bond, making it extremely difficult ‘to topple the god’.30 Indeed, those engaged in the plot to kill Hitler knew only too well that their actions lacked popular backing.31 Stauffenberg himself accepted that he would ‘go down in German history as a traitor’.32 The immediate reactions to the events of 20 July lend credence to such views.
Among ordinary Germans, there was a widespread sense of deep shock and consternation at the news of the failed assassination. Effusive outpourings of loyalty and support for the Fuhrer were immediately registered in all quarters, alongside furious outrage at the ‘tiny clique’ of ‘criminal’ officers (as Hitler had labelled them) who had perpetrated such a vile deed, and rank disbelief that such base treachery could have been possible. It would, of course, have been near suicidal to voice regrets in public that Hitler had survived—though certainly that was the private feeling of a good many people. So the recorded expressions of support inevitably provide a distorted impression of attitudes. This was even more the case with the extremes of pro-Hitler fervour emanating from the big ‘loyalty rallies’ staged within days all over Germany by a revitalized Nazi Party straining every sinew to mobilize the population by orchestrating ‘spontaneous’ demonstrations of joy at the Fuhrer’s survival and outrage at the monstrous attempt to assassinate him.33 Even so, all the indications are that there was an upsurge of genuine pro-Hitler feeling in the immediate aftermath of the attack on his life.
The SD took immediate soundings of opinion on the day after the assassination attempt. ‘All reports agree that the announcement of the attempt has produced the strongest feelings of shock, dismay, anger and rage,’ ran the summary of initial reactions. Women were said to have broken into tears of joy in shops or on the open streets in Konigsberg and Berlin at Hitler’s survival. ‘Thank God the Fuhrer is alive,’ was a common expression of relief. ‘What would we have done without the Fuhrer?’ people asked. Hitler was seen as the only possible bulwark against Bolshevism. Many thought his death would have meant the loss of the Reich. It was at first surmised that the strike against Hitler was the work of enemy agents, though this presumption soon gave way to recognition that it had been treachery from within, and fury at the fact that this had come from German officers.34
Reports from the regional propaganda offices across the country told the same story. People were shaken by what had happened, but it had strengthened trust in the Fuhrer. Some officers, it was said, felt the reputation of the army to have been so besmirched by the treachery that they wanted to transfer to the Waffen-SS. There was much speculation about how the attack could have happened: the Wehrmacht had been given too much freedom, and the Fuhrer kept uninformed about what was happening. He had been too lenient towards his generals, simply dismissing rather than executing them when they had failed in their duties. It was taken for granted that a ‘new wind’ would now blow. There was a demand for severe reprisals against the ‘traitors’ and for them to be publicly named. Wild rumours circulated implying the involvement of a number of leading military figures, including the former Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Walther von Brauchitsch, Field-Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, who had recently been replaced as Commander-in-Chief West, and even Field-Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, the head of the High Command of the Wehrmacht.35 People could not understand how such a plot could have gone unnoticed. They were disturbed that at the very heart of the army there had been those working against the Fuhrer’s intentions and actions.36 It was not long before sabotage from within came to be seen as the obvious reason for the recent disastrous collapse of Army Group Centre.37
Coloured though such reports were, they nevertheless represented strands of genuine opinion. People sent in money in thanksgiving for Hitler’s survival. Substantial amounts were collected and passed to the NSV to provide for children orphaned by the war.38 One woman, the wife of a worker and mother of several children, accompanied her gift of 40 Reich Marks to the Red Cross with a note to her local Party office, stating that her donation was ‘Out of great love of the Fuhrer, because nothing happened to him.’ She was happy, she wrote, ‘that our Fuhrer has been preserved for us. May he live long yet and lead us to victory.’39 A corporal apologized to his wife for being unable to send any money home at the beginning of August since he had donated it all to a Wehrmacht collection to show gratitude for the Fuhrer. Many, he said, had given much more. However obliged they might have felt to contribute to the collection, the level of generosity was beyond what was necessary.40
