Hitler. 1936-1945: Nemesis

Stauffenberg had taken off from Rastenburg, to Major-General Fritz Thiele, communications chief at Army High Command, was less clear than he thought. It was that something terrible had happened; the Fuhrer was still alive. That was all. There were no details. It was unclear whether the bomb had gone off, whether Stauffenberg had been prevented (as a few days earlier) from carrying out the attack, or whether Stauffenberg had been arrested, whether, in fact, he was even still alive. Further messages seeping through indicated that something had certainly happened in the Wolf’s Lair, but that Hitler had survived.⁸³ Should ‘Valkyrie’ still go ahead? No contingency plans had been made for carrying out a coup if Hitler were still alive. And without confirmed news of Hitler’s death, Fromm, in his position as commander of the reserve army, would certainly not give his approval for the coup. Olbricht concluded that to take any action before hearing definitive news would be to court disaster for all concerned. Vital time was lost. One of the plotters, Hans Bernd Gisevius, connected with the opposition since 1938 and by now an Abwehr agent based in Switzerland who had just returned to Germany, was later scathing about Olbricht’s incompetence. ‘Leaderless and mindless’ was how he described the group in the Bendlerblock awaiting Stauffenberg’s return.⁸⁴ Meanwhile, it had proved only temporarily possible to block communications from the Wolf’s Lair. Soon after 4p.m. that afternoon, before any coup had been started, the lines were fully open again.⁸⁵

Stauffenberg arrived back in Berlin between 2.45 and 3.15p.m. There was no car to meet him. His chauffeur was waiting at Rangsdorf aerodrome. But Stauffenberg’s plane had flown to Tempelhof (or possible another Berlin aerodrome — this detail is not fully clear), and he had impatiently to telephone for a car to take him and Haeften to Bendlerstra?e. It was a further delay. At such a crucial juncture, Stauffenberg did not reach the headquarters of the conspiracy, where tension was at fever-pitch, until 4.30p.m. Haeften had in the meantime telephoned from the aerodrome to Bendlerstra?e. He announced — the first time the conspirators heard the message — that Hitler was dead.⁸⁶ Stauffenberg repeated this when he and Haeften arrived in Bendlerstra?e. He had stood with General Fellgiebel outside the barrack-hut, he said, and seen with his own eyes first-aid men running to help and emergency vehicles arriving. No one could have survived such an explosion, was his conclusion.⁸⁷ However convincing he was for those anxious to believe his message, a key figure, General Fromm, knew otherwise. He had spoken to Keitel around 4p.m. and been told that the Fuhrer had suffered only minor injuries. That apart, Keitel had asked where, in the meantime, Colonel Stauffenberg might be.⁸⁸

Fromm refused outright Olbricht’s request that he should sign the orders for ‘Valkyrie’. But by the time Olbricht had returned to his room to announce Fromm’s refusal, his impatient chief of staff Colonel Mertz von Quirnheim, a friend of Stauffenberg, and long closely involved in the plot, had already begun the action with a cabled message to regional military commanders, beginning with the words: ‘The Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, is dead.’⁸⁹ When Fromm tried to have Mertz arrested, Stauffenberg informed him that, on the contrary, it was he, Fromm, who was under arrest.⁹⁰

By now, several of the leading conspirators had been contacted and had begun assembling in the Bendlerstra?e. Beck was there, already announcing that he had taken over command in the state; and that Field- Marshal Erwin von Witzleben, former commander-in-chief in France, and long involved in the conspiracy, was now commander-in-chief of the army.⁹¹ General Hoepner, Fromm’s designated successor in the coup, dismissed by Hitler in disgrace in early 1942 and forbidden to wear a uniform again, arrived around 4.30p.m. in civilian clothes, carrying a suitcase. It contained his uniform which he donned once more that evening.⁹²

Scenes in the Bendlerstra?e were increasingly chaotic. Conspiring to arrange a coup d’etat in a police state is scarcely a simple matter. But even in the existential circumstances prevailing, much smacked of dilettante organization. Too many loose ends had been left dangling. Too little attention had been paid to small but important details in timing, coordination, and, not least, communications. Nothing had been done about blowing up the communications centre at Fuhrer Headquarters or otherwise putting it permanently out of action.⁹³ No steps were taken to gain immediate control of radio stations in Berlin and other cities. No broadcast was made by the putchists. Party and SS leaders were not arrested. The master-propagandist, Goebbels himself, was left at bay. Among the conspirators, too many were involved in issuing and carrying out commands. There was too much uncertainty; and too much hesitation. Everything had been predicated upon killing Hitler. It had simply been taken for granted that if Stauffenberg succeeded in exploding his bomb, Hitler would be dead. Once that premiss was called into question, then disproved, the haphazard lines of a plan for the coup d’etat rapidly unravelled. What was crucial, in the absence of confirmed news of Hitler’s demise, was that there were too many regime-loyalists, and too many waverers, with too much to lose by committing themselves to the side of the conspirators.

