-Caveat Lector-
an excerpt from:
Secret Germany - Stauffenberg and the Mystical Crusade Against Hitler
Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh,(C) 1994
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First published by Jonathan Cape 1994
Published in Penguin Books 1995
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--[4a]--
3
In the Wolf's Lair
At seven in the morning, on Thursday 20 July 1944, Stauffenberg boarded a
courier aircraft at a military aerodrome south of Berlin. He was accompanied
by his aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Werner von Haeften, and by another officer,
also privy to the conspiracy. Even at this early hour, the day was hot and
sultry promising to become more oppressive as it wore on.
The flight to Rastenburg was ordinarily of some two hours' duration. Today,
however, it was delayed, and did not land until ten-fifteen. At the airstrip,
a car awaited Stauffenberg and his fellow officers, to convey them to the
Fuhrer's compound. For four miles, the road ran tunnel-like through the
sombre gloom of pagan fir forests dank with the stench of mould. The trees
then gave way to a camouflaged perimeter of minefields, networks of festooned
barbed wire, checkpoints manned by hand-picked SS who demanded precise
passwords. The temperature was now in the upper eighties, the air was
stifling with humidity and Stauffenberg, like everyone else, was sweating
profusely. This very discomfort, however, would work in his favour.
At a table laid under an oak tree outside the mess, he breakfasted. At eleven
o'clock, he met with two general officers. At eleven-thirty, there followed a
forty-five minute conference with Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of the
General Staff and one of Hitler's most contemptibly abject subordinates. To
Stauffenberg and the other conspirators, Keitel was known as 'Lakeitel', a
play on the German word 'Lakei', meaning 'lackey' or 'toady', and with
effeminate connotations as well.
The conference with the Fuhrer, scheduled originally for one o'clock, had
been moved forward by half an hour. With fifteen minutes to spare,
Stauffenberg, blaming the heat and humidity of the day, requested premises in
which he might wash, and change his sodden shirt. A deferential officer
directed him to a washroom. On the way he was joined by Haeften, carrying a
suitcase with two bombs. The bombs were not unlike the one employed by
Tresckow's subordinate, Fabian von Schlabrendorff, in the abortive
assassination attempt of 1942. Detonation depended on acid eating its way
through a length of wire. In order to rupture the container of acid,
Stauffenberg had equipped himself with a specially modified pair of pliers
which enabled him to perform the operation with the three fingers of his left
hand. The remains of these pliers are today on display in Berlin, in the
building that once housed the Reserve Army's headquarters on the
Bendlerstrasse, now the Stauffenbergstrasse.
Once the bombs were activated, there would be a time delay of ten minutes
before they exploded. This delay, however, was only approximate. The speed
with which the acid consumed the wire would be, to some degree, affected by
temperature, atmospheric pressure and other indeterminate factors. The hotter
the day, the more quickly the explosion would occur; but there was no way of
predicting precisely how quickly.
In the washroom, Stauffenberg changed his shirt and, assisted by his aide,
began to arrange and activate the bombs in his briefcase. Using the specially
modified pliers, he had already activated the first when he was interrupted
by a sergeant-major, who - since the briefing with Hitler was about to begin
- had been sent to hurry him up. The sergeant-major waited until Stauffenberg
and Haeften had finished what they were doing. He was later to testify that
he saw them busy with a wrapped parcel. It was undoubtedly the incommodious
presence of this intruder that prevented Stauffenberg from arming both bombs.
The device that remained inert was left with Haeften, who slipped it into his
briefcase. With the activated bomb now in his own briefcase, Stauffenberg
left the washroom. Within ten minutes, the blast would occur.
Emerging into a corridor, Stauffenberg again encountered Field Marshal
Keitel. It was now twelve-thirty, and the field marshal huffy and flustered
as usual, begged him to hurry. Tardiness was not seemly for a German officer
and might provoke the Fuhrer's wrath. Another officer, standing nearby,
offered to help Stauffenberg with
his briefcase. When Stauffenberg declined the courtesy, it aroused no
suspicion. He was known and respected for his fierce self-sufficiency.
Presumably he had hoped to be conducted to the visitors" bunker, where Hitler
was staying at the time and where conferences usually occurred. The concrete
walls of this structure would contain and maximise the effects of the blast.
But since 15 July, conferences had been held in the adjacent map room, which
had now become a separate briefing hut. It was a wooden structure of some
sixteen by forty feet, with three large windows in the north wall. A blast
here would be significantly less lethal.
As Stauffenberg approached the hut, another officer volunteered to help him
with his briefcase. This time he accepted and added a request: 'Could you
please put me as near as possible to the Fuhrer so that I can catch
everything I need for my briefing afterwards. " It has been plausibly
suggested that this was a reference to his hearing which had been adversely
affected by his injuries.
When he entered, the conference had already begun. General Heusinger,
Assistant Chief of Staff, was reporting on the situation on the Eastern
Front. Most of the two dozen men present, including Hitler, were clustered
around a heavy oblong table, bent over maps which littered its surface.
