Ed Strosser - Stupid Wars - A Citizen's Guide to Botched Putsches, Failed Coups, Inane Invasions, and Ridiculous Revolutions

A few officers, however, joined forces in a secret society designed to overthrow Hitler, the Schwarze Kapelle — the “Black Orchestra.” Over the next few years, the Schwarze Kapelle was led by General Beck, who plotted from his armchair while suffering from cancer in his suburban Berlin home. Rear Admiral Wilhelm Franz Canaris, the crafty head of the army’s intelligence wing, the Abwehr , was his co-plotter. Twice the conspirators came mighty close to achieving their coup against Hitler. First, in 1938, as Ger­many made plans to attack Czechoslovakia, the plotters stationed troops to pounce on the SS and Gestapo, and seize power from Hitler. All they waited for was some sign that Great Britain would oppose Hitler’s takeover. As negotia­tions strung out, the plotters’ hopes rose and fell. At one point they were sure the British would reject any agreement and fight for the Czechs. Then British prime minister Nev­ille Chamberlain caved in to Hitler’s demands at Munich and agreed to carve up Czechoslovakia, dashing their hopes as well as teeing up World War II very nicely for Adolf. The plans were burned.

In March 1943 the plotmates struck again. Two bombs, disguised as liquor, were placed on Hitler’s private airplane by giving them to one of Hitler’s unwitting aides, Col. Heinz Brandt. The fuses were set, and the plotters waited in Berlin for word of the führer’s death. But the bomb failed to detonate: the explosives had frozen at the plane’s high altitude. One of the plotters was then forced to retrieve the frozen bomb from Brandt’s office the next day where Brandt joshingly tossed the package in the air at the plotmate who ner­vously hustled it away. Hitler’s amazing luck had held again. The plotmates were stymied yet again and retreated to wait for their next chance.

But the Schwarze Kapelle did not give up. Plot after plot was either canceled or failed through some last-second change in plans by Hitler. In 1943 the group welcomed Col. Claus von Stauffenberg as a new leader. Despite his valiant efforts to kill Allied soldiers, he held deep personal opposi­tion to the Nazis. He was disgusted at Nazi war crimes, which offended his dainty sense of Prussian honor and the deeply held belief that his country (and the world) should be ruled by Prussians like himself, not some poorly mustachioed watercolorist and ex-corporal from Austria.

Throughout the fall of 1943 and spring of 1944 the plotters met in their regular how-do-we-blow-up-Hitler-and-get-away-with-it meetings but failed to come up with any new juicy ideas. In the late spring of 1944, in a stroke of luck, Stauffenberg was given a job that provided him with rare direct access to Hitler.

The plotters had two problems, however. Like a rich man without any pocket change, it was oddly difficult for German army leaders to obtain explosives during the biggest war in history. But they quickly overcame this by fashioning the bomb from captured British explosives. The second issue was a lack of cheerful volunteers, other than Stauffenberg. No one else had the courage and the access to plant the actual bomb. That meant Stauffenberg would be absent from the plot’s center in Berlin during the crucial coup-making hours. Leadership would fall to his colleagues, who lacked the pas­sion and determination to complete the mission that Stauffenberg held. But with no other viable options, the plot was set in motion.

Twice that July, Stauffenberg showed up at a weekly group meeting with Hitler in his Russian front headquarters, pack­ing a plastic explosive in his briefcase, right next to his charts of the phantom divisions that fed Hitler’s fantasy of turning back the Russians. But both times Stauffenberg changed his mind at the last second. For a while the plotmates had agreed they would only detonate the bomb if it would kill both Hitler and SS leader Himmler. But their bad luck held, and Himmler stopped attending these meetings, so they agreed to settle for just Adolf. On July 13, Stauffenberg set out for his third meeting with Hitler at his Prussian HQ with the bomb jammed into his briefcase. This time he was determined to light the fuse.

Back in Berlin, confident that finally Hitler would be blown up, Gen. Friedrich Olbricht, deputy commander of the replacement army and a key plotmate of Beck and Stauffenberg, ordered the start of Operation Valkyrie, which was the army’s standing plan to seize control of the country in cases an internal uprisings. The plotters would use the cover of Valkyrie to seize the government, take out the SS, and neutralize the vast Nazi apparatus. Then they would be in position to open peace talks with the Allies. Orders were sent out to army units throughout the country to be on the alert for further instructions. Soldiers maneuvered into posi­tion around Berlin to seize Gestapo and SS positions. But the overly cautious Stauffenberg got cold feet when Himmler failed to attend the meeting, even though the plotmates had agreed to go ahead with the plan anyway. He nervously called his colleagues Beck and Olbricht in Berlin, and they agreed to cancel the plans. Olbricht hastily withdrew the Valkyrie orders, but when Fromm found out that the orders had already been issued, he laid into Olbricht.

The following week, Stauffenberg was called to attend an­other meeting with Hitler. For the fourth time he packed his bomb.

The morning of July 20, Stauffenberg took a flight to Hit­ler’s HQ retreat at Rastenburg, in the forest of East Prussia, the ancestral home of the German army. He traveled with his aide, Lt. Werner von Haeften. In a shocking turn of events, the plotters prepared a backup plan: Both men carried bombs in their briefcases; in case one briefcase was lost, the show could go on.

The plan was simple. Perhaps too simple. Stauffenberg would kill Hitler with the bomb. A coup member in charge of communication at Rastenburg would cut all communications with the outside world. Troops and police loyal to the coup would seize key government centers in Berlin and other German cities, and the army in France would round up SS and Gestapo members, execute them, and open talks with the Allies. What could go wrong? It wasn’t quite the scale of a Russian invasion but the plotters — all colonels and generals — thought they could handle it.

To prepare for the meeting with Hitler, Stauffenberg and Haeften ducked into an empty office to light the fuse. A get­away car and speedy airplane waited to whisk them back to Berlin. But Stauffenberg, with only three fingers, had trouble setting the time-delay fuse. Outside the office, an impatient General Keitel, Hitler’s pet general, sent in a soldier to rush the two along. While Stauffenberg did manage to set his bomb, he was unable to insert Haeften’s backup bomb into his briefcase.

Stauffenberg entered the meeting and took his place next to Hitler at a large wooden table covered with maps. He placed his explosive luggage as close to Hitler as possible. But unlike prior meetings that took place in a concrete bunker, this one was in a lightly built wooden hut with open windows, which would reduce the impact of any blast. After a minute or two, just before 1:00 p.m., Stauffenberg excused himself from the meeting and dashed to his waiting car with Haeften, trying to not look like a guy about to kill Hitler and become outlaw number one in Europe.

But back in the hut, the same stoogy Colonel Brandt, who had unwittingly carried the liquor bombs onto Hitler’s plane, became annoyed by Stauffenberg’s briefcase blocking his way. He moved it to the other side of the solid wood table support, away from Hitler. For his trouble, Brandt was blown up when the bomb exploded moments later. In their getaway car, the three-fingered assassin and Haeften saw the explosion and concluded the overdue deed was finally done. Despite being stopped by SS guards manning the gate, they talked their way out and sped toward the airport. Along the way, Haeften ditched his briefcase with his bomb.