The Plots Against Hitler
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Furthermore, I owe special gratitude to the German resistance fighters and their family members who consented to speak with me or to be interviewed for this book. The lamented Count Philipp von Boeselager, a confidant of the resistance leader Gen. Henning von Tresckow, graciously agreed to meet me in his handsome castle at the village of Kreuzberg, near Bonn, and to answer many questions. Similarly, the late Dr. Marianne Meyer-Krahmer, the daughter of the civilian leader of the resistance, Dr. Carl Goerdeler, gave me a lengthy and highly useful interview during her stay in Tel Aviv. I received useful advice also from the sons of Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, Heimerann von Stauffenberg and Franz-Ludwig von Stauffenberg. Christina Blumenberg-Lampe from the Stiftung 20 Juli 1944 helped me to arrange some of these interviews. Nicholas Netteau, an American creator of documentaries, allowed me to use his own interviews with key conspirators and their relatives. Dr. Mordechai Paldiel, the former head of the Department of the Righteous, Yad Vashem, gave me access to useful documents from the Hans von Dohnanyi file.
During my research trip to Russia, I was tremendously helped by Prof. Aleksandr Bezborodov, chair of the Department of History and Archives at RGGU University; his colleague Prof. Boris Chavkin; Valentina Apresjan from the Russian Language Institute; and the research staff of Memorial, a brave and dedicated human rights organization based in Moscow. In Aberdeen, Scotland, the family of the late British diplomat Sir George Ogilvie-Forbes was generous enough to give me access to his private papers. I was also helped by the following archivists and research-library officials: Petra Moertl from the Institut für Zeitgeschichte (Munich), Andreas Grunwald from the Bundesarchiv (Berlin), Achim Koch from the Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv (Freiburg), Michelle Gait (Aberdeen University Archive), Steven Bye (U.S. Army Heritage Center), Elton-John Torres (Special Collections, University of Pennsylvania), and the staffs of the Wiener Collection at Tel Aviv University and the Goethe Institute in Tel Aviv. I am also deeply grateful to the German Resistance Memorial Center in Berlin; its director, Prof. Johannes Tuchel; and the Bundesarchiv in Bern, Switzerland, for the gracious permission to reproduce some of their photos. Laura Tuomi generously helped me to translate documents from Finnish.
The early drafts of this book could not have been written without generous scholarships from the Bosch Foundation (Germany) and the Bloomfield Science Museum (Jerusalem). I also thank the following friends, teachers, and colleagues who read the manuscript, in part or in whole, and/or gave me precious advice: Michael Olinger, Florin Stefan-Morar, Cian Power, Dr. Konrad Lawson, Prof. Sven Saaler, Prof. Harald Kleinschmidt, Prof. Ishida Yuji, Prof. Moshe Zimmermann, Prof. Aviad Kleinberg, Dr. Igal Halfin, Dr. Shulamit Volkov, and Prof. Shlomo Sand. Rabbi Yosef Kaminetski from the Jewish Orthodox movement Chabad shared with me invaluable information on the rescue of the Lubavitcher Rebbe from Warsaw. Iris Nachum and the German reading group at Tel Aviv University gave useful comments on a key Goerdeler document. My dear friends from Tel Aviv University Dikla Doitch and Clara Shikhleman gave sharp and intelligent feedback.
The following people were kind enough to host me during my frequent research trips. In Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Alison Spare and her family; in Washington, D.C., Seraj and Abir Assi; and in Freilassing, Germany, Gerhard and Anke Walcher. During my stay in the United Kingdom, I enjoyed the generous hospitality of Niall Sayers and Ben Zvi in Aberdeen, and Chris Hall in London.
This book could not have been written but for a very special man who worked with me on the basic idea more than fifteen years ago: the late Itzik Meron (Mitrani), my former history teacher at Galili High School, Kfar-Saba, Israel. As my adviser for a high school term paper on the German resistance to Hitler, Itzik taught me the basic methods of historical research, from reading sources critically to writing footnotes. Most of all, he taught me to love history. Unfortunately, he did not have the opportunity to witness the publication of The Plots Against Hitler. This book is dedicated to his memory.
All of the people mentioned here have a share in the merits of this book. The responsibility for any faults or errors, however, is exclusively my own.