Stauffenberg joined them, edging his way to a position on the Fuhrer's right,
some six feet distant. Keitel introduced him. He and Hitler shook hands.
Placing his briefcase on the floor, Stauffenberg nudged it under the table
with his boot. General Heusinger paused for breath. Taking advantage of this
intermission, Keitel suggested that when Heusinger had finished speaking,
Stauffenberg might report on the status of the Reserve Army. The Fuhrer
nodded approval, not deigning to say anything. General Heusinger then resumed
his exegesis. There could now be no more than seven minutes before the bomb
exploded.
Turning to the officer beside him, Stauffenberg excused himself. He had to
telephone Berlin, he explained. It was urgent. He would return at once.
Leaving his briefcase under the table, he threaded his way to the door. No
one paid any attention to his departure except the fussy Keitel, who made a
half-hearted attempt to go after him, then gave it up.
Once outside the briefing hut, Stauffenberg, in accordance with pre-arranged
plans, hurried to a shelter across the compound. Here, General Erich
Fellgiebel, Chief of Signals at Rastenburg, awaited him. Fellgiebel was a
colleague, a fellow conspirator and integral component of the plot. When the
explosion occurred, he was to telephone the other conspirators in Berlin, who
would activate Operation Valkyrie, the mobilisation and deployment of the
Reserve Army. Fellgiebel was then to cut all communications from Rastenburg,
thus truncating the chain of command and thwarting all interference. The
'Wolf's Lair' would be altogether isolated, severed from events unfolding
elsewhere.
For three minutes, Stauffenberg and Fellgiebel waited in the shelter,
concealing their tension. A subordinate signals officer happened to be
present, and this compelled them to sustain an anodyne conversation about
which car Stauffenberg should take to the landing strip. Then, at
twelve-forty-two, a single shattering detonation ruptured the humid summer
somnolence, followed by a stunned stillness. Stauffenberg contrived to give
'e violent stars' end Fellgiebel feigned alarm. The signals officer dismissed
the matter irritably. It must have been a mine, he said. Given the defences
at Rastenburg, such things often occurred. Atmospheric pressure, defective
mechanisms, stray wildlife were constantly triggering explosions in the
minefields. There was no cause for concern. From the briefing hut across the
compound, a plume of sulphurous smoke boiled upwards, staining the sky.
Outside the signals shelter, Haeften appeared in a requisitioned car.
Fellgiebel accompanied Stauffenberg to the vehicle, which lurched quickly
into motion. It was necessary to escape from Rastenburg before the compound
was sealed off. On the way from the signals shelter, the car passed within
fifty yards of the briefing hut. Security personnel were rushing about in
great disorder, like wasps from a disturbed nest. Figures were being carried
out, though it could not be determined whether they were dead or only
injured. The hut itself appeared gutted, and rubble littered the grass for
some distance. Greasy smoke gushed from the windows, together with fitful
flickers of flame. Stauffenberg was absolutely convinced that no one could
possibly have survived the blast.
By now, klaxons were braying and Rastenburg's former torpor had been
supplanted by frenzy. A full security alert had galvanised the compound,
internal telephones were ringing, guards being reinforced. At the first two
checkpoints, Stauffenberg knew the sentries, who, after a moment's chatter,
waved him through the barriers. At the last and southernmost checkpoint, the
car was halted by an officious sergeant-major. No one, he announced, was
permitted to enter or leave the premises. Stauffenberg snapped at him
impatiently, 'in a parade-ground tone'. The sergeant-major was cowed but
stolidly insisted on adhering to orders. Stauffenberg got out of the car,
snatched up the telephone and personally rang the aide-de-camp of
Rastenburg's commandant.
'Colonel Count Stauffenberg speaking, from outer checkpoint South. Captain,
you'll remember we had breakfast together this morning. Because of the
explosion, the guard refuses to let me pass. I'm in a hurry. Colonel-General
Fromm is waiting for me at the airfield.'[2]
Without waiting for a reply, he replaced the receiver, but the obstinate
sergeant-major insisted on receiving the order personally and telephoned the
commandant's aide himself. On being told that Stauffenberg could pass, he
raised the barrier. The car set off for the landing strip, Stauffenberg
ordering the driver to hurry. Haeften tossed the second and unused bomb from
the window.
By one-fifteen, Stauffenberg was airborne, and on his way back to Berlin. He
could not yet confirm definitely the Fuhrer's death, of course. There was no
means of doing that if he intended to get out of Rastenburg. Nevertheless, he
was confident. With his own eyes, he had seen the devastation caused by the
explosion. It seemed inconceivable that Hitler could have survived it.
In the briefing hut, an unwitting colonel, taking Stauffenberg's vacated
place at the table, had barked his shin against a briefcase. Cramped for
space, he had pushed it further under the table, behind one of the heavy oak
supports on which the tabletop rested. These supports were not just legs.
