Plotting Hitler's Death

my dear fellow, was not the way to go about it.”³¹

In any event, many important aspects of the plan did indeed go awry, from the failure to establish the loyalty and presence of the Doberitz and Krampnitz commanders to the defection of the task forces, which caused Colonel Jager so much grief, to the absurd de­ception practiced on Major Jakob after he seized the broadcasting center on Masurenallee. Numerous other oversights and blunders- and simple human frailty-played a role as well, which is all the more surprising because the coup was planned and carried out by experi­enced officers of the general staff. The uprising lacked drive, but perhaps even more fatal was the fact that the staff officers who planned it did not have proven commanders at their disposal-resolute, careful officers experienced at overseeing troops and accustomed to bearing complete responsibility. Goebbels was amazed, for instance, to discover on the evening of July 20 that although the government quarter had been surrounded and two sentries posted in front of his apartment his telephone line had not been cut.³²

Nevertheless, it was not these obvious weaknesses that ultimately caused the uprising to fail. Strictly speaking, success or failure hinged on just two things: the assassination of Hitler and the interruption of all communications from the Wolf’s Lair. When the first of these conditions was not fulfilled, the second could not be maintained for long. One can hardly fault General Fellgiebel, who, astonished to see Hitler walk by him right after the explosion, made the fateful decision to call Berlin and pass along the news.

But however damaging the “logistical” failure, it does not capture the essence of the problem. Far more decisive on July 20, as on so many other days, were deeply ingrained attitudes and behaviors that inhibited any kind of revolt. Although criticism of Hitler and his re­gime was widespread within the army, not a single officer who had not been privy in advance to the plans for the uprising decided to join the rebels on the spur of the moment. The radio broadcasts in the early evening proclaimed not only that Hitler had survived but, even more important, that “legal” authority remained in his hands. There­after, most officers almost instinctively dismissed the rebels as insur­gents or traitors.

The enormous respect accorded “legality” greatly impeded the conspirators, stifling any questions as to why they were acting as they were. It was precisely in order to circumvent the army officers’ pro­found aversion to mutiny and broken oaths that the conspirators had planned to dress the coup up as a “legal” takeover. With the failure to assassinate Hitler, however, their reliance on legality was turned against them. This shift was clear in the initial reluctance and then the quite open defiance of the department heads on Bendlerstrasse, as well as in the passionate arguments that broke out in the Doberitz mess and prompted Colonel Wolfgang Muller to report that evening, “The troops cannot possibly be persuaded to fight against Hitler. They refuse to obey me against him.” Even among units that were deployed according to plan, a reference to “personal orders from the Fuhrer” worked “like magic,” so that the troops turned around and headed smartly back to barracks.³³ Thiele and Thungen reacted the same way and, most critical of all, so did Kluge. After his telephone conversation with Stieff, he was totally impervious to all appeals or attempts at persuasion, despite his previous close affiliation with the rebels.

It is here that the weakness of the Valkyrie plan-its reliance on orders being followed unquestioningly down the chain of command- clearly emerges. Even if the attack on Hitler had been successful, many generals with troops at their command would still have had to decide to obey the new government. A few examples suggest that this decision was far less certain than the conspirators imagined: on re­ceiving instructions from army headquarters in Berlin, the com­manders of military districts in Hamburg, Dresden, and Danzig immediately contacted their regional party commanders or local Ge­stapo officials for clarification. They may have been exceptions, but they illustrate the extent to which innumerable individual decisions would have had to go the right way in order for the rebels to pose a serious challenge to the logistical might of the established legal au­thorities. In his complex combination of contempt for the regime and submissiveness to it, indecision and legalism, Field Marshal Kluge illustrates better perhaps than any of his fellow officers the problem that would likely have doomed the coup even if the attack on Hitler had succeeded.