Notes
Abbreviations
BA: Bundesarchiv, Berlin
BA-MA: Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv, Freiburg
CAC: Churchill Archives Center, Cambridge, U.K.
DRYV: Department of the Righteous Archive, Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Authority, Jerusalem
GARF: Gosudarstvennii Arhiv Rossikei Federatsi (State Archive of the Russian Federation), Moscow
GEAH: Georg-Elser-Arbeitskreis Heidenheim (online archive, http://www.georg-elser-arbeitskreis.de/gearchiv.htm)
HULL: Harvard University Lamont Library, Cambridge, Massachusetts
IfZ: Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich
KA: Risto Rytin arkisto (Finnish National Archive), Helsinki
NA: National Archives, Kew, London
NARA: National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.
Nuremberg Blue: International Military Tribunal: Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg, 1947). 42 vols.
Nuremberg Green: Trials of the Major War Criminals Before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10, October 1946–April 1949 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1953). 15 vols.
Nuremberg Red: Office of the U.S. Chief Counsel for the Prosecution of Axis Criminality, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1946). 8 vols. plus 3 suppl. vols.
NWHA: Nordrhein-Westfälisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Düsseldorf
SAL: Stadtarchive Leipzig, Leipzig
UMA: Ulkoasiainministeriön Arkisto (Archive of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland), Helsinki
UPEN-RBML: University of Pennsylvania, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Philadelphia
USAMHI: Army Heritage and Education Center Archive, Carlisle, Pennsylvania
WC-TAU: Wiener Collection, Tel Aviv University
Introduction
1. “confront the dark forces of the age”: Hans Rothfels, The German Opposition to Hitler: An Assessment, trans. Lawrence Wilson (London: Wolff, 1970), 71–72.
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2. “revolt of conscience”: Eckart Conze, “Aufstand des preußischen Adels: Marion Gräfin Dönhoff und das Bild des Widerstands gegen den Nationalsozialismus in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 51, no. 4 (2003): 499.
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3. “life and the preservation of life”: Peter Hoffmann, The History of the German Resistance, 1933–1945, trans. Richard Barry (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1985), x.
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4. They may have slowly learned: Hans Mommsen, “Beyond the Nation State: The German Resistance Against Hitler and the Future of Europe,” in Working Towards the Führer: Essays in Honour of Sir Ian Kershaw, ed. Anthony McElligott and Tim Kirk (Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press, 2003), 246–57; Hans Mommsen, Alternative zu Hitler—Studien zur Geschichte des deutschen Widerstandes (Munich: Beck, 2000), 7–9.
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5. They may have been against: Christoph Dipper, “Der Widerstand und die Juden,” in Der Widerstand gegen den Nationalsozialismus: Die deutsche Gesellschaft und der Widerstand gegen Hitler, ed. Jürgen Schmädecke and Peter Steinbach (Munich: Piper, 1985), 598–616.
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6. The sad truth was: Christian Gerlach, “Männer des 20 Juli und der Krieg gegen die Sowjetunion,” in Vernichtungskrieg—Verbrechen der Wehrmacht 1941 bis 1944, ed. Hannes Heer and Klaus Naumann (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 1995), 439–41.
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7. In ten years of research: Danny Orbach, Valkyrie: Ha-Hitnagdut Ha-Germanit Le-Hitler (Or Yehuda, Isr.: Yedioth Ahronot Press, 2009).
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8. The representation of the resistance: See my critical assessment of Christoph Dipper, Christian Gerlach, and others in Danny Orbach, “Criticism Reconsidered: The German Resistance to Hitler in Critical German Scholarship,” Journal of Military History 75 (April 2011)
: 1–25.
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9. “The question of what really motivates”: Aviad Kleinberg, Flesh Made Word: Saints’ Stories and the Western Imagination (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008), 88.
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10. almost none of them . . . have adequately analyzed: There is one important exception. Linda von Keyserlingk, a PhD candidate from Postdam University, is working in her dissertation on a quantitative network analysis of the German resistance. An abstract of her much-expected prospective research was published as Linda von Keyserlingk, “Erkenntnisgewinn durch die historische Netzwerkforschung: Eine qualitative und quantitative Analyse des Beziehungsgeflechts von zivilem und militärischem Widerstand, 1938–1944,” in Das ist Militärgeschichte! Probleme—Projekte—Perspektiven, ed. Christian Th. Müller and Matthias Rogg (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2013), 464–68.
