Speer and Goebbels then arranged to send Hitler memoranda they had previously worked out together.58 Whereas Speer in his memoranda of 12 and 20 July put forward a detached, rational case on the basis of statistics,59 Goebbels in his memorandum of 18 July adopted the tone of an old comrade and pointed out the psychological repercussions that might arise among the masses from too great an inequality in the distribution of the burdens of the war.60
In essence Speer and Goebbels were in agreement about the necessary measures: firms and businesses had to be shut down, women had to be mobilized, staff in desk jobs had to be reduced, the army’s administration at home had to be sifted for extra manpower, and public life in general had to be purged of activities more appropriate to peacetime. These tasks should be carried out by somebody who enjoyed Hitler’s implicit trust and who should be equipped with extraordinary powers. No name was mentioned, but it was understood that Goebbels should be chosen, for the previous year he had spoken so strongly in favour of ‘total war’.
42
20 July 1944
The successful Allied landing in the West, the rapid advance of the Red Army in the East, and the devastating enemy bombing raids combined to make the Third Reich’s military situation ultimately hopeless. The fact that Hitler’s regime nevertheless managed to keep going and continue the war, despite great loss of life and the extensive destruction of German towns and cities, for almost another full year, to the point of total defeat, poses the key problem in the historiography of the final phase of the Third Reich. For it confronts us with the historical reality of a dictatorship that has overtaxed its strength in a war of conquest and is heading towards destruction finally summoning resources from the ranks of its own leadership and from the elites to fend off its downfall, even as that downfall becomes increasingly inevitable.
Yet these resources are not evident among the actual leaders of the regime, the top functionaries working directly under Hitler. There is, admittedly, plentiful evidence to show that many of these men were clear-sighted enough to recognize that total defeat was approaching, and, in confidence, they discussed this prospect and also the possibilities of ending the war by political means. Goebbels and Speer are examples of individuals who tried to extract more detailed information from Hitler about his intentions for the future conduct of the war. Yet at no point did the leadership – ministers, Reichsleiters, Gauleiters, or powerful special commissioners – even consider confronting Hitler as a united group to demand a binding statement concerning his plans to continue the war and if necessary to compel him to confront the implications of the defeat that was looming. To remove or topple the dictator was beyond their mental horizons.
One reason for the passivity shown by the leaders of the regime as they approached inevitable defeat without developing any kind of counter-initiative may be found in the leadership structure of the Nazi dictatorship. The apparatus of power was fragmented, and below the ‘Führer’, who was responsible for all policy matters in the regime but was screened off behind a system of ‘chancelleries’, collective decision-making had ceased. It was also an apparatus of power in which the position of individual top functionaries depended on the degree of trust Hitler placed in them, a rare commodity for which they competed fiercely. These were just about the worst conditions for a conspiracy.
Another factor was that the political caste that made up the elite in the National Socialist state lacked any collective vision of a future after Hitler. They saw clearly that any political end to the war, even if they managed to avoid the unconditional surrender demanded by the Allies, could be achieved only at the price of dismantling the Nazi system. This would bring with it the predictable consequences of loss of power and punishment of the crimes against humanity for which they shared responsibility. This prospect made the top functionaries incapable as a collective of initiating any process of self-liquidation or transformation of the system. Their best chance of survival was as individuals.
Yet the regime’s inability to avert its own downfall cannot be explained primarily by structures or the mentality of its leaders. Hitler himself was a crucial factor. For the structure of the regime, in which all power was concentrated in the dictator himself, was above all the result of the deliberate policy of the man who created it with the express purpose of achieving his own aims. Hitler was not the tool of structures and circumstances that inexorably led to self-destruction and total defeat; rather, the fact that people endured and fought on to the point of destruction was fundamentally the product of his political will.1
There was, however, resistance to Hitler’s regime throughout the Nazi dictatorship in every political camp and right across German society. The motivation behind it varied and it manifested itself in very different ways. It included critical comments about the regime and non-conformist behaviour, the creation of underground organizations and the illegal dissemination of information, protest and non-compliance, sabotage and espionage, not to mention the many attempts that were made on Hitler’s life. They could not, however, halt his progress.
During the final phase of the war, however, a serious threat was posed to his regime by resistance occurring below the highest level of leadership and organized by precisely those pillars of the regime who up to that point had served Hitler faithfully and shared responsibility with him, and who as partners in his power had access to resources and connections to match. Here was a series of figures who were not inclined to await their own downfall passively but who instead attempted to avert it by means of a palace revolution, a coup d’état. This resistance was rooted above all in the conservative elites, and I examine it here as part of Hitler’s biography in order to show how his life was seriously threatened numerous times and how significant efforts were made to bring to an end the regime he had instigated.