Despite Stauffenberg’s intense avowals of Hitler’s death, the depressing news for the conspirators of his survival gathered strength. Beck declared that, whatever the truth of the matter, ‘for me this man is dead’, and his further actions would be determined by this.⁹⁴ But for the success of the plot, that was scarcely enough. By mid-evening, it was increasingly obvious to the insurrectionists that their coup had faltered beyond repair. ‘A fine mess, this (Scbone Scbweinerei, das),’ Field-Marshal Witzleben had muttered to Stauffenberg, on his arrival around 8p.m. in Bendlerstra?e.⁹⁵

It rapidly became plain in Fuhrer Headquarters that the assassination attempt was the signal for a military and political insurrection against the regime. By mid-afternoon, Hitler had given command of the reserve army to Himmler. And Keitel had informed army districts that an attempt on the Fuhrer’s life had been made, but that he still lived, and on no account were orders from the conspirators to be obeyed.⁹⁶ Loyalists could be found even in the Bendlerstra?e, the seat of the uprising. The communications officer there, also in receipt of Keitel’s order, was by the evening, as the conspirators were becoming more and more desperate, passing on the message that the orders he was having to transmit on their behalf were invalid.⁹⁷ Fromm’s adjutants were meanwhile able to spread the word in the building that Hitler was still alive, and to collect together a number of officers prepared to challenge the conspirators, whose already limited and hesitant support, inside and outside Bendlerstra?e, was by now rapidly draining away. Early instances where army units initially supported the coup dwindled once news of Hitler’s survival hardened.⁹⁸

This was the case, too, in Paris. The military commander there, General Karl Heinrich von Stulpnagel, and his subordinate officers had firmly backed the insurrectionists. But the supreme commander in the west, Field-Marshal von Kluge, vacillated as ever. In a vain call from Berlin, Beck failed to persuade him to commit himself to the rising. ‘Kluge,’ Beck said to Gisevius as he put down the receiver. ‘There you have him!’⁹⁹ Once he learnt that the assassination attempt had failed, Kluge countered Stulpnagel’s orders to have the entire SS, SD, and Gestapo in Paris arrested, dismissed the general, denounced his actions to Keitel, and later congratulated Hitler on surviving a treacherous attack on his life.¹⁰⁰

By this time, the events in Berlin had reached their denouement. In the late morning, Goebbels had been hosting a speech about Germany’s armaments position, attended by ministers, leading civil servants, and industrialists, given by Speer in the Propaganda Ministry. After the Propaganda Minister had closed the meeting, he had taken Walther Funk and Albert Speer back with him into his study to talk about mobilizing remaining resources within Germany. While they were talking, he was suddenly called to take an urgent telephone call from Fuhrer Headquarters. Despite the swift block on communications, he had his own hot-line to FHQ which, evidently, at this point still remained open. The call was from Press Chief Otto Dietrich, who broke the news-to Goebbels that there had been an attack on Hitler’s life. This was within minutes of the explosion taking place.¹⁰¹ There were few details at this stage, other than that Hitler was alive. Goebbels, told that ? ? workers had probably been responsible, angrily reproached Speer about the evidently over-casual security precautions that had been taken.¹⁰²

The Propaganda Minister was unusually quiet and pensive over lunch. Somewhat remarkably, in the circumstances, he then retired for his usual afternoon siesta. He was awakened between 2 and 3p.m. by the head of his press office, Wilfried von Oven, who had just taken a phone-call from an agitated Heinz Lorenz, Dietrich’s deputy. Lorenz had dictated a brief text — drafted, he said, by Hitler himself — for immediate radio transmission. Goebbels was little taken with the terse wording, and remarked that urgency in transmitting the news was less important than making sure it was suitably couched for public consumption. He gave instructions to prepare an adequately massaged commentary. At this stage, the Propaganda Minister clearly had no idea of the gravity of the situation, that army officers had been involved, and that an uprising had been unleashed. Believing some breach of security had allowed unreliable OT workers to perpetrate some attack, he had been told that Hitler was alive. More than that he did not know. Even so, his own behaviour after first hearing the news, and then during the afternoon,