They were solid slabs of wood extending the width of the table - tantamount,
in effect, to sturdy waist-high partitions. The tabletop, too, was of solid
oak, four inches thick. Hitler was thus shielded from the bomb by both the
table's top and its supports, which deflected the impact of the blast. The
unwitting colonel, two generals and a stenographer were to die from their
injuries. Nine other men had to be hospitalised, and everyone else present
suffered at least minor wounds. Hitler's hair was set aflame and his right
arm was temporarily paralysed, his eardrums were pierced and he was badly
dazed. The tremor he had begun to display, symptom of a nervous disorder, was
to become exacerbated and remain acute for the duration of his life. It has
been suggested that he may have suffered a form of breakdown. Certainly he
was never again to appear in public. But he was very much alive; and the
relieved lackeys attending him could see only minor burns and the indignity
of shredded trousers.
In the signals shelter, General Fellgiebel had waited expectantly, ready to
telephone Berlin and start Operation Valkyrie, then cut all communications to
and from Rastenburg. To his horror, Fellgiebel saw the dazed and bewildered
Fuhrer being led shakily from the smouldering debris of the briefing hut.
Despite this unexpected development, the general showed great presence of
mind, anticipating what he knew would have been Stauffenberg's own decision
the coup must proceed anyway. Shortly before one o'clock, he telephoned
Berlin and activated Valkyrie. He then rang a contact at OKH (Army)
Headquarters not far away.
'Something fearful has happened,' he announced. 'The Fuhrer is alive.' When
asked what had now to be done, Fellgiebel replied, 'Block everything.'[3]
In other words, news of Hitler's survival had to be kept from the outside
world. As for cutting communications from Rastenburg proper, Fellgiebel had
no need to do so: the compound's security authorities had already ordered a
total blackout. At the same time, it was impossible to isolate Rastenburg
completely. Although the telephone and teleprinter exchanges could be cut,
there were still radio transmitters; and both the Ministry of Propaganda and
the German News Agency had their own private teleprinter lines which did not
pass through the main exchange. No provision had been made, or could have
been made, for dealing with these. In any case, despite whatever its planners
had overlooked or been forced to omit, Operation Valkyrie was now in progress.
In Berlin, the conspirators had thronged the War Office in the
Bendlerstrasse, anxiously awaiting Fellgiebel's call. When it came, it
implemented Valkyrie but made no mention of Hitler's survival. By one-thirty
at the latest, however, news of the Fuhrer's escape would have filtered
through, if only via OKH Headquarters, but no one
was able to consult with Stauffenberg. He, of course, was airborne at the
time, and out of communication, still wholly convinced everything was going
according to plan. In his absence, no one in any position of authority dared
make a decision or determine what to do next. Some of the younger officers,
Stauffenberg's contemporaries, tried desperately to coax things into motion.
An old friend of Stauffenberg, Colonel Albrecht Merz von Quirnheim, deserves
special mention for his resolute insistence. But General Olbricht from whom
all orders had ultimately to issue, remained paralysed. Two hours passed.
Tension intensified, nerves grew strained and the telephones remained silent.
The conspirators hung suspended in a vacuum, the lack of information as
painful and stifling as a lack of air. Immobilised by uncertainty, Olbricht
continued to hesitate. And the minutes during which the coup might yet have
succeeded slipped away.
In Rastenburg, there was no doubt by now who had been responsible for the
bomb. Stauffenberg's rapid and unauthorised departure - he had left behind
his cap, his belt and other accoutrements - had made that clear enough. Even
so, no one as yet suspected an organised conspiracy, and the maimed colonel
was thought to have acted alone, a solitary depraved assassin. It was assumed
he would attempt to flee the country, seeking refuge on neutral soil. An
order was issued to the Luftwaffe, to intercept and shoot down a Heinkel
bound for Switzerland or Sweden. The officer charged with transmitting this
order, however, was one of Stauffenberg's collaborators, and left it
unimplemented on his desk.
Shortly after three-thirty, Merz von Quirnheim at last managed to goad
Olbricht into action. Senior officers were summoned. Hitler, they were told,
had been assassinated. The army was now under the supreme command of Field
Marshal von Witzleben. The new head of state was General Beck. An officer was
dispatched to Berlin Military Headquarters carrying orders for the further
implementation of Operation Valkyrie. The same orders were issued by
telephone and teleprinter to all military districts in the Reich.
Shortly before four o'clock, Olbricht and Merz von Quirnheim went to see
General Fromm, Commander-in-Chief of the Reserve Army and Stauffenberg's
immediate superior. Throughout the previous months of planning, Fromm had
vacillated abjectly. Although he had never been a committed member of the
conspiracy, his co-operation had been deemed essential. The conspirators,
albeit reluctantly, had therefore made him privy to their designs. Intent on
nothing more than self-preservation, Fromm had tepidly aligned himself with
them, as long as their enterprise promised some measure of success. Now, in
the absence of any official information, he began to dither anew. As Olbricht
and Merz von Quirnheim argued with him, a call came from the airport.
Stauffenberg and Haeften had just arrived. They had no reason to assume that
everything was not already well under way. In fact, scarcely had anything
begun, and more than three valuable hours had elapsed since the explosion at
Rastenburg.