During the years 1938 to 1940 plans had already been laid for a coup but Hitler’s political and military successes had made the men in question abandon their resistance as hopeless for the time being. When the turn in the war came in the winter of 1942/43 they joined forces again to oppose the dangerous course Hitler was pursuing. The conservative politicians and high-ranking, in some cases retired, military men who had emerged as the principal resisters between 1938 and 1940 were now joined by a group of younger officers, who for the most part had seen active service at the front and who had frequently excelled there. These men now deliberately took a leading role in organizing a coup, after a whole series of generals had shown themselves too hesitant for this task. They had links, in particular via the Kreisau Circle (of which more later), with further civilian opposition groups, particularly within the two Churches, and even with individual Social Democrats and trade unionists who could still act, even though their organizations had been smashed. In addition, there were Nazis such as Count Wolf-Heinrich von Helldorff, the Berlin police chief, and Arthur Nebe, chief of the criminal police, who were developing an increasingly critical attitude to the regime’s policies.
These disparate groups were united by the idea that the virtually inevitable military defeat must be prevented by a change of regime. The replacement of Hitler (however that might occur), the removal of the Nazi leadership, and the dissolution of the Party became indispensable preconditions for a political end to the war. This would salvage the essential structures of the German state and, significantly, preserve as far as possible the position of the traditional elites. The only organization capable of creating these preconditions was the German army. From the perspective of members of the traditional elites in the officer corps and in the civil service (and these included many members of the aristocracy), getting rid of Hitler and his regime became increasingly a matter of the survival of their class. Having forged a close alliance with the Nazis in 1933, they were now forced to make a radical break to avoid going down collectively and finally along with the regime.
Any discussion of resistance to Hitler and his motives therefore also means exploring the collective self-interest of the old ruling elit
es, which now consisted in distancing themselves clearly from Nazism and defeating it, in order to have some chance of taking on a distinct and independent role in the post-war order. This collective interest should be borne in mind when the individual motives of men and women in the German resistance are examined.
The most important information we have about the backgrounds of the members of the 1943/44 conspiracy against Hitler comes primarily from the post-war recollections of surviving conspirators and from those close to them. In the immediate post-war years the survivors and their families were forced to defend themselves against the charge of ‘treason’, until the history of the conspiracy against Hitler came more and more to be reinterpreted as the moral prehistory of the Federal Republic and ‘resistance’ was positively elevated to the status of a myth. It was unavoidable that in the course of this decades-long process the resistance fighters and their motives underwent a moral transfiguration and these men and women were made into heroes. This transfiguration, however, in no way rules out our seeing the history of the resistance as a response to concern among a section of the conservative elites to set a marker before the war ended and to distance themselves clearly from Hitler and his regime. Without 20 July the moral corruption of the traditional ruling elites, the aristocracy in particular, at the end of the Third Reich would have been total.
As we have seen, the plan to remove Hitler went back as far as the Sudeten crisis, when a conspiracy arose to prevent war against the western powers. This group of conspirators broke up after Hitler’s foreign policy success in Munich. Some life was breathed into the conspiracy again in the summer of 1939, but in the wake of the intensive preparations for war against Poland it was effectively over. The crimes of the SS in Poland in 1939/40 provoked vehement protests among the generals of which criticism of the regime was a distinct element, but the success of the war in the West meant that for the time being the idea of getting rid of Hitler had disappeared.2
It was the course of the war against the Soviet Union, in particular after the rapid German advance had been halted in 1941, that gave new impetus to resistance among the military. Colonel Henning von Tresckow, the 1st general staff officer of Army Group Centre, who even in the pre-war years had become an implacable opponent of Hitler’s policies, took on a key role. Since the start of 1941, when preparations for the war against the Soviet Union had become apparent, he had been searching out like-minded men among his staff so that he could create a hub for preparations for a coup.3 A second cell of military resistance was forming in the Abwehr, the military intelligence service, around its chief of staff Hans Oster and his colleague Hans von Dohnanyi.4 Around the New Year of 1941/42 there was intensive contact between Oster and Friedrich Olbricht, the head of the General Army Office in the Army High Command, an opponent of National Socialism, who was to become the main organizer of the coup.5
Since the end of 1941 and beginning of 1942 these groups and individuals had been increasing contacts with each other and also with the leading members of the conservative resistance. Ludwig Beck, the former chief of the general staff, who resigned in 1938 in protest over Hitler’s policies, belonged to this group; other members included the former Mayor of Leipzig, Carl Goerdeler, who had also resigned, the former German ambassador in Rome, Ulrich von Hassell, who lost his job in the course of the personnel reshuffle early in 1938, the Prussian finance minister Johannes Popitz, and the Berlin Professor of Politics and Economics Jens Jessen. In addition, these groups had many links to the ‘Kreisau Circle’, a fluid grouping around Counts Helmuth James von Moltke and Peter Yorck von Wartenburg that had been meeting since 1940 on Moltke’s estate in Silesia. Influenced by shared experiences in the youth movement and motivated by ideals such as humanitarianism, social justice, and international reconciliation, Christians of both confessions, Christian socialists, Social Democrats, and others came together to share ideas on how to develop a programme of renewal for Germany after the fall of the dictatorship. Precisely because of its heterogeneous composition the circle had multiple and close links with other opposition and resistance groups.6