Many letters and contemporary entries in private diaries reflect unforced pro-Hitler feelings. ‘I don’t think I’m wrong when I say in such a sad hour for all of us: “Germany stands or falls in this struggle with the person of Adolf Hitler,”’ ran one diary entry for 21 July from a young pro-Nazi, a prisoner of war in Texas. ‘If this attack on Adolf Hitler had been successful, I am convinced that our homeland would now be in chaos.’41 This was no exception. More than two-thirds of prisoners of war in American captivity indicated their belief in Hitler in the weeks after the assassination attempt, a rise on levels prior to the bomb plot.42 Faith in the Fuhrer was also still strong among serving frontline soldiers. ‘The high number of joyful expressions about the salvation of the Fuhrer’ in letters home from soldiers at the front was remarked upon by the censor.43 It was as well to be extremely careful in expressing any negative views in letters that might be picked up by the censor. But there was no need for effusive pro-Hitler comments. Similar sentiments could be read in the letters that soldiers received. ‘I cannot imagine how things would have developed without the Fuhrer in view of the present situation in our country,’ wrote one woman in Munich to her husband.44 A major in the supply unit of an infantry division behind the lines headed his diary entry for 20 July: ‘Evening. Bad news. Attack on the Fuhrer’, noting next day, after hearing Hitler’s late-night broadcast, that it was only a small clique of officers, and that a purge would follow. ‘It’s a crying shame’, he added, that this should take place, and with the Russians ‘at the gates’.45 Another officer, on the western front, and evidently sceptical about the course of the war, next day revised his initial view that it had been merely a small officers’ clique and saw the attack as ‘an entire plot against A[dolf] H[itler]’, denoting a split in the Wehrmacht between loyalists and opponents. He recalled someone who had known Stauffenberg speaking of him as an excellent officer and courageous soldier. But he was ‘evidently politically stupid’, he added.46
In the upper ranks of the army, too, the response was highly supportive of the regime.47 There was immediate dismay and condemnation of Stauffenberg’s strike at the head of the armed forces in the midst of a world war.48 The reaction of Colonel-General Georg-Hans Reinhardt provides a telling example. He was an experienced and capable commander who remained a Hitler loyalist despite having to comply with the absurd orders from the Fuhrer in late June 1944 that prevented the retreat of his 3rd Panzer Army, resulting in its destruction by the Soviets. He was distraught at the news of the attempt on Hitler’s life.49 ‘Thank God he is saved,’ was his immediate reaction, in consternation and disbelief that such a thing had been possible. ‘Completely broken’, he added next day. ‘Incomprehensible! What has this done to our officer class? We can only feel deepest shame.’50 His belief in Hitler remained intact, as did his sense of duty at fulfilling the will of the Fuhrer. ‘Duty calls. I will go where the Fuhrer commands,’ he wrote on taking over command of the remnants of Army Group Centre a month later. ‘It’s a matter of justifying his trust.’51 General Hermann Balck, a teak-hard tank commander and seasoned campaigner on the eastern front, a strong loyalist and highly regarded by Hitler for his dynamic leadership of armoured formations, had known and admired Stauffenberg, but was forthright in his condemnation of him as a ‘criminal’. His act, which Balck regarded as comparable with the killing of Caesar by Brutus, had made Germany’s difficult situation worse. He saw the causes in a long-standing inability within the officer corps to place ‘oath and honour’ above all else. The ‘General Staff’s revolt’ was ‘shameful’ for the officer corps. But it appeared to be a ‘cleansing storm’ at just the right time. Now there would have to be a merciless purge of all conspirators, a
Officers who were far from outright Nazis in their sentiments still faced the perceived dilemma that, even in the plight that had befallen Germany, killing Hitler appeared an intensely unpatriotic act which undermined the fighting front, was morally wrong in itself and constituted a betrayal of the oath of loyalty to the Fuhrer. Such attitudes, whatever the doubts about Hitler’s leadership qualities, made Germany’s military leaders for the most part instinctive loyalists. Proxy for many who felt this way was General Ho?bach, later to be sacked by Hitler as commander of the 4th Army during the last battles for East Prussia in early 1945. Reflecting on the bomb plot less than a fortnight after Germany’s capitulation in May that year, and in full recognition of the calamitous losses and colossal destruction of the last months of the war, Ho?bach offered no realistic alternative to what had taken place. He accepted the patriotic need for the armed forces to ‘redeem Germany from the domination of a criminal clique’. But how this might be achieved he left uncertain. He condemned the attempt to overthrow Hitler’s regime by assassination and
