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

Back in Berlin, Beck and Olbricht, not known for their dashing drive, did nothing except sweat and wait. Because of the uproar caused by the premature launching of Operation Valkyrie the previous week, Olbricht hesitated in activating the plan until he confirmed that Hitler was dead. Better wait, he figured, than risk a dressing-down from Fromm and a negative job review. So he did nothing. He and Beck, who was decked out in his uniform for the first time since his 1938 resignation, were awaiting the call from Gen. Erich Fellgiebel, the coup member who headed the communications at Hitler’s headquarters in Rastenburg. The plan was that Fellgiebel would phone Beck and Olbricht when the bomb went off so they knew that Hitler was dead. Everyone would skate through the coup without actually putting their lives on the line. Everything depended on Hitler dying from the bomb. But the bomb didn’t kill Hitler. The heavy oak table shielded Hitler enough so that he suffered only minor wounds. When he staggered out of the bombed-out building, Fellgiebel spotted him and froze. Rather than call his plot-mates telling them Hitler was alive, he did nothing. He did try to shut down all communications in and out of Rastenburg but succeeded only in tipping himself off to the SS.

Fellgiebel’s reaction proved to be a typical plotmate re­sponse. Now that the time to fish or cut bait had arrived, everyone involved either froze or waffled in their decisions, unwilling to sacrifice themselves and desperate to escape the inevitable backlash by Hitler. The SS quickly took control over Rastenburg’s communications, and Fellgiebel never sent any signal to Berlin that Hitler was alive. In fact, they never heard from him again.

Beck and Olbricht nervously shuffled papers as the after­noon wound down; Stauffenberg winged to Berlin. The plot was frozen in place. Plotmate Wolf Heinrich, Count von Helldorf, head of the Berlin police, anxiously waited for orders to move out. So far it was the armchair coup.

Finally, just before 4:00 p.m., Stauffenberg landed outside Berlin and phoned Olbricht to announce that Hitler was cer­tainly dead. At last, the plotters snapped out of their sweaty lethargy and issued orders. But they had already lost three precious hours while the Nazis didn’t even know there was a coup afoot. The initiative slipped away.

At 4:00 p.m. sharp the coup lumbered to life: Olbricht sent out the Valkyrie orders; the troops in Berlin, commanded by plotmate von Haase, were dispatched to seize key govern­ment buildings; the Berlin police jumped at strategic loca­tions; and Nazi and military leaders throughout the country were ordered to secure themselves and their locations against a revolt by the SS.

At first, things were going well, but troubles soon began to pile up. First, Olbricht went to Fromm in the Bendlerblock army HQ, to enlist him into the plot. Fromm, shocked, absolutely shocked that the coup he was nominally part of had actually started but, not wanting to be caught on the losing side, promised to join only if he received assur­ance that Hitler was dead. At Olbricht’s suggestion, he called Rastenburg. Olbricht was under the illusion that all communication was cut. But Fromm got through immedi­ately and was told by Keitel that Hitler had survived the bombing. Fromm was furious when he found that Valkyrie had been started in his name. The plotters demanded he join them, and he simply drew his pistol and placed them all under arrest. The dim-witted plotters had forgotten to bring their guns. They didn’t even post guards to protect the head­quarters or surround themselves with loyal troops. They had armed themselves only with attitude, their dubious honor, and wishful thinking.

Facing the collapse of the coup and in many ways deter­mining the future course of World War II, cancer-ridden Beck, Olbricht, and the three-fingered assassin Stauffenberg wrestled Fromm to the ground and took away his pistol. They locked him in his office without a snack. Fromm re­ceived the first time-out of the revolution.

Had the plotters drawn up a pre-coup checklist, it proba­bly would have looked something like this:

Stiff Prussian attitude — check

Note pad for dictating orders — check

Indignant look for questioning underlings — check

Loyal soldiers or weapons — Not needed!

I swear by God this holy oath, that I will render to Adolf Hitler, Führer of the German Reich and people, Supreme Com­mander of the Armed Forces, unconditional obedience, and that I am ready, as a brave soldier, to risk my life at any time for this oath.

Few things hindered the army’s resistance more than the oath. Once taken, most officers couldn’t see how they could violate it and remain in the army. To these men the oath was like some pixie dust sprinkled in their eyes. In a way it served as their security blanket. If they ever doubted what to do, they could always fall back on fol­lowing the oath and sleep well, knowing they did their duty.

At about 6:00 p.m., rebel army troops led by Maj. Adolf Remer, not a party to the plot, surrounded the Propaganda Ministry, with its Radio Berlin transmitter. Inside, the parboiled Josef Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda chief, saw them coming and sprang to action. The plotters, trapped in their Prussian traditions of duty and honor, expected Remer to capture the transmitter, as ordered. Goebbels, wise to Hitler being alive, took advantage of the same instinct to follow orders and invited Remer into his office for a little chat. The slick Goebbels convinced Remer that he was unknowingly taking part in a coup. To back up his claim, Goebbels got Hitler on the phone — the plotmates never thought to cut his phone lines — and he told Remer to obey him and not the army. Remer, his common sense overwhelmed once again by the potent mix of German order-taking abilities and Nazi craftiness, now clicked his heels and ordered his troops to protect Goebbels. Fortified by clear orders, Remer turned on the plotmates.

With one slick move Goebbels, a shriveled PR hack in a poorly fitting suit, had flipped the troops actually carrying the guns over to Hitler’s side. A single phone call had outwitted the career army men, some of the cream of the crop of the General Staff. As usual, the plotmates had no idea the ground had shifted under their feet. Their belief was that all orders would be followed; even if the order meant sending an unknown army major to inexplicably arrest a key member of the Nazi high command. This, however, was not their fa­ther’s Germany — it was a whole new world, and the fast-talking, initiative-taking Goebbels ran circles around them. The plotters had stupidly trusted that the officer would ex­plicitly follow their orders. They lost the one great chance to overwhelm the Nazis.

By 7:00 that evening, the troops under Remer marched back to the Bendlerblock and surrounded the plotmates. Inside they were still obliviously issuing orders to their phan­tom revolutionary army. Somehow they never noticed that no one was replying. Had they bothered to investigate, they would have found their communications had been cut an hour earlier. Now, they were isolated.

But they were not alone. True to form, the plotmates had failed to clear the Bendlerblock of pro-Hitler soldiers, and many still roamed the halls. Later that night some of these officers burst into the offices of the plotters and opened fire. It was a one-sided affair, as the plotmates were still unarmed. They were quickly overpowered, and Fromm, now freed from his time-out, confronted them. Remer’s troops flooded into the building.

Fromm now found himself in a tough spot. He was mar­ginally part of this whole affair. If Hitler had been blown up, Fromm would have taken on a key role. But fate had turned him against his former allies. He latched on to the opportu­nity to save himself and issued an immediate death sentence on all four conspirators: Beck, Olbricht, Stauffenberg, and another ally, colonel of the General Staff Mertz von Quirnheim. All but Beck were taken away. Fromm gave Beck a chance for the honorable way out by using a pistol on himself. Beck fired a shot that merely grazed the top of his head. An annoyed Fromm grabbed the gun away, but Beck pleaded for another chance to take his own life. Fromm gave the pistol back to the cancerous general. Still the old soldier, who had spent his entire adult life in the army, failed again to accurately shoot a bullet a few inches. A disgusted Fromm brutally ordered a solider to finish off his old, former boss.