by Mark Felton
Rittmeister Georg Baron von Boeselager, the highly decorated 28-year-old deputy commander of cavalry regiments in Army Group Centre suggested that he kill Hitler using an entire unit of soldiers. Boeselager, a deeply religious man, had come to believe that Hitler was the anti-Christ and that it was his sacred duty to rid the world of this evil man and save Germany from further destruction. He was prepared to break his oath to Hitler for the higher ideal of the Fatherland.
Boeselager formed a cavalry “honour guard” consisting largely of fellow anti-Hitler officers. His plan was to intercept Hitler’s fleet of cars as they drove from the airfield to the field HQ near Smolensk. The cavalry would then overwhelm and destroy Hitler’s FBB and RSD escort and kill the Führer. Generalfeldmarschall von Kluge stymied this plan, objecting to the idea of German soldiers fighting each other, even if the other side were SS. Kluge also believed that Hitler’s SS escort was too strong for Boeselager’s men to overcome, leading to failure, great loss of life and the exposure of the remaining plotters.
The British inadvertently made the third option possible. The Abwehr, German military intelligence whose head, Wilhelm Canaris, was sympathetic to the Resistance, had captured several British Plastic-C time bombs from SOE agents who had been dropped by parachute into France. Sympathetic Abwehr officers passed some of this material on to the anti-Hitler movement.
The bomb was ingenious, but also so simple as to be virtually foolproof. An acid fuse contained within a slim copper tube was inserted into a slab of plastic explosive. Using a pair of pliers the assassin simply crushed the fuse, releasing the acid inside which slowly ate away at a wire. When the wire snapped it released a spring-driven hammer that struck a small percussion cap, setting off the explosive charge. The bomb was silent as there were no parts to make a telltale ticking sound, and the chemical fuse did not give off any smell as it burned. Therefore, it was virtually undetectable. The length of fuse determined the time delay before detonation, and for the attack on Hitler’s aircraft Treskow selected a 30-minute fuse. All going well, Hitler’s aircraft would be destroyed somewhere over Minsk. The loss of the Condor so close to the front could have been attributed to Soviet fighters, giving the conspirators more justification in taking immediate control of the Reich in the event of the Führer’s sudden death.
Disguised as a parcel containing two bottles of cognac, Oberstleutnant Brandt unknowingly took Treskow’s bomb aboard Hitler’s Condor. He intended to hand the package to Generalmajor Stieff on arrival in Germany. Stieff, though sympathetic to the resistance, was not yet an active plotter. But he was Treskow’s friend, so sending him the cognac as payment for a lost bet looked perfectly normal. Ironically, Hitler disliked the 42-year-old Stieff greatly. A small man, Hitler called him a ‘poisonous little dwarf’. Unsurprisingly, in light of his commander-in-chief’s insults Stieff soon became more active in the plot to kill the Führer.
The 13 March 1943 should have been Hitler’s last day alive. Brandt handed the parcel to the plane’s steward, who placed it with the other luggage in the unheated cargo hold. This was in direct contravention of the accepted rules for loading Hitler’s aircraft. All servicing, repairs and loading of luggage at any airport could only be done in the presence of the flight engineer or another member of the crew, as well as in the presence of RSD guards.8 Brandt knew this full well, but as with many security procedures the people most likely to break them were those who lived within this restrictive arena day in, day out. Perhaps it was a case of familiarity breeding contempt.
As the two Condors taxied down the grass strip and lifted off into the clear blue sky Treskow and Schlabrendorff exchanged a look before settling into a radio truck to listen for news of the Führer’s demise. In thirty minutes, with Hitler dead, they would institute a takeover plan. General der Infanterie Friedrich Olbricht in Berlin would order the Replacement Army to seize the capital as well as Vienna and Munich.
The Replacement Army was a sprawling organisation which provided reinforcements and replacements to the field army. Its garrison units would be used to overcome any SS resistance to the army high command seizing control, though whether individual generals and their subordinates would obey the orders of Olbricht and the other plotters is open to question. Many army officers were devoted Nazis, and the Waffen-SS and Gestapo very strong. The plan was for a new anti-Nazi government to be placed in charge and the senior Nazis either arrested or shot. A negotiated peace could then be made with the Allies and the war ended before Germany was militarily defeated and occupied.