At the end of March 1942 Beck, Hassell, Oster, Olbricht, Goerdeler, and Jessen had a meeting at which they decided that Beck should coordinate planning for the coup. Since July Beck and Goerdeler had been in constant contact with the group of conspirators in Army Group Centre via Tresckow’s ADC, First Lieutenant Fabian von Schlabrendorff. Schlabrendorff also maintained contact with the group around Oster and with other resistance cells. At a meeting in Berlin around the New Year of 1943, Olbricht made a commitment to Tresckow and Goerdeler to lay the groundwork for a coup in Berlin, Vienna, Cologne, and Munich with support from the Reserve Army.7 Olbricht therefore worked out detailed plans to topple the regime, which were ready by the end of March. They were primarily based on the official ‘Valkyrie’ plans, which, in the case of a domestic uprising, provided for the Reserve Army to take over all the key nerve centres in the country and in doing so to override the Party and the SS if necessary.8
The coup was to be set in motion by the assassination of Hitler. In 1943 several promising attempts were made:
• In February Hubert Lanz, general of the mountain troops and commander of the army battalion named after him, developed a plan, along with his chief of staff Major General Hans Speidel and the commander of a tank regiment, Colonel Count von Strachwitz, to arrest Hitler when he visited the headquarters of Army Group Centre in Poltawa and, if his entourage should prevent this, to shoot him. Hitler’s visit to Army Group B was, however, cancelled at short notice.9
• During a visit by Admiral Canaris, head of the Abwehr, to the headquarters of Army Group Centre in Smolensk Hans von Dohnanyi, an Abwehr officer who was accompanying him, discussed details of a possible attempt with Tresckow. On 13 March Hitler visited the headquarters of the army group, but the original plan to shoot him there was dropped, possibly out of consideration for Kluge, the commander of the army group, who was sympathetic to the conspirators and whose life they did not wish to endanger.10
• Instead, Tresckow, as described earlier, attempted to bring down the ‘Führer’s’ plane on its flight home by smuggling a bomb on board. This was, however, unsuccessful.
• A good week later, as also mentioned above, during an inspection of captured weaponry in the Zeughaus in Berlin and following the ceremonies marking Heroes’ Memorial Day, Colonel Gersdorff attempted to blow himself and Hitler up. This attempt was also unsuccessful.
As the year went on, the conspiracy suffered some damaging setbacks. The Gestapo began to investigate members of the conspiracy and those who knew about it, a group that was becoming ever more numerous and widespread. The Reich Security Head Office (RSHA) uncovered foreign exchange transactions by means of which the Abwehr had enabled a group of Jews to flee to Switzerland and had given them economic support. It now took wide-ranging measures against the Abwehr, finally managing to incorporate it in February 1944 and thereby smashing this group of conspirators. In the autumn of 1943 Tresckow was transferred out of his key position in Army Group Centre. Attempts to persuade front-line generals to support the plan were fruitless. The commander-in-chief of Army Group South, Manstein, although worked on persistently by various members of the resistance, refused to take part in a coup, while Kluge, the commander-in-chief of Army Group Centre, knew Tresckow’s views, but although supportive in principle was not able to make up his mind to act.11
Some prospect of change began to emerge with the arrival on 1 October 1943 of Colonel Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg as chief of staff in the General Army Office under Olbricht. Stauffenberg, who had lost his left eye, right hand, and two fingers on his left hand in the Africa campaign, had developed into an implacable opponent of Hitler and was dynamic enough to become the force that drove the conspiracy forwards. He had a great many contacts among the civilian members of the resistance, including in particular former trade union leaders and Social Democrats, and kept in close touch with von Moltke and the Kreisau
Circle.12 He succeeded in building a network of close associates in the various military areas, whose task it would be to make sure that the Valkyrie instructions issued by operational headquarters were actually followed. There were also operational centres for conspirators in Vienna and Paris, and, in addition to these military liaison individuals, there was a network of designated political agents in the military areas.13
Stauffenberg then set about finding a potential assassin among those with access to Hitler. He identified a series of suitable candidates, but although preparations, often concrete preparations, were made to kill Hitler, for a variety of reasons they all came to nothing. The conspirators inevitably began to feel that Hitler had a sixth sense for when he was personally in danger and intuitively avoided critical situations.14 Opportunities to carry out the assassination suddenly increased, however, when Stauffenberg was appointed chief of staff to the commander of the Reserve Army, which gave him access himself to military briefings with Hitler.
On 6 July Stauffenberg was at the Berghof, attending two briefings with Hitler on forming army units. Stauffenberg had a parcel bomb with him but for unexplained reasons he did not detonate it.15 On 11 July he again flew to Berchtesgaden and took part in the morning briefing. Again, he had the explosives with him but again did not detonate the bomb, possibly because Himmler was not present.16 On 15 July he again flew to the morning briefing, this time at headquarters, which had in the meantime been moved back to East Prussia. Once again Stauffenberg was carrying explosives, yet evidently found no opportunity to set the detonator in time. Around midday he telephoned Berlin, presumably to clarify whether he should go ahead with the assassination attempt, even though Himmler was not present. After some deliberation he was advised not to; even if Stauffenberg had still been determined to act, so much time had been lost that the opportunity had passed. That morning in Berlin a number of Valkyrie units had already been alerted; when the attempted assassination was called off they were told this had been an ‘exercise’.17
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