The driver awaiting Stauffenberg and Haeften at the airport somehow contrived
to miss them. The absence of any other car - and of petrol as well - meant
further delay. In the meantime, Olbricht continued to dispute with Fromm. At
four-ten, Fromm attempted to ring Keitel at Rastenburg. To everyone's
surprise, he got through. What, Fromm asked, was happening? A bomb had
exploded, Keitel replied, but the Fuhrer was alive. Keitel then enquired as
to Stauffenberg's whereabouts. Stauffenberg, Fromm reported, had not yet
returned.
Olbricht had listened to this exchange. It was clear to him that Fromm's
co-operation could no longer be relied upon - if, indeed, it ever could have
been. After resisting for so long, Olbricht was now thoroughly determined, as
if steeled by Stauffenberg's imminent return Leaving Fromm, he hurried back
to his own office and, at four-thirty, issued new orders. These were the
first to offer the agreed 'cover story' for the coup.
The Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, is dead . . . An unscrupulous clique of
non-combatant party leaders has tried to exploit the situation to stab the
deeply committed front in the back, and to seize power for selfish
purposes.[4]
A state of martial law was declared. All Waffen-SS (combat SS) units were
immediately to be incorporated into the army and rendered subject to military
authority. All Party officials were similarly subordinated to military
control. The security service, the SD, was dissolved. The statement was
signed by Field Marshal von Witzleben.
As these orders were going out, Stauffenberg and Haeften arrived back at the
Bendlerstrasse. Stauffenberg went directly to his office, where four officers
were waiting, and, without any greeting, said simply:
'He's dead. I saw how he was carried out.'[5]
In Olbricht's office a few minutes later, Stauffenberg gave a more detailed
report:
'I saw the whole thing from the outside. I was standing outside the hut with
General Fellgiebel. There was an explosion inside the hut and then I saw
large numbers of medical personnel come running up and cars being brought
along. The explosion was as if the hut had been hit by a six-inch shell. It
is hardly possible that anyone could be alive.'[6]
By this time more reports had come in from Rastenburg. Although nothing as
yet could be substantiated definitely, there was increasing evidence to
suggest that Hitler was indeed still alive. Stauffenberg refused to believe
it. Having personally witnessed the effects of the explosion, he could not
accept that it had failed to kill everyone in the briefing hut, the Fuhrer
included.
With Stauffenberg attending him, Olbricht returned to Fromm's office.
Stauffenberg, he reported, had confirmed that the Fuhrer was dead.
'That is impossible,' Fromm replied. 'Keitel has assured me to the
contrary.'[7]
It must have been at this moment that Stauffenberg first seriously began to
suspect the truth. Keitel, after all, had also been in the briefing hut. If
Fromm had just spoken to him, Keitel had obviously survived; and if Keitel
had survived, the Fuhrer might have done so as well. At the same time it is
also possible that Stauffenberg's conviction remained unshaken. In an
interview with the authors of this book, Otto John, 'one of the few
conspirators to survive, made an interesting and revealing statement. As late
as 22 July, Otto John declared, two days after the event, he personally
continued to believe that Stauffenberg had been telling the truth and that
Hitler was indeed dead. 'All we heard over the radio was Hitler's voice, and
we all knew that there was a double.'[8] The belief that Hitler had a double
was widely held in the Third Reich, and this belief would clearly have
contributed to the conspirators' confusion. Stauffenberg may well have
wondered whether the Party hierarchy, and the authorities at Rastenburg, were
not attempting a sort of bluff. Whatever might be the case, he recognised the
necessity, even more urgent now, of proceeding with Operation Valkyrie
according to plan, even if that required a bluff of his own to prevent
demoralisation from setting in among the conspirators. Accordingly,
Stauffenberg retorted to Fromm, 'Field Marshal Keitel is Iying as usual. I
myself saw Hitler's body being carried away.' And a little later he repeated
what he had said to Olbricht, 'General, I myself set off the bomb during the
conference with Hitler. There was an explosion as though a six-inch shell had
hit the room. No one who was in that room can still be alive.'[9]
Before Fromm could reply, Olbricht announced that the orders for Operation
Valkyrie had already been issued. At this news, Fromm exploded with rage,
banging his fist on the desk. Was he not in command here? He would not
tolerate his subordinates doing what they liked. They were guilty of
insubordination, revolution, high treason. The penalty for all of them would
be death. Who, he demanded, had actually issued the orders to activate
Valkyrie? When Olbricht replied that Merz von Quirnheim had issued them, Merz
was summoned to confirm the assertion. When Merz did so, Fromm declared that
he, Olbricht and Stauffenberg were all under arrest. Merz was then commanded
to go to the teleprinter and cancel the orders. Merz simply sat down in the
nearest chair.
'Colonel-General,' he replied drily, 'you've just put me under arrest. My
freedom of movement is therefore restricted.'[10]
Fromm then turned on Stauffenberg. The attempted assassination had
miscarried, he shouted. Stauffenberg now had no alternative but to shoot
himself.
'I have no intention of shooting myself,' Stauffenberg answered coldly.
Olbricht added to Fromm, 'You are deluding yourself about who actually has
the power. It is we who are arresting you.'[11]
Lurching up from his desk, Fromm lunged forward with fists flailing - at
Stauffenberg according to some reports, at Olbricht according to others.