At the airfield outside Smolensk the expected news that Hitler’s plane had crashed did not arrive. Something had gone terribly awry. ‘Treskow and I,’ wrote Schlabrendorff, ‘judging from our own experiments, were convinced that the amount of explosive in the bomb would be sufficient to tear the entire plane apart, or at least to make a fatal crash inevitable.’9 No word came for two agonizing hours. The two men could not understand what had happened – the plan and the equipment appeared to be foolproof.
Treskow was suddenly informed by phone that the Führer’s plane had landed safely at Rastenburg airfield. It was almost unbelievable. Schlabrendorff hurriedly took the next plane to Germany and retrieved the parcel before Brandt became aware of its true contents. When the bomb was examined it was found that it had actually worked perfectly. The acid had released the spring hammer and struck the percussion cap. But because of the intense cold inside the unheated cargo hold, the percussion cap had failed to detonate and the bomb had not exploded. Hitler had been saved from certain death once again by the tiniest of flaws, one conspirator commenting bitterly that he appeared to have a ‘guardian devil.’10 If the parcel had been carried inside the heated passenger cabin everyone onboard the plane would have perished. The explosives were returned to storage until they could be used for another attempt to kill Hitler.
The plot to destroy Hitler’s aircraft was never discovered, and so the Führer continued to travel by air, oblivious of the potential dangers. But air travel was becoming risky for reasons other than the aristocratic plotters within the Wehrmacht. American B-17 Flying Fortresses had first bombed Berlin on 6 March 1944, followed by repeated American and British raids. When the promoted SS-Brigadeführer Baur, Hitler’s personal pilot, flew the Führer from Rastenburg to Salzburg in early March, so Hitler could visit the Berghof, he had to fully coordinate the flight plan with the Luftwaffe air control centre to make sure that they did not encounter Allied aircraft or German fighters and flak en route.11
The same precautions were taken in June when Hitler received word of the Normandy landings whilst he was at the Berghof. Deciding to take battlefield command, Hitler was flown on 17 June from Salzburg to Metz and then driven in a heavily armed convoy of cars to his headquarters at Margival, near Soissons.
In early July 1944 Hitler, who had returned to Berchtesgaden, was flown to Rastenburg in order to coordinate efforts to stop the massive Soviet spring offensive that had filleted Army Group Centre. It was at the Wolf’s Lair on 20 July that the German resistance struck again, coming closest to killing Hitler (See Chapter 9).
Following the July Plot, the German war situation entered terminal decline. Hitler’s special transport squadron started to run short of spare parts for their planes. In the wake of the bomb at Rastenburg, security was so tight that even conducting routine maintenance on the flight’s aircraft became difficult. Hitler’s Condors were closely guarded twenty-four hours a day by the FBB and closely inspected for sabotage before every flight. The chances of smuggling a bomb aboard in a similar fashion to that at Smolensk in 1943 had decreased to virtually zero, as every item of luggage and cargo was minutely examined. The only possibility would have been someone wearing a suicide vest, and this was never considered, largely because the explosives and detonator could not be modified to be carried or let alone worn in such a way without attracting attention.
Due to the pressing war situation, most Nazi leaders had lost their personal aircraft, with the ex
ception of Albert Speer and Heinrich Himmler. Speer, Minister for Armaments and War Production, needed to constantly visit factories, secret missile and aircraft projects and the regional Gauleiters, and could only do so efficiently by air. Himmler remained the second most powerful man in Germany, controlling the vast SS empire. Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel, Head of the OKW, was permitted a Junkers Ju 52/3m BDzDH as the Reich’s senior military officer.
