Heinrich Gerlach - Breakout at Stalingrad

The tenor of all the contributions was the same: the officer’s league was seen as a way of forcing the Hitler regime’s resignation, demonstrating the German people’s readiness for peace and bringing about a ceasefire as swiftly as possible. The address given by Colonel Hans-Günther van Hooven particularly impressed all those present. Van Hooven, who had only been airlifted into the Cauldron at Stalingrad at the end of December 1942 as the Sixth Army’s new head of signals, gave a forensic analysis of the military, political and economic situation after Stalingrad, and asked:

Are we not compelled by a moral imperative, by human compassion and by a love of the German people and homeland to take decisive action before it is too late? You all know the answer to this. I have come to the conclusion that as a military commander Hitler has already lost this war. He unequivocally assumed the role of C-in-C when he dismissed Field Marshal von Brauchitsch. The failed Winter Campaign of 1941–42, undertaken without proper winter clothing, the risky offensives against Stalingrad and the Caucasus, and the loss of North Africa are all the result of his volatile nature and lack of military know-how. And as a statesman, Hitler has lost this war politically too. He has managed to bring together a coalition of countries against Germany, while the measures taken by him and his regime have ensured that not only other nations’ military might is now ranged against us but also the immeasurable hatred of their people. As an economic strategist, Hitler only reckoned on lightning wars and lightning victories. As in the First World War, time and space – whose effects, in the face of all experience, he tried to claim as his own – have now turned against us. Total war has become totally hopeless, and so to continue with it would be both pointless and immoral.

Like all the speakers who came after him, Colonel van Hooven’s aim was to underline the huge significance of the German Army in bringing about an end to hostilities and in securing postwar stability in Germany. ‘Reason and humanity therefore dictate,’ he argued, ‘that we end this war and sue for peace before it is too late.’ The colonel alluded to the end of the First World War and painted a clear-sighted picture of what they could look forward to if they failed to conclude a timely peace:

It is tempting to draw a comparison with 1918, but history does not repeat itself. This time, if the Wehrmacht is defeated things will be far worse, because this war was fought not just on the basis of economic and political questions of power arising from National Socialist Party doctrine, but also on ideological grounds, like the wars of religion in the Middle Ages. And because the hatred of the entire world is now directed against Germany. This time there is no German parliament, no political parties and no organs of the state such as existed in 1918. Once the Wehrmacht is smashed, nobody will be able to prevent the worst from happening or vouchsafe order and security. In such an outcome Germany would be nothing but an object with no weight of its own.

Looking at the current situation, van Hooven could only draw one conclusion:

Only a timely peace might avert this likely fate, inasmuch as it would preserve the only instrument that can safeguard order and prevent chaos, namely the German Army.

Following van Hooven’s speech, Colonel Luitpold Steidle spoke about the moral circumstances in Nazi Germany, pillorying the coercion exerted on people’s consciences and beliefs and the twisting of justice and the law. He, too, came to the same conclusion:

There is therefore only one hope of salvation. A clean break with Hitler! In this sense, in view of the total war that is being waged in an unprecedented way, we demand that we, as captured German officers, be heard, despite the fact that we have already been written off back home.

General von Seydlitz emphasized the necessity of toppling Hitler and his regime, once again on the basis of what the Sixth Army had experienced at Stalingrad. Their ‘bitter realization’ of what had happened there should become a springboard for an ‘act of salvation’. Von Seydlitz made an emotional plea to the people and the army:

We’re talking primarily about the commanders, the generals and other officers of the Wehrmacht. You are facing a huge decision. Germany expects you to have the courage to see the truth and on the strength of that to act boldly and swiftly. Do all that is necessary. […] The National Socialist regime will never be prepared to take the only path that leads to peace. This insight demands that you declare war on this corrupting regime and take up arms to install a government supported by the trust of the people. Only such an administration can create the conditions for our Fatherland to make an honourable exit from the war […] Do not refuse this historical mission; take the initiative […] and demand the immediate resignation of Hitler and his government. Fight side by side with the people to get rid of Hitler and his regime and save Germany from chaos and collapse.

To the applause of those present, General von Seydlitz ended his speech with the rousing slogan: ‘Long live a free, peaceful and independent Germany!’ Von Seydlitz was elected president of the BDO, with colonels Van Hooven and Steidle as vice-presidents. Generals Martin Lattmann, Dr Otto Korfes and Alexander Edler von Daniels were appointed to the executive committee. As we have seen, by dint of his place on the working party Heinrich Gerlach was also among the leading lights of the BDO.

The events surrounding the founding of the league, of which Gerlach gave a lively account more than twenty years later in his book Odyssey in Red: My Time in the Wilderness , became the subject of a documentary entitled The House at Lunyovo , directed for German television by Franz Peter Wirth in January 1970, four years after publication of the author’s memoirs. Gerlach’s book formed the basis of the script, which was written by Peter Adler. This was the first time that the ‘renegade officers’, who, according to the commentary, ‘realized after the defeat at Stalingrad that Hitler was leading the German people to disaster’, were not – in the words of a review of the programme in Der Spiegel – portrayed as ‘simple Soviet stooges … but rather as true German patriots’.

The activities of the BDO and the National Committee, in both of which organizations Heinrich Gerlach played an active part until their disbandment in 1945, were the subject of much controversy right up to the 1990s. A fairer evaluation of the BDO only became possible after the opening of the archives in 1989 enabled new research into the organization. In common with other publications, Bodo Scheurig, in the introduction to his edition of Walther von Seydlitz’s memoirs, highlights the military and political situation in the Soviet Union after Stalingrad. In 1943 Stalin found himself in a complicated position. His Western allies had still not launched a ‘Second Front’ against the Nazis, which left the Red Army bearing the brunt of the fighting. The only operation that the Allies had thus far undertaken – the landings in North Africa – brought no military relief to the Soviet Union. For this reason, too, Stalin secretly began to sound out the possibility of opening negotiations with the Third Reich. The National Committee and the League of German Officers were charged with the task of airing certain negotiating positions in public, including the assurance that the peace could be concluded provided Hitler’s troops withdrew to within Germany’s borders. In summary, Scheurig conjectures that 1943 had presented a very real opportunity to ‘save Germany from the worst’ and pointedly notes:

The Wehrmacht, a force numbering in the millions, was still deep within Russian territory. The Red Army was still facing a long campaign that would cost untold numbers of lives before final victory was – possibly – secured. No final decisions had yet been taken regarding the future of the Reich […] Stalin shunned any talk of ‘unconditional surrender’. But the feelers he put out in Stockholm showed that he did not discount doing a deal, even with Hitler.