Junior officers, who by now had gathered in the room, intervened. Haeften
drew his pistol. So, too, did Lieutenant Ewald von Kleist, the man who,
earlier that year, had volunteered to model a new uniform for the Fuhrer with
explosives strapped around his waist. With the muzzle of Kleist's pistol
pressing into his stomach, Fromm subsided back into his chair. Stauffenberg
told him he had five minutes in which to think things over, and, accompanied
by Olbricht, left the room. When Olbricht returned and asked Fromm for his
decision, he replied, 'Under the circumstances, I regard myself as under
constraint.' Without any further protest, he allowed himself and his aide to
be locked in an adjacent office. The telephone was disconnected and sentries
were placed at both exits. By five o'clock, the coup had begun to show the
momentum it should have had four hours earlier.
Olbricht reported to Stauffenberg that all requisite Valkyrie orders had been
issued. It was now a matter of waiting for troops to arrive, seal off the
Bendlerstrasse and protect the conspirators. In the meantime, General
Hoepner, Stauffenberg's former superior in the field, assumed Fromm's
command. Other conspirators began to appear at the War Office, including
Berthold, Stauffenberg's brother, and General Beck, the intended new head of
state. When informed that Hitler might indeed have survived, Beck decided the
possibility could not be entertained. 'For me,' he said, 'this man is
dead.'[12] Such was the premise on which things were to proceed, regardless
of the reality.
Shortly after five o'clock, according to eyewitnesses, an SS Oberfuhrer, or
colonel, made an ingenuous appearance.
"Suddenly thumping footsteps sounded in the corridor. The door flew open and
an SS . . . of the typical butcher type appeared in the doorway. A more
vivid, more typical SS hangman could scarcely be imagined. This creature
clicked his heels with a report like a pistol shot, raised his hand in the
'German' greeting and growled loudly, 'Heil Hitler.'"[13]
He had orders, he announced, to question Colonel Count von Stauffenberg.
Formal but as genially cordial as ever, Stauffenberg invited the SS man into
his office. Here, the SS man was disarmed by Kleist and a colleague,
Lieutenant Ludwig von Hammerstein (son of the former German army C-in-C), and
placed under guard in the same room as Fromm.
Shortly thereafter, the commander of Berlin's military district appeared,
having been summoned by Olbricht. He was horrified to find a coup in
progress, refused adamantly to co-operate and yelled repeatedly that 'the
Fuhrer is not dead'. In an attempt to escape, he dashed down the corridor
towards the exit. Here he, too, was stopped by Kleist and an NCO with drawn
pistols, then placed under guard with Fromm and the SS colonel. When he
invoked his oath of loyalty to the Fuhrer, Beck replied:
'How dare you talk of oaths? Hitler has broken his oath to the constitution
and his vows to the people a hundred times over. How dare you refer to your
oath of loyalty to such a perjurer?'[14]
For the next four hours, the War Office was a maelstrom of frenzied activity.
Confirmations were received that troops everywhere were ready to move.
Instructions for Operation Valkyrie were transmitted beyond the precincts of
the Reich, to Austria, Italy, Czechoslovakia and France. The orders
previously promulgated within Germany proper were now promulgated in occupied
territory as well. Martial law was declared to be in effect. The army was to
assume absolute control. All SS, SD, Gestapo and Party personnel were to be
arrested or placed under military authority.
It was already too late. The delay during the afternoon had been fatal, and
so had at least two other factors. Stauffenberg was urged to deal with
Goebbels, who remained safely ensconced at the Ministry of Propaganda in the
nearby Prinz Albrechtstrasse. For the first and only time in the course of
that crucial day, he hesitated, as did the more senior of his colleagues.
Perhaps - although it seems inconceivable - they underestimated Goebbels'
importance. Or perhaps they shrank from the prospect of unleashing a reign of
terror in Berlin. To assassinate the Fuhrer was one thing. To embark on a
wholesale purge was quite another, entailing precisely the same evils they
were endeavouring to overthrow. They had no wish to perpetrate their own
Night of the Long Knives.
Beck, Olbricht, Hoepner and Stauffenberg all procrastinated when Gisevius
tried to impress on them the need to radicalize the coup by summarily
executing some top Nazis. The very outrage at the methods of the Nazi regime
became an impediment to a coup d'etat, which depended, in part, on those same
methods.[15]
Such scruples were present even though the conspirators at the War Office had
now been joined by the head of the Ecumenical Section of the Evangelical
Church, with a pistol as well as a Bible in his pocket. On a day such as
this, the clergyman had declared, a day which involved revolt against
monsters like the SS and National Socialist Party leaders, shooting must be
expected. Excessive probity, he argued, would endanger both the coup and its
participants.
Of equally fatal consequences was the conspirators' failure to shut down,
effectively and completely, all broadcasting. They had dispatched contingents
of troops to occupy the relevant radio stations and transmission centres, but
these troops had lacked the technical expertise to do anything more. As a
result, broadcasting by Nazi authorities was soon to recommence and continue
uninterrupted; and the loyalties of the troops sent to curtail it were soon
to be disastrously divided.