In September 1944 Hitler was flown from Rastenburg to bomb-damaged Berlin for an important conference, the planning for Operation ‘Watch on the Rhine’, more commonly known to history as The Battle of the Bulge. But at the same time the Wolf’s Lair was threatened, as the Soviet juggernaut continued its inexorable advance into East Prussia. Baur expected Soviet air attacks on the airfield at Rastenburg, and dispersed the F.d.F aircraft and supplies between the main airfield and a local airport. Knowing full well that an evacuation was inevitable, Baur obtained use of the large warehouse at an airfield in Pöcking, between Braunau and Passau in Bavaria, where he could relocate the F.d.F.12
In early December 1944 fifty personnel, spares, tools and engines were on their way to Pöcking by train when they were involved in a collision with another locomotive in western Poland. Seventeen members of the F.d.F were killed, its highest losses during the war.
Braun decided to disperse Hitler’s squadron around Berlin. Small detachments were sent to carefully camouflaged airfields at Schoenwalde, Rangsdorf, Rechlin and Finsterwalde. Realising that Hitler must shortly move to Berlin, Baur flew Condor TKzCV to an airfield near Berlin. This aircraft would be kept ready for immediate use by the Führer should he need to flee the capital. In the event, Hitler chose to die in Berlin, but the F.d.F. remained a vital component in the hectic last few weeks of the war.
Chapter 6
Eagle’s Nest
‘Here my ideas mature.’
Adolf Hitler at the Berghof, 1938
The two men lay concealed beneath damp foliage at the edge of a wood. A light drizzle had been falling since before dawn, when the pair had silently hiked to their current position. For several hours the pair, dressed in German mountain troop uniforms that included camouflaged smocks, had carefully negotiated several tall wire fences and guard posts deep in the woods and skirted alpine meadows and farm houses, until they had settled into their hide. All around them great mountains soared up on the German-Austrian border. Pretty alpine chalets were dotted across the valleys above the town of Berchtesgaden.
The men waited patiently, laying still, their heads covered with green mosquito nets for added camouflage. One constantly scanned the terrain ahead with black binoculars, watching a path that snaked down through the valley, skirting another patch of woodland, towards a teahouse perched high on a rocky promontory. All was quiet. The other man had a Mauser 98K rifle propped against his right cheek, one eye peering through the weapon’s telescopic sight. Their bodies ached from cramp and from the chilly mountain air, but they did not move or speak – they waited silently for their quarry to appear. The spotter glanced at his wristwatch for the thousandth time – 10.07am. If the great man were coming today he would be coming very soon.
Suddenly, they spotted movement – a small group of figures appeared from around a corner, strolling nonchalantly along the path. At the head of the group walked Hitler, dressed in a dark woolen suit and a grey fedora hat, holding a carved wooden walking stick in his right hand. Behind him walked his press chief, two female secretaries and an SS adjutant in field grey. There were no guards close to their leader, just as Hitler wanted it.
Taking careful aim, the sniper placed his scope’s crosshairs over the Führer’s bobbing head, settling his rifle into his target’s walking rhythm. His finger settled on the trigger while the spotter scanned the surrounding countryside for guards. ‘We’re clear,’ whispered the spotter, ‘go for the shot.’ The sniper slowed his breathing, his eye never leaving the famous head that loomed large in his scope, his finger gently squeezing the trigger as he exhaled one long breath. The rifle butt slammed into his shoulder, and simultaneously Hitler’s head was slammed violently back, a spray of blood and brains splattering his walking companions. As the high velocity rifle shot echoed off the surrounding mountains, the only sound to reach the two assassins was of screaming women. Hitler was dead.
Although the above never happened, it was thought about at the highest levels of the British government and green lighted by no less a figure than Winston Churchill. Special Operations Executive, set up in 1940 to assist the European resistance movements and sow mayhem behind the German lines, began seriously to consider assassinating Hitler after D-Day. Several German soldiers fell into British hands who had previously guarded Hitler, and one, surnamed Dieser, was able to elaborate on both Hitler’s routine at the Berghof and his guarding arrangements. But killing Hitler at his private home was to prove a very difficult event to plan for, and Major H.B. Court, the SOE officer responsible for compiling a feasibility study, had his work cut out.1
Berchtesgaden is a pretty little Bavarian town located a stone’s throw from the Austrian border. During the Nazi period the town was reserved for the most loyal party members and was, in effect, a private Nazi sanctuary high in the mountains. Around 30km south of Salzburg in Austria, Berchtesgaden is overlooked by Germany’s third highest mountain, the 2,713m Watzmann and the nearby Kehlstein Mountain (1,835m) affording breathtaking and beautiful views across wooded and pastoral valleys set against a backdrop of high, craggy granite mountains. Hitler was drawn to this landscape and would spend a large part of his dictatorship looking down on Berchtesgaden and its adoring citizens from his own mountaintop perch on the Obersalzberg.
