count Helldorff, whose last name can be translated as “bright village,” appeared under the code name Dunkelstadt (dark town). Goerdeler was endlessly chattering about the coup d’état and “tried to win over anyone who came in touch with him for personal or professional reasons.” Even Tresckow, who usually held Goerdeler in high esteem, complained about his “exaggerated” behavior. The civilian wing was now fully exposed to the security service, which could eliminate it at its discretion.58 Notwithstanding the strict secrecy rules in the military wing, reckless behavior on the part of the civilians could lead the whole movement to ruin. In June 1944, the conspirators learned this lesson yet again.

  It all began with a well-intentioned initiative. Adolf Reichwein, an activist in the Social Democratic group and the Kreisau Circle, had long striven to form a contact with the Communist underground in Germany. Stauffenberg, who had no love for Bolsheviks, hesitated at first but then agreed to let Reichwein speak with them.59 Apparently, Stauffenberg was ready to initiate the representatives of the Communist Party into his plans, provided that they would not attempt to bolshevize Germany. His decision, as expected, evoked much resentment not only among die-hard conservatives, such as Goerdeler and Gisevius, but also among some of the Social Democrats. But Stauffenberg remained firm.

  On June 22, a first meeting took place. Reichwein and his colleague Julius Leber represented Stauffenberg. The Communists accepted, in principle, Stauffenberg’s conditions, and asked to meet the military leaders.60 One of the Communists was actually an undercover Gestapo agent. He filed a report on the meeting and brought about the immediate arrest of Reichwein and Leber. Stauffenberg, who refused to attend the second meeting, for security reasons, was saved from arrest. Fortunately for him, Reichwein and Leber withstood the interrogation without mentioning his name. However, he knew that two of his best friends might be facing execution, and that was painful. Schulenburg sent a short me
ssage to Leber’s wife, probably in the name of his commander: “We are aware of our duty.”61

  Stauffenberg knew that he could be arrested at any moment. Even walking down the street became traumatic, as he imagined undercover policemen lurking in every shadow. One day, as he walked along with Tresckow and Margarethe von Oven, he stumbled upon a group of SS men. Oven was carrying the operational plan of the coup under her arm.62 How long could Reichwein and Leber put up with such torment? Sooner or later they would succumb, and Stauffenberg would be promptly arrested. He had to act, and quickly.

  On July 11, Stauffenberg tried his luck for the first time. He entered the Führer’s staff meeting with a bomb, but upon discovering that Himmler was not present, decided not to carry out the plan. He and Beck had agreed in advance that in order to prevent civil war, Himmler had to be killed along with Hitler.63 The next day, the conspirators were dealt a heavy blow. Gen. Alexander von Falkenhausen, the military governor of Belgium and a conspiracy collaborator, was unexpectedly relieved of his command. The failure to act on July 11 had cost them dearly—in retrospect, it was a tragic mistake—as they lost a key ally with a substantial military following.

  On July 15, Stauffenberg tried again. In order to save precious time, General Olbricht had activated the Valkyrie orders in the morning and instructed the panzer forces from Krampnitz to move toward Berlin. At noon, Stauffenberg entered Hitler’s cabin with a bomb in his briefcase, but could not find the time to activate the fuse. As he was supposed to give a presentation to the Führer, he could not leave the room either. Once more, an assassination attempt had come to naught.64

  Meanwhile, armor and infantry units left Döberitz and Krampnitz and moved to their positions in Berlin. After a frantic phone call from Stauffenberg, Olbricht understood that the Führer was alive, canceled the orders, and told Fromm that they had been only a drill. He knew that the same excuse would not work twice. Keitel and Fromm, he reported, were already suspicious. Next time, Olbricht said, he would activate the orders only when he was certain that the assassination had taken place.65 This seemingly reasonable decision was to have heavy consequences on July 20, 1944.

  On July 16, the leaders of the conspiracy held a meeting in Stauffenberg’s flat. The count argued that in the best-case scenario, the western front would hold for six weeks longer. Time was up. Adam von Trott zu Solz, a member of the Kreisau Circle and one of the diplomats of the resistance, reported that he had some basis to believe that the Allies would open negotiations with an anti-Nazi German government.66

  On July 17, a disaster occurred in the west. A low-flying Allied plane strafed the staff car of Field Marshal Rommel. The commander of Army Group B was seriously wounded, and the conspirators lost the most powerful of their potential allies.67 On July 18, they were dealt another devastating blow. Arthur Nebe, the informant of the conspirators in the criminal police, gave them a tip that an arrest warrant for Goerdeler would be issued at any moment. Kaiser and Stauffenberg advised him that he was being hunted, and ordered him to go into hiding at once.68

  This chain of setbacks nearly stalled the conspiracy. However, on the same day that Goerdeler was going into hiding, a new ray of hope appeared. Stauffenberg was ordered to attend a Führer briefing on July 20. He decided to make another attempt on Hitler’s life.

