Joachim Fest - Plotting Hitler's Death

The meeting was held on June 13 at the air base in Barth, where, according to all reports, Hitler delivered one of the most compelling speeches of his career. With an eye toward his ripening plans for military conquest, he was determined to forestall the looming crisis of confidence in the army. He spoke of his “regrets” and the “tragedy” of the Fritsch case and promised that a similar situation would never arise again. His every word implied that the army remained the un­challenged and unchallengeable bearer of arms in the Reich, and he concluded by announcing that General Fritsch would be appointed “honorary commander” of the Twelfth Artillery Regiment.

But the army’s irretrievable loss of influence in the wake of the Fritsch affair became apparent as early as the next March, when the German incursion into Austria was planned without the consultation of the general staff. As if freed of his bonds, Hitler dared for the first time to send German forces across international frontiers, in an oper­ation planned largely by party circles and carried out with the support of Himmler and the SS, whose star was plainly in the ascendant.

Werner von Fritsch, though now cleared of all charges, was put through one final humiliation. Hitler delayed communicating with him until March 30, when a chilly letter was finally sent out, followed two days later by a curt announcement in the press that the Führer had conveyed to General Fritsch his “best wishes for the recovery of his health.” Fritsch responded one week later in a letter to Hitler: “The criminal charges against me have totally collapsed. However the deeply hurtful circumstances surrounding my dismissal from the army linger on-all the more painfully since the true reasons for my dismissal have not remained unknown to many in the Wehrmacht and the general public.” Fritsch pleaded that “those people be called to account who were officially responsible for my case and for keeping you fully and promptly informed” and entrusted the restoration of his honor “to your wise judgment as commander in chief.” He never received a reply. 31

The Fritsch affair marked one of the lowest points in the long history of the German military. It also marked a new departure in the history of the Nazi regime, for the events of the spring of 1938 prompted the first stirrings of underground resistance. Groups materialized in a variety of locations, largely the creation of individuals who recognized not only the threat Hitler posed to Germany but the extent to which his behavior fell short of civilized standards. They formed ties, at­tracted like-minded people, and even overcame deeply entrenched European chauvinisms by reaching out across national borders to seek support abroad. They still differed immensely in their hopes and intentions and their readiness to shed the prejudices of the past; uniting them was little more than the conviction that things could not simply be allowed to take their course.

The most prominent figure in these opposition groups was indisputably Hans Oster, who became chief of the central division of the OKW Military Intelligence Office in the autumn of 1938. He had been skeptical of the Nazis prior to 1933 but, like most of his fellow officers, initially approved of Hitler’s foreign policy and therefore hesitated for a time once the new regime came to power. The Röhm affair served to clear his mind. Though not particularly politically minded at first, he nevertheless possessed sufficiently strong values and clarity of vision to understand the devastating defeat that the Reichswehr had inflicted on itself. The despotism in the land, daily growing more palpable in countless ways, the curtailment of the rule of law, and the emerging struggle against the churches prompted this parson’s son from Dresden to progress from mere reservations about the regime to fundamental hostility toward it. This inspired him to use the resources of Military Intelligence to build a far-flung network of conspirators. The disgraceful farce leading to Fritsch’s dismissal fired Oster with a determination to resist, though he recognized that it was Fritsch’s own weakness that had made his downfall inevitable. Nevertheless, Fritsch had been Oster’s regimental commander for a number of years and Oster continued to hold him in the highest regard, almost revering him. Decisive, quick-witted, and diplomati­cally imaginative, Oster was an unusual blend of moral rectitude, cunning, and recklessness. During many long discussions with Beck, he pointed out all the inconsistencies in the chief of the general staffs position and sowed doubt about the formalistic concept of loyalty to which Beck always hewed when Hitler repeatedly forced tests of conscience on him. Constantly on the move, Oster cultivated contacts on all sides and forged connections between the civilian and military opponents of the regime that would later become very important.

The driving force of the civilian opposition was Carl Goerdeler, whom the military resistance also came over the years to recognize as a leading figure. The scion of a conservative family, he originally joined the German National People’s Party but left because of its narrow, reactionary views. Goerdeler then earned a reputation for being a broad-minded, socially progressive politician as mayor of Leipzig. In the Weimar period, under Chancellor Brüning, he had served as Reich commissioner for price control. Now, after the Röhm affair, he agreed to assume this position once again but soon found himself in conflict with both Hitler’s economic policy and the party authorities. He was a “classic exemplar” of that opposition from within which seeks to civilize the regime by cooperating with it. 32Whereas many people later claimed that they had cooperated with the Nazis in order to prevent even worse from happening, when they had actually demonstrated little courage and achieved virtually noth­ing, Goerdeler proved to be an indefatigable and public adversary of Nazi criminality in his attempt to bolster “the forces of good in the party.” 33In 1933 he refused to raise the swastika flag at the Leipzig city hall. After some vacillation he finally resigned in 1937, when, in his absence and contrary to his explicit instruction, a monument to Felix Mendelssohn, a Jew, was removed from its position in front of the Gewandhaus concert hall.

From this point on, Goerdeler devoted himself tirelessly to the resistance. He mobilized acquaintances from far and wide. Just be­tween June 1937 and late 1938 he traveled to twenty-two countries, always seeking to persuade the major powers to adopt an unyielding posture toward Hitler. Within Germany he established contacts on all sides and in this way contributed immensely to rallying the conserva­tive, nationalistic, bourgeois opposition to the regime. He was moti­vated in all this by an indomitable, almost pathological optimism and unshakable faith in the power of logical argument. Even as a con­demned prisoner on the eve of execution, he remained true to this belief despite his experiences and his fits of resignation.

Oster and Goerdeler were just the pivotal figures among a rapidly expanding corps of people who were prepared to oppose the regime. Some were lone wolves unattached to any group. In addition to the major circle within the army was another, at the Foreign Office, led by Adam von Trott zu Solz, Otto Kiep, Eduard Brücklmeier, Hans-Hernd von Haeften, and the Kordt brothers. In the wake of the Fritsch affair, these conspirators were joined by Georg Thomas, the OKW armaments chief; generals Wilhelm Adam, Erich Hoepner, Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel, and Erwin von Witzleben; Chief of Military Intelligence Wilhelm Canaris; and numerous other figures. The Fritsch affair had proved a turning point for Hans von Dohnanyi and Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenburg, too, and Henning von Tresckow even pondered quitting the army and its all-too-acquiescent generals. 34