By five-forty-two, orders were issuing from the Fuhrer's headquarters and
other bastions of Nazi power, contradicting those from the War Office. In the
War Office itself, telephone wires were clogged by confused commanders
besieging the conspirators. Kassel and Hannover rang. Nuremberg rang. Vienna
rang. Prague rang. Stauffenberg personally answered all requests for
clarification. At the same time, he and Hoepner were also ringing out,
galvanising their network in Konigsberg, in Stettin, in Munster, in Breslau,
in Munich and Hamburg.
By this time, it was clear to Stauffenberg that the conspiracy was doomed. He
refused, however, to capitulate - or to perform some such facile gesture of
martyrdom as, say, shooting himself. He continued to inspire his colleagues
and to comport himself as if success were still within easy reach. The
eyewitness Otto John has described him at his desk, answering the telephone.
John's words may not be accurate in every detail, but they convey a stirring
impression of Stauffenberg, single-handedly trying to keep the coup on course:
'Stauffenberg here - yes - yes - they are all C-in-C's orders - yes, that
stands - all orders to be carried out at once - you must occupy all radio and
signal stations forthwith- any resistance will be broken - you will probably
get counter-orders from the Fuhrer's headquarters - they are unauthorised -
no - the Wehrmacht has assumed plenary powers - no one except the C-in-C
Replacement Army is authorised to issue orders - do you understand? - yes -
the Reich is in danger - as always in time of supreme emergency the soldiers
are now in full control - yes, Witzleben has been appointed
Commander-in-Chief- it is only a formal nomination - occupy all signal
stations - is that clear? - Heil.'[16]
Here and there, this arrogation of authority proved convincing and effective.
In Vienna, all SS officers were arrested and the army occupied key
installations. In Paris, General Karl Heinrich von Stulpnagel
(commander-in-chief of France and a long-standing member of the conspiracy)
imposed martial law and imprisoned all SS, SD and Gestapo personnel. Summary
courts-martial were scheduled for that night and sandbags were piled up in
the barracks for the shooting of those condemned to death. For a few hours at
least, and in certain areas, the Third Reich was actually overthrown.
But time was running out. On the radio an increasing number of reports stated
that the Fuhrer had survived an attempt on his life. Himmler was on the
telephone giving orders to SS units in Berlin. There was even one
announcement that Himmler himself was now to be placed in command of the
Reserve Army. In Rastenburg, Hitler, propped up by aides and still shaken,
was recording a speech. It would not be broadcast until one in the morning,
but the gist of it was already on the airwaves:
A small clique of ambitious, irresponsible and at the same time senseless and
criminally stupid officers have formed a plot to eliminate me and the German
Wehrmacht command. The bomb was placed by Colonel Graf von Stauffenberg . . .
I myself sustained only some very minor scratches, bruises and burns. I
regard this as a confirmation of the task imposed on me by Providence to
continue on the road of my life as I have done hitherto . . .[17]
In Berlin, the commander of the city's standing garrison, Major Otto Ernst
Remer, had spent much of the afternoon in a quandary. There had never been
any question of him becoming associated with the conspiracy - he was too
mindlessly fervent a Nazi for that - but the confused situation had already
taxed far more capacious brains than his. At four-thirty, he had received the
alert for Operation Valkyrie and driven off to report to the city's
commandant, a member of Stauffenberg's circle. The commandant had told him
the army was assuming supreme power and ordered him to deploy his battalion
in a protective cordon around all government buildings, including the War
Office in the Bendlerstrasse. Although he later claimed to have been
immediately suspicious, he nevertheless complied, and the cordon was in place
by six-thirty. Remer was also instructed, albeit belatedly, to arrest
Goebbels at the Ministry of Propaganda; but this, he decided, 'would be
asking too much of the troops' because Goebbels was their honorary colonel.
Shortly thereafter, Remer was summoned by Goebbels himself. Remer dithered.
In the meantime, Goebbels established contact with Rastenburg, spoke to
Hitler personally and learned precisely what had happened. Not knowing how
far the coup in Berlin had proceeded, he was badly frightened. He alerted a
local SS detachment but simply ordered the men to stand by, unsure whether or
not to trust them. As a precaution against capture by the conspirators, he
slipped a number of cyanide capsules into his pocket. Then, at last, around
seven o'clock, Remer appeared, having finally decided at least to find out
what was happening. Goebbels must have been profoundly relieved. Remer's
would have been the first even potentially friendly face he had seen all day
from outside the Ministry of Propaganda, and it was not difficult to ensure
the allegiance of so embryonic a mind. He rang Rastenburg again and let Remer
speak to the Fuhrer in person. Hitler promoted Remer to colonel on the spot
and entrusted him with control of all security measures in Berlin. Remer
briefed his subordinates and redeployed his troops. They were ordered to
surround the Bendlerstrasse and, if necessary, storm the War Office.
In the War Office itself, the minions of the Reich had also begun to regroup.
