Joachim Fest - Plotting Hitler's Death

The extensive postwar literature justifying Britain’s policy of distancing itself from the German resistance revives the very arguments on which the prewar attempts to make contact foundered. It points as well to the general lack of success with which the resistance did indeed seem cursed. Three further reasons are often adduced: with Winston Churchill’s appointment as prime minister, Britain focused all its energy on the military effort, leaving no time for complicated political initiatives and prompting Churchill to call for “perfect si­lence”; in addition, the British were concerned that entering into negotiations with Germans, even anti-Nazi Germans, would jeopardize their alliance with the Soviet Union; finally London wished lo avoid the error that the Allies had made after the First World War, when they forged commitments that later gave rise to demagogues like Hitler. Even if every possible allowance is made for these mo­tives, however, something is still left unexplained-especially since the messages from the German emissaries provide no justification whatsoever for the most frequently mentioned concern, namely, the much-feared fracturing of the Allied coalition.

The real reasons for the attitude of the British probably lay in their lack of flexibility, their hostility, their blindness, and a political obtuseness that for all intents and purposes represented “an alliance with Hitler,” to quote Hans Rothfels. 10If a policy consisting of peri­odic cautious gestures of support had been pursued-which was, in fact, all that the German opposition now wanted-it might well have been possible gradually to drive a wedge between the Nazi regime and the people. Instead, Allied policy drove them into each other’s arms. In early 1942 Goebbels noted in his diary with unmistakable satisfaction that this time the enemy had not set forth “any Wilsonian Fourteen Points” to sow unrest and confusion among the German public. 11

Attitudes hardened even more after the United States entered the war in December 1941, and it was precisely the memory of Wilson’s Fourteen Points that made America so unapproachable. The ill-fated promises of yesteryear seemed to be all that Roosevelt had learned and remembered from his nation’s involvement in Eu­ropean affairs. The crude and narrow inference he drew was that even the most noncommittal conversation with Germans must be rejected, regardless of who they were or what the discussions were about. When an American correspondent in Berlin, Louis P. Lochner, returned to Washington in June 1942 with a secret code that German friends in the resistance had given to him in the hope of establishing a permanent link with U.S. government officials, the administration rejected the approach, saying that these contacts had put it in an “awkward” position. 12

This attitude was strengthened with the Casablanca declaration of January 24, 1943, when Roosevelt vowed in Churchill’s presence that the Allies would “continue the war relentlessly” until they achieved “unconditional surrender.” The cold-shoulder approach to the resistance was thus given the seal of official strategy by both governments. Its effect would be to achieve the opposite of what Adam von Trott had said was the “primary purpose” of his last visit to the United Stales, namely, “to ensure that the planned war of annihilation does not drive those elements that have just begun to join forces against Hitler into the hands of the National Socialists.” A furious Ewald von Kleist-Schmenzin said he would like to see both Hitler and Roosevelt roast, each in his own vat in hell. 13

Casablanca therefore posed another serious setback for the resistance and was particularly troubling to those who still hesitated or had not quite made up their minds. The policy of unconditional surrender led many to feel that to oppose Hitler would be to betray their own country, and only a very few were prepared to go that far, especially in wartime. It was only with great difficulty that Helmuth von Moltke managed to carry on in the aftermath of Casablanca. On the other hand, like many of his friends, Trott never got over his bitterness and accused the Allies of indulging in “bourgeois prejudice and hypocritical theorizing.” When he surfaced again in Stockholm in early 1944, still searching for influential intermediaries, he had devel­oped, according to one of his Swedish friends, a look of “despera­tion.” 14

The lesson of Casablanca, as of all the vain attempts of these years to communicate with the Allies, whether through Spain, Portugal, Turkey, or the Vatican, was that the resistance was on its own. The conspirators grew accustomed to “staring into the void” when they contemplated the prospects for a coup-both the void within Ger­many and, as was now plain, the one beyond. This strengthened their resolve not to predicate their enterprise on any national, political, or even material interest. They carried on not in the hope of success but solely as an act of self-purification.

There are many reasons for the impending failure of the German resistance: errors, inhibitions, clumsiness, indecision, and the vastly superior power of the opponent. Any fair-minded assessment must, however, also take into account the brusque dismissal the resistance received from those with whom it believed-mistakenly, as it turned out-that it was safely in league.

After the near exposure of Oster, Canaris barely managed to slip out of the tightening noose. Roeder may have been a skillful, experienced investigator, but he never succeeded in penetrating the clouds of deception created by the masters of that art at Military Intelligence. Where he expected to find a massive political conspiracy with ele­ments of high treason, he could only uncover evidence of question­able dealings in foreign currencies, bogus exemptions from military service, and lax handling of money. When a few unguarded com­ments escaped his lips, Military Intelligence counterattacked with a fog of accusations, complaints about the investigation, and counterinquiries. They finally prompted Keitel, the most highly placed official in the department’s chain of command, to turn to Himmler. In the end, as the entire affair became hopelessly clouded and obscure, Dohnanyi and Bonhoeffer were merely indicted for a few nonpolitical offenses and Oster for being an accomplice.

Canaris sensed, however, that the fate of Military Intelligence was sealed, and that the bureau, with the maze of dark corridors that had been his fiefdom, could not long withstand the kind of scrutiny to which it would now be subjected by suspicious officials. In an early sign of what lay in store for it, Military Intelligence was ordered to relocate to Zossen. The official explanation was the disruption and destruction caused by the bombing of Berlin, but Keitel ordered si­multaneously that the agency be reorganized and almost all its de­partment heads replaced.

Only now did the severity of the blow suffered by the resistance on April 5 become clear. Along with its “managing director” it had lost its very core and with it went much of its internal cohesion. Months would be needed to repair the damage, but time was already short. There were further setbacks during that spring of 1943. Beck fell seriously ill and was incapacitated for several weeks. In addition, the opposition’s troubled relations with the Allies became generally known, undermining its attempts to influence the generals, though there were a few individual successes. Once again, profound pessimism began to spread among the conspirators. The certainty that an indomitable fate was at work and would follow its predestined course regardless of what they might say or do gave rise to bouts of resignation. As General Fritsch had written years earlier, Hitler was “Germany’s destiny for better or worse, and this destiny will run its course. If he tumbles into the abyss, he will take us all with him. Nothing can be done.” Erich von Manstein, too, explained his refusal to join the conspirators with the fatalistic comment that it was impossible to resist Hitler. General Edgar Röhricht remarked to Tresckow that one could not escape one’s fate, and even Canaris occasionally described Hitler as a “scourge of God” that must be endured to the end. General Adolf Heusinger, the chief of army operations, responded to invitations to join the conspiracy by claiming that an uprising would not change anything but only delay the inevitable and that Germans should simply resign themselves to the idea that there would be no rescue. 15