Joachim Fest - Plotting Hitler's Death

Blomberg himself was not at all troubled by such doubts, but the Reichswehr would never recover from the blow he delivered, with no outside prompting, by the introduction of the oath. Henceforth the army would be in Hitler’s pocket. Blomberg and the military com­manders, feeling quite pleased with what they thought they had accomplished, namely boosting the army to a position of unquestion­able power, happily set about trying to extend their newfound influ­ence to the political realm as well. They urged an initially hesitant Hitler to forge ahead with rearmament and to accelerate his plans for the army. When concerns were voiced in the Foreign Office that such a policy would heighten diplomatic tensions, the officers managed to dispel them. Their success in doing so may have encouraged them in their erroneous belief that the army would indeed play a major role on the political stage. Shortly thereafter, brushing aside economic objections raised by the president of the Reichsbank, Hjalmar Schacht, the army succeeded, this time with Hitler’s help, in estab­lishing the fundamental primacy of military objectives.

Anticipating Germany’s return to military might, though it was far from being realized, Hitler decided in early March 1936 to reoccupy the demilitarized zone in the Rhineland-another in the series of bold moves with which he continued to surprise the world. After the introduction of universal conscription one year earlier, the occupation of the Rhineland represented the final step in eliminating the shackles imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. This step, like all the preceding ones, was accompanied by much reassuring talk. However, when the Council of the League of Nations passed a resolution for­bidding Germany to construct military fortresses in this zone, Hitler tartly replied that he had not restored German sovereignty in order to countenance immediate limitations on it. For the first time since the defeat of 1918, Germans began to feel a swelling sense of national self-respect; the moment had come to put an end to the era when the whole world could address Germany in the tone of the conqueror. The seizure of the Rhineland was accomplished with only a handful of semitrained units facing vastly superior French forces, and Hitler concluded from this startling victory that, in the words of André François-Poncet, the French ambassador to Berlin, he “could do anything he wanted and lay down the law in Europe.” 24

It was, above all, the senior officers who found the hopes they had placed in Hitler vindicated. They forged determinedly ahead with rearmament despite mounting concerns about the domestic reserva­tions. The wisdom of rearmament from a foreign policy viewpoint was also questioned: people wondered, with increasing unease, how much longer the great powers of Europe would tolerate Hitler’s breaches of treaty obligations, responding, as they had in the past year, with mere protests and empty threats. That the army overlooked these concerns and single-mindedly devoted its skills and energy to a task that would benefit only Hitler suggests not only the officer corps’s lack of politi­cal acumen but also the extent to which its leaders had been trauma­tized by their helplessness after the war.

The top military leaders saw the consequences of their brilliantly successful rearmament campaign when Hitler delivered his famous address of November 5, 1937, in the Chancellery in Berlin, which was recorded by his aide Friedrich Hossbach. In a four-hour harangue, delivered without pause, Hitler informed them that the time pres­sures generated by the rearmament campaign had led him to the “immutable decision to take military action against Czechoslovakia and Austria in the near future.” Foreign governments on all sides had begun to suspect the Reich and to quicken the pace of their own rearmament, and Hitler rightly feared that the balance of power would soon shift back to Germany’s disadvantage. The previous two years had shown Hitler the astounding results that could be achieved by appealing to the pride of the officer corps. He let it be known, therefore, in what was clearly a psychological ploy, that he was still dissatisfied with the pace of rearmament. Under the right circumstances, he informed them, he might even be ready to launch the invasions the following year. The Führer also made it clear that he considered Czechoslovakia as a mere stepping stone toward his far more ambitious plans for dealing with the German need for territory.

Some of the officers present were openly aghast, and the ensuing discussion was marked at times by “very sharp exchanges.” 25Blomberg and Fritsch actively opposed Hitler as, to a lesser extent, did the foreign minister, Konstantin von Neurath, who had been sum­moned to the gathering. They warned emphatically against taking such an overt course toward war, which would inevitably jolt the Western powers to action and result in a global conflict. For the first lime, on November 5, 1937, the scales seemed to fall from the eyes of the military commanders: they realized that Hitler was deadly serious about the objectives he had been proclaiming for years. He had not the slightest intention, furthermore, of seeking the army’s counsel on decisions of war and peace, as Beck was still urging him to do in a memorandum written shortly thereafter. In short, the generals finally recognized that Hitler was no mere nationalist and revisionist like them but exactly what he had claimed to be.

As far as Hitler was concerned, November 5 only confirmed his suspicion that he could not rely on these anxious, overly scrupulous members of the old elite to carry out his plans for conquest; they were not the steely adventurers he needed. Although Hitler used to remark on occasion that he had always imagined the military chiefs as “mastiffs who had to be held fast by the collar lest they hurl them­selves on everyone,” he now recognized how mistaken he had been: “I’m the one who always has to urge these dogs on.” 26Although there was disappointment on both sides, it was felt most keenly by the generals, who now saw their hopes of being treated as partners in government go up in smoke. Hitler, on the other hand, only found his disdain for the military commanders confirmed. He was so vexed that his plans had been challenged in any way that all subsequent meet­ings with the military top brass took the form of audiences at which the officers simply received their orders. The Führer left Berlin for Berchtesgaden, where he nursed his anger, repeatedly refusing to receive his foreign minister and awaiting an opportunity to reap the benefits of the day’s events.

Once again circumstances played into Hitler’s hand, and he swiftly exploited them for political gain. Minister of War Blomberg, long a widower, decided to marry a woman whom he himself confessed was of “modest background.” Hitler and Göring acted as witnesses at the ceremony in mid-January 1938. Just a few days later, however, ru­mors began to circulate that Blomberg’s young wife was well-known in vice-squad circles, indeed that she had worked as a prostitute and even been arrested once. The officer corps was scandalized by such a misalliance at the highest levels of the German military. Beck went to see Wilhelm Keitel, who had taken over from Reichenau at the minis­try, and informed him that it was unacceptable for “the leading sol­dier” in the land to have “a whore” for a wife. Hitler, too, reacted with rage when Göring presented him with the evidence. A farewell appointment was set up for Blomberg only two days later. “I can no longer put up with this,” the Führer informed him. “We must part.” When, at the end of their discussion, the subject of Blomberg’s suc­cessor arose, Hitler flatly rejected the idea of promoting Fritsch to the post, referring to him as a mere “hindrance.” 27Göring, too, was excluded from consideration despite all he had done to fuel the in­trigue that made the minister’s fall inevitable and, in his insatiable thirst for power, position himself as successor. Blomberg finally took the opportunity to deal the army a fateful blow by suggesting that Hitler himself assume command.