Joachim Fest - Plotting Hitler's Death

The conspirators were not hampered by any lack of seriousness or moral insight. If anything, the opposite was true. All the protests against atrocities in Poland, of which there were many more than have been mentioned here, show that the outrage at Nazi barbarism extended far beyond the circles of active conspirators. Their really decisive failing, it seems, was their lack of political will to commit an act that ran against the grain of all their traditions and patterns of thought. There is truth to the remark of the Italian ambassador to Berlin, Bernardo Attolico, that the German character, as he had come lo know it in those officers, was deficient in the qualities needed for good conspirators: patience, a keen understanding of human nature, hypocrisy, psychology, and tact. “Where can you find that between Rosenheim and Eydtkuhnen?” he asked. 45

The conspirators were acutely aware of this deficiency, and attempted to hide it by continually finding new reasons for their inaction: they were waiting for a swing in the public mood or for Hitler to suffer a setback; the younger officers, as Witzleben complained, were still “intoxicated” by Hitler; a civil war would break out or another “slab-in-the-back” myth-reminiscent of the army’s putative betrayal al the end of the First World War-would arise if they acted now; it would be best first to explore the attitude foreign powers would adopt toward a new government; and finally, time and again, no one was prepared actually to throw the bomb. When Dino Grandi went to the meeting of the Fascist Grand Council at which Mussolini was to be overthrown on July 25, 1943, he took two hand grenades with him. At the entrance to the chamber in the Palazzo Venezia, the first member of the Grand Council he encountered was Cesare de Vecchi. Fearing that Mussolini would defend himself and open fire, Grandi asked de Vecchi on the spur of the moment if he would take one of the gre­nades and throw it at II Duce if necessary. De Vecchi agreed immediately without any doubt or hesitation. A major weakness of the German resistance at this point was that it did not have a Grandi or even a de Vecchi. 46

The Italian conspirators focused all their attention on carrying out the assassination and ensuring its success, allowing the next day to take care of itself. The Germans, on the other hand, struggled so long and hard with the preconditions and consequences of their plans that their will to act dissipated. A typical picture of the conspirators would show them huddled together rehashing arguments and counterargu­ments and drafting extensive plans for the world of tomorrow. Even Erwin von Witzleben, the conspirator least prone to lose himself in ruminations, eventually succumbed to this tendency. In September 1938 he had declared that if necessary he would simply put Brauchitsch and Halder “under lock and key” for a few hours; by the next year, however, he was claiming his own subordinate position, his responsibility for his troops, and Oster’s recklessness as reasons for postponing any decision.

In the bitter cold of mid-January 1940, Beck and Halder wandered together for hours through the deserted streets of the Berlin suburb of Dahlem, deep in a conversation that dramatically illustrated some of the antagonisms that plagued the opposition as a whole. When Beck, perhaps echoing the didactic tone of his predecessor in office, implied that the army command was wanting in courage, Halder retorted tartly that he had opposed Hitler from the very outset-unlike Beck and was in no need of lessons. He refused to allow the army to become the “handmaid” of civilian opposition groups and said he was still prepared to lead the way in a “spearhead” role, but only if backed by a broad-based political movement, of which there was still no sign at all. The task of the civilian opposition groups was to create this movement and not issue “instructions” to the army, for which they ho re no responsibility. Both men were clearly right, and it was indeed for this very reason that their conversation ended in a falling-out. They never saw each other again. 47

Apart from this and a few other isolated cases, what was missing in the resistance on the whole was not passion, strength, or personal courage. There was no lack of conviction that “the wagon is headed for the abyss and has to be stopped,” in the words of a common metaphor of the time. What the resistance did feel the want of, though, was a widely acknowledged central figure whose authority and confidence could draw together all these brooding individuals, estranged by contradictory goals and approaches and united only by their disgust for the regime. Beck was certainly not this person. He was too pensive, philosophical, and inclined to defer action. Hitler’s opponents sensed this shortcoming, as can be seen from the diaries of Ulrich von Hassell, who often speaks of the officer or the man for whom everything lay waiting. Such a man would need a spark of “Catilinarian energy” to be able to depose Hitler and would need also to shed all the scruples and misgivings that repeatedly hobbled the conspirators during the first phase of the resistance. That meant, as one of the conspirators pointed out, a readiness to “do things that others might never understand or undertake themselves.” 48

Among the consequences of the failed November conspiracy was a shift in the center of gravity within the resistance. It has been observed, somewhat simplistically, that the resistance was led, up to this point, by older men, some retired and some still holding senior positions, who were struggling to regain their waning influence. Be­ginning in 1940 a younger generation came to the fore, taking up the challenge of overthrowing the regime and casting about for suitable leaders of its own. 1

Although this view glosses over numerous distinctions within the gathering “second generation” of opponents to the regime, there is no doubt that new faces and even a new type of person began to appear after 1940. The difference between the new conspirators and the “old school” had less to do with age than with the conclusions they drew from their experiences. This gulf was rarely bridged, de­spite the many similarities in the two groups’ views. While the older conspirators wanted to renew Germany in accordance with timeworn principles that they felt were still valid-though admittedly in need of updating-their younger counterparts were captivated by the idea that a new era was dawning, necessitating a sharp break with the past. In general, this second group was more radical and less respectful than the older generation, which felt bound by traditions, oaths, obe­dience and inhibited by possible accusations of high treason. The new generation tended to scorn such notions as the “subtleties” of a dying world. They made snide remarks about “the old-timers’ revolution.” Adam von Trot occasionally remarked that for the sake of their credibility they needed to “avoid any hint of being reactionary, of gentle­men’s clubs, or of militarism,” all of which stubbornly clung to the older opponents of the Nazis. 2

In social terms, the “notables” who had previously set the tone were overtaken by the “counts,” although by no means did all members of this second group stem from the aristocracy. In military terms, the “colonels” took over from the “generals.” But there was, in fact, a fair amount of overlap between the two groups, as can be seen in the case of one of the key players in the first phase of the resistance who also played an essential role in the second and whose opposition to Nazism led him to such extremes that his actions remain controversial to this day.