Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis

stooping in his gait than earlier. But his continued strength of will, despite the massive setbacks, continued to impress the admiring Below.¹⁹⁶ For others, this strength of will — or obstinate refusal to face reality — was precisely what was preventing an end to the war and dragging Germany to inevitable catastrophe. They were determined to act before it was too late — to save what was left of the Reich, lay the foundations of a future without Hitler, and show the outside world that there was ‘another Germany’ beyond the forces of Nazism.

Among the conferences held during the last days at the Berghof were two, on 6 and 11 July, related to the mobilization of the ‘home army’ (Heimatheer). They were attended by a young officer with a patch over one eye, a shortened right arm, and two fingers missing from his left hand — all the consequence of serious injuries suffered during the African campaign.¹⁹⁷ The officer, Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, chief of staff since 1 July of Colonel-General Friedrich Fromm, Commander-in-Chief of the reserve army, was present, a day after Hitler’s arrival at the Wolf’s Lair, at a further conference about strengthening the home army.¹⁹⁸

The question of creating new divisions from the home army was once more on the agenda for the military conference on 20 July. Again, Stauffenberg was ordered to be present.

This time, he planted a time-bom b, carried in his briefcase, under the oaken table in the centre of the wooden barracks where Hitler was holding the conference. Hitler began the briefing, half an hour earlier than usual, at 12.30p.m. Fifteen minutes later the bomb exploded.¹⁹⁹

14. LUCK OF THE DEVIL

‘It’s not a matter any more of the practical aim, but of showing the world and history that the German resistance movement at risk of life has dared the decisive stroke. Everything else is a matter of indifference alongside that.’

Major-General Henning von Tresckow, June 1944

‘It is now time that something was done. But the man who has the courage to do something must do it in the knowledge that he will go down in German history as a traitor. If he does not do it, however, he will be a traitor to his own conscience.’

Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, July 1944

‘A tiny clique of ambitious, unconscionable, and at the same time criminal, stupid officers has forged a plot to eliminate me and at the same time to eradicate with me the staff practically of the German armed forces’ leadership.’

Hitler, 21 July 1944

Stauffenberg’s attempt to kill Hitler on 20 July 1944 had a lengthy prehistory.¹ The complex strands of this prehistory contained in no small measure profound manifestations and admixtures of high ethical values and a transcendental sense of moral duty, codes of honour, political idealism, religious convictions, personal courage, remarkable selflessness, deep humanity, and a love of country that was light-years removed from Nazi chauvinism. The pre-history was also replete — how could it have been otherwise in the circumstances? — with disagreements, doubts, mistakes, miscalculations, moral dilemmas, short-sightedness, hesitancy, ideological splits, personal clashes, bungling organization, distrust — and sheer bad luck.

The origins of a coup d’etat to eliminate Hitler dated back, as we saw in earlier chapters, to the Sudeten crisis of 1938. Hitler’s determination to risk war with the western powers and court disaster for Germany had at that time prompted a number of highly-placed figures in the Army High Command, diplomatic service, and the Abwehr, together with a circle of their close contacts, to plot to remove him should he attack Czechoslovakia. Though fraught with difficulties, the conspiracy had, in fact, taken shape by the time that Chamberlain’s readiness to come to terms with Hitler at Bad Godesberg, then at Munich, removed the opportunity and took the wind out of the sails of the plotters. Their planned action might, in any case, have failed to materialize. The following summer, as the threat of war loomed ever larger, the same band of individuals had attempted to revive the conspiracy that had faltered with the Munich Agreement. But the fainter flickerings of opposition a year after Munich had come to nothing — floundering on internal divisions, Hitler’s continued popularity among the masses, and, not least, the loyalty (if at times appearing to waver — reluctant, but ultimately and decisively intact) of the army chiefs whose support for any coup was vital. The same ingredients would hamper the conspiracy against Hitler in immensely more difficult conditions during the war itself.

The Swabian joiner Georg Elser had, working alone, shared none of the hesitancy of those operating from within the power-echelons of the regime. He had acted incisively, as we saw earlier, in the Burgerbraukeller on the night of 8 November 1939, and come within a whisker of sending Hitler into oblivion. Good fortune alone had saved Hitler on that occasion. But outside the actions of a lone assassin, with the left-wing underground resistance groups, though never eliminated, weak, isolated, and devoid of access to the corridors of power, the only hope of toppling Hitler thereafter lay with those who themselves occupied positions of some power or influence in the regime itself.

On the fringes of the conspiracy, the participation in Nazi rule in itself naturally created ambivalence. Breaking oaths of loyalty was no light matter, even for some whose dislike of Hitler was evident. Prussian values were here a double-edged sword: a deep sense of obedience to authority and service to the state clashed with equally profound feelings of duty to God and to country.² Whichever triumphed within an individual: whether heavy-hearted acceptance of service to a head of state regarded as legitimately constituted, however detested; or rejection of such allegiance in the interest of what was taken to be the greater good, should the head of state be leading the country to ruin; this was a matter for conscience and judgement.³ It could, and did, go either way.

Though there were numerous exceptions to a broad generalization, generational differences played some part. The tendency was greater in a younger generation of officers, for example, than in those who had already attained the highest ranks of general or field-marshal, to entertain thoughts of active participation in an attempt to overthrow the head of state. This was implied in a remark by Stauffenberg himself, several months before his attempt on Hitler’s life: ‘Since the generals have up to now managed nothing, the colonels have now to step in.’⁴ On the other hand, views on the morality of assassinating the head of state — in the midst of an external struggle of titanic proportions against an enemy whose victory threatened the very existence of a German state — differed fundamentally on moral, not simply generational, grounds. Any attack on the head of state contituted, of course, high treason. But in a war, distinguishing this from treachery against one’s own country, from betrayal to the enemy, was chiefly a matter of individual persuasion and the relative weighting of moral values. And only a very few were in a position to accumulate detailed and first-hand experiences of gross inhumanity at the same time as possessing the means to bring about Hitler’s removal. Even fewer were prepared to act.

Beyond ethical considerations, there was the existential fear of the awesome consequences — for the families as well as for the individuals themselves — of discovery of any complicity in a plot to remove the head of state and instigate a coup d’etat. This was certainly enough to deter many who were sympathetic to the aims of the plotters but unwilling to become involved. Nor was it just the constant dangers of discovery and physical risks that acted as a deterrent. There was also the isolation of resistance. To enter into, even to flirt with, the conspiracy against Hitler meant acknowledging an inner distance from friends, colleagues, comrades, entry into a twilight world of immense peril, and of social, ideological, even moral isolation.

Quite apart from the evident necessity, in a terroristic police state, of minimizing risks through maximum secrecy, the conspirators were themselves well aware of their lack of popular support.⁵ Even at this