As always in human history, only a small minority of men were willing to raise moral principle not only above the traditions with which they grew up but above life itself. When Henning von Tresckow discovered in the early hours of July 21 that the attack on Hitler had failed, he said to Schlabrendorff “in a totally calm, col­lected way” that he would now take his own life because he feared what would happen when he was pressured to reveal the names of his accomplices. The next morning, as he took his final leave of his friend and prepared to drive out past the German lines into no-man’s-land in order to end his life, he added another reason for his actions: “The whole world will vilify us now, but I am still totally convinced that we did the right thing. Hitler is the archenemy not only of Germany but of the world. When, in a few hours’ time, I go before God to account for what I have done and left undone, I know I will be able to justify in good conscience what I did in the struggle against Hitler. God promised Abraham that He would not destroy Sodom if just ten righteous men could be found in the city, and so I hope that for our sake God will not destroy Germany. None of us can bewail his own death; those who consented to join our circle put on the robe of Nessus. A human being’s moral integrity begins when he is prepared to sacrifice his life for his convictions.”³⁴

A far more typical example of human behavior, however, was the expedient set of actions taken by Kluge- though in his case it was writ particularly large. Late in the evening of July 20, shortly after dismissing Stulpnagel and Hofacker with a resounding “No!” he sent a telegram to Hitler expressing his devotion: “The attempt of villain­ous murderers to kill you, my Fuhrer, has been foiled by the fortu­itous hand of fate.”³⁵ Kluge knew full well that he still could not escape Hitler’s longstanding suspicions of him. Five days later, when the great Allied offensive in the West began with General Patton’s armored breakthrough in the area around St. Lo and Kluge could not be reached all day because he was directing the German troops from right behind the front, Hitler immediately suspected him of attempt­ing to negotiate a surrender. In any case, the Fuhrer believed that kluge “knew about the assassination attempt,” as he remarked to Guderian. The reprimands and interference of a suspicious Fuhrer soon culminated in Kluge’s being told where he should station him­self in battle. They continued with specific orders as to when to attack and where to hold the line-even though no troops were available for the maneuvers that were demanded. The ultimate humiliation came on August 17, after the fall of Falaise, when Field Marshal Walter Model suddenly appeared at Kluge’s headquarters and announced that he was the new commander in chief in the West. The letter from Hitler confirming Kluge’s dismissal ended with the ominous words “Field Marshal Kluge shall keep this office advised of where in Ger­many he intends to go.”³⁶

The “master of tactical improvisation,” as Kluge liked to be known, was forced into something he had always avoided: an irrevocable decision. He also had an opportunity to soften, at least for posterity, the memory of his indecisiveness, his pathetic “Children, I’m yours!” outburst, his constant evasion of and faithlessness toward Beck, Tresckow, Rommel, and Stulpnagel. Once again, however, he failed to take a stand, even though he had already resolved to put an end to fear and anxiety. He remained his guarded self in a farewell letter to Hitler and, while he did call for peace, he also wrote of the Fuhrer’s “grandeur” and “genius” and concluded by writing, “I take leave of you, my Fuhrer-to whom I have always stood closer than you per­haps realize-in the firm conviction that I did my duty to the absolute best of my ability.”³⁷ Kluge then set out on the road back to Germany. Near the place where Stulpnagel had tried to end his life, Kluge ordered his car to stop and swallowed poison.

As it happened, only days before, Rudolph-Christoph von Gersdorff had visited Kluge, like a ghost from the past, and attempted to persuade him to negotiate with the Allies, withdraw his troops to Germany’s prewar borders and, with the help of a few reliable units, try to overthrow the Nazi regime. “If that should fail, Gersdorff,” the commander retorted, “Field Marshal Kluge will go down as the big­gest swine in world history.” Gersdorff continued to press, arguing that “every great man in world history” has faced a decision that would cause him to be remembered either as a criminal or as “a savior in times of dire need.” Kluge simply laid his hand on the colonel’s shoulder and remarked, “Gersdorff, Field Marshal Kluge is no great man.”³⁸

10. PERSECUTION AND JUDGMENT

By the night of July 20, widespread manhunts were already under way. Besides those arrested on Bendlerstrasse, anyone who had had personal or professional dealings with the known conspirators or who had attracted the earlier attention of the security authorities was investigated. Around midnight Helmuth Stieff was taken into custody at headquarters. At about that time Erich Fellgiebel was engaged in a lofty philosophical