Overlooked by the conspirators, a handful of officers loyal to General Fromm
had contrived to arm themselves. Around ten-thirty, gunfire suddenly erupted
inside the building. As Stauffenberg hurried down a corridor, a shot cracked
behind him and a bullet tore into his shoulder. Staggering, he turned and
managed to draw his own pistol. According to most accounts, he returned fire,
though one eyewitness reports he did not.[18] Alerted by the noise, other
conspirators rushed to the scene and more shots were exchanged. It was clear,
however, that the situation was hopeless. Stauffenberg, partially supported
by colleagues, was bleeding profusely. Morale among the other conspirators
was haemorrhaging away. Outside, Remer's battalion of troops was preparing
for a full-scale assault.
Stauffenberg and his immediate attendants did not surrender their weapons,
but allowed themselves to be conducted to Fromm's office. A few moments
later, Fromm himself entered, released from the adjacent room in which he had
been confined. Haeften drew his pistol and levelled it at the general. Fromm
cringed. Despite his; wound, Stauffenberg, his will again asserting itself,
held himself, erect. He is said to have fixed Fromm with a glare of withering
contempt; then, with a glance, he signalled Haeften to lower the pistol
trained on his former superior. His personal code of honour precluded petty
vindictiveness and revenge; and the death of a single abject general could
hardly accomplish anything now. Fromm was doomed anyway. In the days to come,
he would equivocate, prevaricate and lie outright in an attempt to exculpate
himself, but the scythe of Hitler's vengeance would sweep through the ranks
of anyone even remotely connected with the conspiracy, and Fromm would be
among the first to fall. The charge against him would not be treason, but
cowardice, thus setting the seal on his ignominy.
Now, released from his confinement, Fromm surveyed the men before him, the
nucleus of the coup that had come so near to success. These men, he realised,
were not only an embarrassment. They were also a dangerous liability, for
they could testify to his own involvement in the conspiracy, tepid though it
had been. To leave them alive for interrogation would be too risky. They
would have to be dispatched at once. Fromm pronounced them officially under
arrest and declared that he had just convened a summary court martial.
Provoked further by their comportment of continued defiance, he sentenced
four of them to immediate execution. 'Colonel Merz, General Olbricht, this
colonel whose name I will not mention and Lieutenant von Haeften are
condemned to death.'[19]
At this point, Stauffenberg spoke for the first time. 'In a few short clipped
sentences, he assumed responsibility for everything.'[20] His colleagues, he
said, had simply conducted themselves as soldiers and as his subordinates.
They had been guilty of nothing save carrying out his orders.
It is likely that Beck would also have been sentenced to summary execution.
The old and beloved general requested to keep his pistol, however, 'for
private use'. Fromm consented, ordering him 'to hurry up'. Under armed guard,
Stauffenberg, Olbricht, Haeften and Merz von Quirnheim were escorted down the
stairs to a courtyard below. Stauffenberg was still bleeding copiously from
his shoulder, and Haeften again supported him. All four men walked calmly,
'showing no emotion'. In the room to which he had retired, Beck shot himself
twice. When he was found to be still alive, Fromm ordered an officer to
administer the coup de grace. The officer could not bring himself to do so,
and entrusted the task to a sergeant.
For the Nazis, one of the greatest (and most improbable) 'heroes of the hour'
was the toadying and robotlike young Major Remer. By the end of the war, he
had risen to the rank of major-general. Age was to bring no very marked
wisdom in its wake. After the cessation of hostilities, Remer remained a
dedicated Nazi, eager to disseminate his warped Weltanschauung. In 1950 he
joined the neo-Nazi Socialist Reich Party (SRP) and became its second
chairman. With bizarre sanctimoniousness and sententiousness, he fulminated
against Stauffenberg and other members of the conspiracy branding them
'traitors to their country' and a 'stain on the shield of honour of the
German officers' corps'. They had, he blustered (in an all-too-familiar
cliched phrase) 'stabbed the German army in the back'. 'The time will come,'
he frothed in 1951, 'when men will be ashamed to admit that they were part of
the 20 July Putsch . . .[21]
In the same year, a statement was issued by an ax-officer, one of Remer's
wartime colleagues:
We, his former comrades, have deeply regretted that destiny confronted this
young officer in July, 1944, with a situation with consequences the bearing
of which I should assume are beyond the powers of a human being. No judgement
will be made here as to whether his decision on July 20 was right or wrong.
But the consequences of his decision were so terrible, and have cost so much
of the best German blood, that we old soldiers had expected that a man to
whom destiny gave such a burden to carry until the end of his life would
recognise this, and would thereafter live quietly and in seclusion. We, his
former comrades, lack any sympathy for the fact that Herr Remer fails to
summon up this attitude of self-effacement.[22]
In the spring of 1952, Remer was sentenced to three months in prison for the
'collective libel of the Resistance circle'. He promptly fled Germany,
re-surfacing in Egypt. But stupidity, as Schiller observed, is something with
which the gods themselves must contend. Forty years later, in October 1992,
Remer was again arrested in Germany and sentenced to twenty-two months in
prison for publishing neo-Nazi propaganda and denying the occurrence of the
Holocaust.[23] One can perhaps be forgiven a certain outrage at the fact that
this creature is still alive, continuing to pollute the cosmos with his
existence.