Hitler had first visited the area in the early 1920s. He would stay at inns in the tiny village of Salzberg near Berchtesgaden. Eventually he rented and then purchased a house of his own that came to be called the Berghof. This was Hitler’s private home, and he was intensely proud of having purchased and extended the property courtesy of the royalties from his book Mein Kampf.
The Berghof, where before the war Hitler would spend six months of every year, held a special place in his heart. ‘Throughout the early years during the many periods he spent on the Obersalzberg, Hitler enjoyed an almost carefree lifestyle. Here, in peace and comfort, he could escape the daily grind of political administration and public duties, which he disliked.’2
The Berghof represented Hitler’s character in bricks, mortar and wood, its interior design indicative of his lower middle class and essentially conservative outlook. It was where Hitler felt most comfortable, and the surrounding area soon became a private gated community for his closest followers who were permitted to construct their own chalet-style houses, usually close copies of the Berghof. It was also Hitler’s rest and relaxation area, where he could walk through alpine meadows, pine forests and along mountain tracks virtually unguarded, visit specially constructed tea houses perched atop precipitous mountains, entertain world leaders, artists, diplomats and musicians and, latterly, run the war. The Berghof fed into Hitler’s own self-image. ‘In these surroundings, Adolf Hitler projected an image of someone who loved nature and the great outdoors, a man of the people who enjoyed a simple and informal lifestyle.’3
From his lofty perch Hitler was often seen deep in thought on the Berghof’s sun terrace, or in conversation with his henchmen, chief among them Heinrich Himmler, Hermann Göring, Albert Speer and Martin Bormann. The Berghof was also the only place where Hitler freely and publicly socialised with his long-term mistress, Eva Braun. At the Berghof he was shielded from the gaze of his people, and he could be himself.
Recently declassified documents have shed further light onto Hitler’s private life at the Berghof, and his vast and complex security and travel arrangements. The Obersalzberg was the one place that Hitler regularly visited where the security, though tight, was not airtight. The entire Hitler complex was simply too large and geographically challenging to guard to the same degree of thorough
ness as at Hitler’s other headquarters, notably the Reich Chancellery and the Wolf’s Lair. And Hitler’s own behaviour at the Obersalzberg actually increased the risk to his personal security. Hitler’s aversion to being publicly guarded was particularly acute at this, his most private home, leading to more than one plan to kill him.
Hitler’s mountaintop complex was approached from Berchtesgaden, 3km further down the mountain, by a single well-guarded road. The complex was largely the creation of Martin Bormann, whom the SS garrison soon dubbed ‘The Lord of the Obersalzberg’. Over time, Bormann gradually removed local farmers and hotel owners from the area to create a carefully controlled security zone, in effect creating a private village for Hitler, built around the Berghof.
In the early days, security around the Führer’s house was considerably more relaxed than during the war years. Hitler and his entourage often used public paths through the nearby forests, normally accompanied by a few members of his inner circle and three or four RSD officers. He would take tea at the Mooslahnerkopf, a smaller mountain peak, and then be driven home in a low-key Volkswagen, a marked departure from the usual giant armoured Mercedes. Naturally, these excursions often brought him face-to-face with his adoring public. Until 1937 up to 2,000 people a day gathered at the security point near the Berghof to see Hitler as he left on a regular afternoon stroll between 3.00 and 4.00pm. As he passed by the adoring throng he might say a few words, perhaps tousle the hair of a suitably blond child, and photographers were on hand to capture everything for posterity. But the risks to his personal security were obvious should a member of the crowd have been bent on assassination.