  On July 18, while the conspirators were busy making final preparations, Fritz von der Schulenburg decided to leave Berlin for a day in order to celebrate the birthday of his wife, Charlotte. After a “jolly party” with his family, Schulenburg shared with her his fears, hopes, and expectations. “The chances are fifty-fifty,” he finally said.69 Tresckow told his friend Margarethe von Oven, “I won’t have you in Berlin when it happens. The assassination is a job for men. I want you to be out of it. If we need you, I’ll send a plane.” On July 19, alerts were sent to as many conspirators as possible. Stauffenberg was engaged in preparations of his own. In the evening, he asked his driver to stop in front of a Catholic church, where he prayed for a few minutes. A chance visitor in the Bendlerstrasse later recalled that the count was peaceful and kind. He was ready for the most difficult trial of his life.70

  On the morning of July 20, 1944, Count Claus von Stauffenberg left his home in Wannsee, to be driven to the airport en route to Hitler’s headquarters in East Prussia. His briefcase held a bomb designed to change the course of history. The moment of truth had finally come.

  18

  The Final Showdown:

  July 20, 1944

  What I will never forget about July 20, 1944, was the sensation that we all felt of being part of a moment in which history was balancing on the edge of a knife.

  —LT. EWALD-HEINRICH VON KLEIST

  THE SUN ROSE on yet another day of hardships for Berlin’s inhabitants. The town, heavily bruised, had suffered mightily from bombardments by the Americans and the British, and the casualties were increasing by the day. Hitler’s war, enthusiastically applauded at first by the majority of Germans, had reached their own homes. Bombers were constantly in the air, and many Germans predicted darkly that soon enough they would be joined by hostile ground troops. The eastern front was collapsing, allowing the Russians to move quickly westward. In France, too, the Western Allies were overpowering the Wehrmacht, advancing apace toward Germany’s western borders.

  Stauffenberg rose at 6:00 a.m. to dress with his teeth and remaining arm. Soon after, he picked up his black briefcase and departed into a side street of the quiet lakeside suburb of Wannsee. A staff car was waiting for him with his personal driver and Dr. Hans-Bernd von Haeften, a veteran of the Kreisau Circle and one of the remaining conspirators in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Stauffenberg eased into the backseat, his briefcase resting by his feet. Inside the briefcase, he and Haeften both knew, lay a standard British bomb.

  Stauffenberg and Haeften, adhering to security regulations, kept their silence during the trip. After forty-five minutes, the car stopped near Rangsdorf Airport, in the suburbs of Berlin. There, Stauffenberg was joined by his adjutant, Lt. Werner von Haeften. This young officer, Hans-Bernd’s cousin, was personally loyal to the colonel and was ready to risk everything for him. True, in the preceding weeks he had had misgivings about the cause, and serious moral qualms about the planned assassination. Now, however, he was ready to follow his commander through fire and water, even into the Führer’s own abode. In his briefcase, he carried a second bomb. The two officers took their leave from Hans-Bernd and boarded a military plane bound for Wolf’s Lair, Hitler’s gloomy headquarters in the forests of East Prussia. The Führer held Stauffenberg in high esteem and had summoned him to discuss the recruitment of new divisions—more fodder for the hungry front.

  Around 10:30, the officers disembarked at Rastenburg Airport. A staff car was waiting to take them to the military base. Before they left the airport, Haeften ordered the pilot to stand ready in his plane from 12 p.m. onward. After the explosion, they would have to escape with all haste.

  En route to Wolf’s Lair, the two officers were driven across a narrow, winding road in the middle of the forest. The compound was among the world’s most secure, surrounded by minefields and guarded by elite troops, trained dogs, and antiaircraft guns—“an impregnable lair of reinforced concrete,” as described later by Soviet intelligence. Visitors were greeted by ominous signs that threatened trespassers with death.1 The officers had to go through three different roadblocks until they reached the last, most secure “Compound A” or “Third Ring,” home to the bunkers of Hitler, Göring, and other leaders of the Reich. SS guards patrolled the area constantly.

  After Stauffenberg and Haeften had passed through the last checkpoint, they were greeted by the commandant of the base and his adjutant, who invited them for breakfast under the large oak tree at midcamp. The day was very hot and humid, under a cloudless blue sky. The commandant told them that because of the oppressive heat, all windows in the briefing hut had been opened. Stauffenberg probably knew that this was bad news, as the open windows could
release some of the blast waves of pressure, diminishing the bomb’s effectiveness.2

  After breakfast, Stauffenberg left the junior officers and spent a few minutes aside with Gen. Erich Fellgiebel, the resistance’s insider in Führer headquarters. This career officer, praised by his friends as a “humanistic, philosophically inclined soldier, and an expert in the natural sciences,” had been an enemy of the regime from the outbreak of the war. His duties as the commander of the Signal Corps involved frequent trips to headquarters throughout the Reich, including Berlin, and thus he could easily connect his group with the central network in the capital. According to Hans Crome’s testimony, Fellgiebel became involved in the conspiracy no later than February 1943, and probably before.3

  Between 1943 and 1944, Fellgiebel persevered to create a network of resistance in the Signal Corps—a highly dangerous task, given the fact that the communication lines were partly supervised by internal security organizations such as the Secret Field Police. He and Stauffenberg were aware of the importance of controlling the communication facilities in order to cut off Hitler’s men from the outside world in the hours following the assassination. Using trusted men at the respective switchboards, Fellgiebel was ready to block communication between Wolf’s Lair and the army and yet permit the conspirators to use the system for their own needs. Contrary to some later accounts, Fellgiebel was unable to “blow up” the facilities. They were scattered in too many buildings, most of them made of reinforced concrete. In the circumstances, he could use his authority as a commander only to block hostile communication. In addition, the conspirators knew that Fellgiebel could do so only until Keitel or another senior leader interfered. At best, the conspirators would have one or two hours of unhindered communication.