Joachim Fest - Plotting Hitler's Death

By the end of September Canaris had already visited the various western headquarters to explore the officers’ attitudes about the planned offensive and, in some cases, to gauge support for the over­throw of the regime. At the same time, Brauchitsch and Halder held an “in-depth conversation” about the choices they faced: either to stage the offensive that Hitler wanted or else to do everything possi­ble to delay operations. A third eventuality was also raised in this conversation and duly noted in the official diary, namely to work for “fundamental change,” by which they meant nothing less than a coup. 28

As might be expected, Brauchitsch shrank from such a radical solution and preferred instead to create delays attributable to technical problems. Hitler, however, was in no mood for such ploys. He informed his commander in chief two days later that no hope remained of reaching a settlement with the Western powers and that he had made an “immutable decision” to wage war. The new campaign would be launched sometime between November 15 and 20. Five days later, on October 21, in a speech to the gauleiters, Hitler sug­gested an even earlier date, assuring them that the “major offensive in the West” would begin “in about two weeks.” 29

Brauchitsch was in despair. Canaris, who visited him late in the evening, was “deeply shaken” by both the nervous exhaustion of the commander in chief and by his report, in which the words “frenzy of bloodletting” appeared for the second time in recent days, now ap­plied to Hitler and his furious desire to attack. 30In the continued hope of forcing a postponement, Brauchitsch decided to work out only a sketchy campaign plan. But Hitler allowed him no leeway and only a few days later demanded the necessary amplifications, setting November 12 as the new date for the invasion. He ordered Generals Kluge, Bock, and Reichenau to Berlin to help speed up planning in the high command. All objections raised by the commanders, of whom Reichenau was characteristically the most outspoken, were dis­missed by Hitler as unfounded. Once again he urged Brauchitsch and Halder to hurry and concluded by producing some new operational plans of his own.

The increasing pressure exerted by the Führer, coupled with his evident disdain for the military, prompted a group of younger general Staff officers to renew their old connections with opponents of the regime in the Foreign Office and, most important, in Military Intelli­gence, where Hans Oster had continued to work away with the en­couragement of Canaris, who was now impatient to proceed. Oster had recruited Hans von Dohnanyi into Military Intelligence, and Dohnanyi in turn had brought in a number of close friends who opposed the Nazis, including his boyhood companion Justus Delbrück, baron of Guttenberg, and the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dohnanyi’s brother-in-law, who provided a bridge to Christian oppo­sition circles. At the same time, Helmuth Groscurth resumed close contacts with Beck, who rekindled the connection to Goerdeler. Gradually, through many more intermediaries as well, various old and new contacts were established.

The resumption of ties to an active opposition group seemed to save Goerdeler from a psychological crisis. In his isolation he had fallen in with a group of staid old national-conservatives who did nothing but meet, talk, draft reports, hope, and wait. He had become increasingly distraught and had lost himself in far-fetched revolution­ary schemes. Over Beck’s vehement opposition, he worked on the idea of asking Hitler to send him on a mission to Britain and France to discuss peace conditions that, he calculated, “Hitler would not swallow and that would then lead to his downfall.” 31Goerdeler origi­nally envisaged a “transitional cabinet led by Göring” for the first weeks following Hitler’s fall. Other opponents of the Nazis advanced similarly misguided schemes, such as working with “open-minded cir­cles” within the SS and tossing Ribbentrop “like a bone” to the en­emy. 32They argued for hours over the restoration of the monarchy and who would be the best pretender to the throne. These ludicrous fantasies stemmed, for the most part, from an enervating lack of real activity. If it is true that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and with respect to Hitler’s regime that is irrefutable, then absolute impotence has a similar effect, at least insofar as any sense of reality is con­cerned.

To the great disappointment of all the plotters, Halder continued to insist in the last days of October that the time was not ripe. Even the far more decisive General Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel now ac­cused Oster and Canaris of rushing things. Neither Halder nor Stülpnagel apparently knew anything about the resistance cell within the high command called Action Group Zossen, which had been formed in midmonth primarily by younger staff officers in Colonel Wagner’s circle. This ignorance throws a telling light on the isolation of the opposition groups and the lack of coordination among them. More radical and concrete in its approach than other conspiratorial circles, Action Group Zossen had formulated plans for eradicating Hitler, eliminating the SS and Gestapo, cordoning off the main cen­ters of power, and even forming a provisional government.

Appeals for action now rained down from all sides. In order to prompt the indecisive Halder and, even more important, Brauchitsch to make their move, the conspirators in Military Intelligence wrote a paper, with the help of Secretary of State Ernst von Weizsäcker in the Foreign Office, Erich Kordt, and Hasso von Etzdorf, in which they once again marshaled the arguments against the planned western offensive. In their view, Hitler’s plans would bring about “the end of Germany,” a belief confirmed by his announcement that he intended to invade through Belgium and Holland, thereby in all likelihood drawing the United States and numerous other neutral countries into the fray. Experience, they continued, showed that protests and threats to resign would not change Hitler’s mind and would only confirm his conviction that all “ships must be destroyed and bridges burned.” 33

Finally, after long hesitation, worn out by his exertions and by Hitler’s scornful impatience, Halder decided on the last day of Octo­ber 1939 that action could no longer be delayed. The mounting con­cern among the generals, as well as the pressure from Etzdorf, the Foreign Office, and Action Group Zossen, may have helped convince him there was once again hope that a coup would succeed. In any case, he summoned Groscurth on the evening of October 31 and informed the surprised Military Intelligence officer that he, too, had finally concluded that violence was the only solution. Halder men­tioned his earlier plan of eliminating at least some of the leading Nazis in a staged accident. He outlined a few details concerning the operation itself and the new regime to take power afterwards and then added, with tears welling up in his eyes, that “for weeks on end he had been going to see Emil [Hitler] with a pistol in his pocket in order to gun him down,” as Groscurth recorded in his coded diary. 34

As often happened when a decision was finally made, support arrived from unexpected quarters. Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb, the commander of Army Group C, sent Brauchitsch a letter that ended with the comment that he was prepared “personally to stand fully behind you and to support whatever conclusions you reach or actions you deem necessary.” Oster and Erich Kordt had spent the evening of October 31 visiting Ludwig Beck on Goethestrasse in Lichterfelde. After much debate over the attitude of the generals, they arrived at the same desperate conclusion on which all their discussions had foundered for months: the most important condition for a successful coup was to kill Hitler. The next morning, when Kordt arrived al Military Intelligence, Oster half-resignedly summarized their discus­sion with the comment that no one could be found “who will throw the bomb and liberate our generals from their scruples.” Kordt told Oster simply and calmly that he had come to request permission to do just that. All he lacked was the explosives. After a few more questions, Oster promised to have the necessary materials ready on No­vember 11. 35