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1. Opposition in Flames
1. In the evening of February 27, 1933: Benjamin Carter Hett, Burning the Reichstag: An Investigation into the Third Reich’s Enduring Mystery (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 14.
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2. “The guilty are the Communist revolutionaries”: Rudolf Diels, Lucifer ante Portas—Zwischen Severing und Heydrich (Zurich: Interverlag, 1949), 143.
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3. “AGAINST MURDERERS, ARSONISTS”: Ian Kershaw, Hitler, 1889–1936: Hubris (New York: Norton, 1999), 460.
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4. “So the Communists had burned down”: Sebastian Haffner, Defying Hitler: A Memoir, trans. Oliver Pretzel (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2002), 126.
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5. Hitler had yet to win support: Wolfgang Michalka, ed., Das Dritte Reich: Dokumente zur Innen- und Außenpolitik (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1985), 1:291.
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6. “The feelings of most Germans”: Kershaw, Hubris, 461.
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7. Scholars have debated this question ever since: The best and most updated study on the Reichstag fire is Hett, Burning the Reichstag.
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8. “Was it the Reichstag alone?”: Hans B. Gisevius, To the Bitter End, trans. Richard Winston and Clara Winston (New York: Da Capo Press, 1998), 3.
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9. “A Communist attack”: Haffner, Defying Hitler, 101.
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10. its leaders were fettered: Peter Hoffmann, Widerstand, Staatsstreich, Attentat—der Kampf der Opposition gegen Hitler (Munich: Piper, 1985), 18–19.
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11. The Communist Party, said a Russian diplomat: Friedrich Stampfer, Erfahrungen und Erkenntnisse—Aufzeichnungen aus meinem Leben (Cologne: Verlag für Politik und Wirtschaft, 1957), 264.
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12. “We, the German Social Democrats”: Michalka, Das Dritte Reich, 1:34.
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13. “You are late, but still you come!”: Max Domarus, Hitler: Reden und Proklamationen, 1932–1945: Kommentiert von einem deutschen Zeitgenossen (Würzburg: Schmidt, Neustadt a.d. Aisch, 1962), 1:242–46.
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14. “The German National Socialist Workers’ party”: Michalka, Das Dritte Reich, 1:34.
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15. “marched thickly surrounded”: Lucas Erhard, Vom Scheitern der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung (Basel: Stroemfeld, 1983), 164–65; Nuremberg Blue (USA-238, 392-PS), 25:534–36.
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16. “It cannot be denied, he has grown”: Erich Ebermayer, Denn heute gehört uns Deutschland: Persönliches und politisches Tagebuch, trans. Sally Winkle (Hamburg: Zsolnay, 1959), 46–47.
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17. The turnout was massive: Dieter Nohlen and Philip Stöver, eds., Elections in Europe: A Data Handbook (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2010), 762.
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18. “I swear by God this holy oath”: Hoffmann, Widerstand, Staatsstreich, Attentat, 46.
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19. a massive decrease in unemployment: Statistiches Jahrbuch für das deutsche Reich, 1938 (Berlin: Puttkammer & Mühlbrecht), 371, http://www.digizeitschriften.de/. For a visual representation of the development of unemployment, see Statista 2015, ed., “Anzahl der Arbeitslosen in der Weimarer Republik in den Jahren 1926 bis 1935,” http://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/277373/umfrage/historische-arbeitslosenzahl-in-der-weimarer-republik/. For the development in real wages, see U. Pfister, “Deutsche Wirtschaft seit 1850: Die Wirtschaft in der Ära des Nationalsozialismus, 1933–1939,” http://www.wiwi.uni-muenster.de/wisoge/md/personen/pfister/Vorlesungsdateien/Deutsche_Wirtschaft_seit_1850/S02-NS-Folien.pdf.
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20. “The effect [of the propaganda]”: Haffner, Defying Hitler, 128–29.
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21. the cooperation of the public: Ian Kershaw, Hitler, the Germans, and the Final Solution (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem Press; New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2008), 248.
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22. “Every one of these classes”: Haffner, Defying Hitler, 146.
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23. “Please dear God, make me mute”: Rudolph Herzog, Heil Hitler, das Schwein ist tot!: Lachen unter Hitler: Komik und Humor im dritten Reich (Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn, 2006), 72. This black-humor ditty puns on a German children’s prayer: Lieber Gott, mach mich fromm, / dass ich in den Himmel komm (“Please dear God, make me pious, so I can go to heaven”).
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24. there were relatively few professional Gestapo agents: Robert Gallately, “The Political Policing of Nazi Germany,” in Germans Against Nazism: Nonconformity, Opposition, and Resistance in the Third Reich: Essays in Honour of Peter Hoffmann, ed. Francis R. Nicosia and Lawrence D. Stokes (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990), 27–31.
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25. “the period of large-scale underground activity”: Peter Hoffmann, The History of the German Resistance, 1933–1945, trans. Richard Barry (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1985), 22.
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2. “That Damned Mare!”: The Army Top-Brass Scandal
1. As scandal followed scandal: Karl-Heinz Janssen and Fritz Tobias, Der Sturz der Generäle: Hitler und die Blomberg-Fritsch Krise, 1938 (Munich: Beck, 1994), 24.
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2. the development of an embryonic network: Klaus-Jürgen Müller, “Die Blomberg-Fritsch Krise, 1938: Elemente eines politisch-militärischen Skandals,” in Der politische Skandal, ed. Julius H. Schoeps (Stuttgart: Burg, 1992), 129–31.
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3. Far from being the moderate: Franz Halder, “Zu den Aussagen des Dr. Gisevius in Nürnberg, 24. Bis 26.4.1946,” BA-MA BAarch N/124/10. See also Ian Kershaw, Hitler, 1889–1936: Hubris (New York: Norton, 1999), 391.
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4. “He was crazy about me”: Janssen and Tobias, Der Sturz der Generäle, 24.
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5. Göring was quick to translate: Müller, “Die Blomberg-Fritsch Krise,” 116–17; Abschrift Huppenkothen, 11.7.1947, IfZ, 0249-1, pp. 8–10, http://www.ifz-muenchen.de/archiv/zs/zs-0249_1.pdf.
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6. “inconceivable that the first officer in the army”: Nicholas Reynolds, Treason Was No Crime: Ludwig Beck, Chief of the German General Staff (London: Kimber, 1976), 132; Janssen and Tobias, Der Sturz der Generäle, 56–63.
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7. “Wait, you pigs”: Janssen and Tobias, Der Sturz der Generäle, 129.
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8. “biggest expert on the homosexual scene”: Harold C. Deutsch, The Conspiracy Against Hitler in the Twilight War (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1970), 140; Abschrift Huppenkothen, 11.7.1947, IfZ 0249-1, p. 3.
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9. The Schmidt file, never burned: Müller, “Die Blomberg-Fritsch Krise,” 123–27; Kershaw, Hubris, 396–98.
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3. The Officer, the Mayor, and the Spy
1. The investigation against Fritsch: Klaus-Jürgen Müller, “Die Blomberg-Fritsch Krise, 1938: Elemente eines politisch-militärischen Skandals,” in Der politische Skandal, ed. Julius H. Schoeps (Stuttgart:
Burg, 1992), 129–30; Abschrift Huppenkothen, 11.7.1947, IfZ 0249-1, p. 4.
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2. A senior officer in the Amt Ausland/Abwehr: Franz Xaver Sonderegger, to Freiherr von Siegler, to Dr. Helmut Krausnick, and to Dr. Hermann Mau, 14.10.1952, IfZ, ZS-303-1, p. 43, http://www.ifz-muenchen.de/archiv/zs/zs0303_1.pdf.
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3. the “frail, multi-party state”: Hans A. Jacobsen, ed., “Spiegelbild einer Verschwörung”: Die Opposition gegen Hitler und der Staatsstreich vom 20. Juli 1944 in der SD-Berichterstattung: Geheime Dokumente aus dem ehemaligen Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Stuttgart: Seewald, 1984), 1:302.
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4. “I feel responsible before God”: Terry Parssinen, The Oster Conspiracy of 1938: The Unknown Story of the Military Plot to Kill Hitler and Avert World War II (New York: HarperCollins, 2003), 7.