While Remer survived to preen himself on his comportment in Berlin, the
aftermath at Rastenburg was less conducive to such vanity. Mussolini had been
scheduled to arrive for a meeting at four o'clock. When he did so, the Fuhrer
was still dazed and overwrought, and even more prone to hysteria than usual.
This hysteria was contagious, transmitting itself to the other Nazi leaders
present. The arranged 'talks' quickly degenerated into a sequence of manic
and unseemly rows. Goering at one point challenged Ribbentrop's right to
parade a 'von' before his surname. Ribbentrop retorted by calling Goering a
'champagne salesman'. Apoplectic with rage, the Reichsmarshal threatened to
batter the foreign minister with his bejewelled baton. His nerves further
abraded by this dissension among his associates, Hitler lost all vestiges of
control and launched into a tantrum. He would be ruthless, he screamed: he
would annihilate everyone associated with the conspiracy, would exterminate
them all, would show no mercy, would exact revenge even from women and
children. In the past, Mussolini had been awed and cowed by what he saw as
the forbidding majesty of the Reich's hierarchy. When he left Rastenburg, he
was shaken and bewildered, feeling, as he reported afterwards, that he had
been in a madhouse.
Command of the Reserve Army was now entrusted to Himmler which rendered it
subordinate to, and eventually all but subsumed by, the SS. In hunting down
conspirators, Hitler urged his deputy to be ruthless. 'My Fuhrer,' Himmler
replied with a smile, 'you can rely on me.' On 3 August, a fortnight after
the attempted coup, he formally introduced the doctrine of Sippenhaft: 'blood
guilt' or 'blood liability'. According to this doctrine, allegedly rooted in
ancient Germanic tradition, treachery was a manifestation of diseased blood,
not only in the culprit himself, but in all members of his family. In
consequence, Himmler concluded, 'all were exterminated, to the last member of
the clan'. The doctrine of Sippenhaft was now to be invoked anew. 'The family
of Graf Stauffenberg will be extinguished to the last member.'[24]
In the end, Himmler was balked by his own doting reverence for aristocracy
and antique lineage. The blood of such families as the Stauffenbergs, he
concluded, was too precious to be indiscriminately squandered. In this blood
resided the puissance, the vertu, of Germany's future leadership. As a
result, most members of the Stauffenberg family escaped extermination. Many
of them were consigned to internment camps. Relatives were wrenched apart
children separated from their parents and entrusted to the care of the State.
Claus and Berthold von Stauffenberg's wives and children survived. So, too,
did their brother, Alexander, who had not been implicated in the conspiracy.
There were other conspirators, at least eight of them, who, like Beck, eluded
the Fuhrer's vengeance by committing suicide. One such was the gallant
Henning von Tresckow on the Russian front. According to some accounts,
Tresckow walked from his headquarters to the front line and there shot
himself. According to others, he simply strode out, amid an artillery
barrage, into the no-man's-land between German and Russian lines.
Tresckow was very much in the minority. Most of the conspirators not only
chose to stay alive, but even, with surprising docility, allowed themselves
to be arrested. It has been suggested that they may not have expected as
severe a punishment as they were subsequently to receive, but this seems
unlikely. They cannot have had many illusions about what was in store for
them. In fact, most of them welcomed the opportunity to speak out to their
interrogators and, more publicly still, in court, where they hoped to be
heard by the German people. They were eager to turn the indictments brought
against themselves into indictments against the regime. In more than a few
instances, they made a genuinely profound impression on their persecutors.
Some were even seduced into sympathy.
Dr Georg Kiesel offers one such example. In the aftermath of 20 July, Hitler
had demanded from Ernst Kaltenbrunner, head of the SD, a comprehensive
enquiry into the conspiracy and a detailed report. Kaltenbrunner issued
personal instructions that the Fuhrer 'must be given an uncompromising
account of the motives for the assassination attempt. So many men of
distinguished character and office were involved in the conspiracy that
Hitler would, it was hoped, receive the shock he needed to make the necessary
changes.[25]
Kiesel, an SS interrogator and investigator, was assigned by Kaltenbrunner to
compile much of the required documentation. To what must have been Hitler's
profound consternation; Kiesel described Stauffenberg as 'a truly universal
man' and 'a spirit of fire, fascinating and inspiring all who came in touch
with him,[26] He actually went so far as to depict the Fuhrer's would-be
assassin as 'a revolutionary aristocrat, careless of himself, without a trace
of vanity or ambition', a eulogy that even Stauffenberg's staunchest
supporters might find slightly extravagant. Kiesel was equally impressed by
his interrogation of Stauffenberg's brother, Berthold:
His short evidence was the clearest and most important document indicting
Hitler that may ever have been written and shown to him. It manifested a type
of German manhood with deep religious, political and artistic principles,
utterly divorced from Hitler and National Socialism.[27]
Kiesel was not alone. Reports by other interrogators spoke with consistent
respect of Stauffenberg, citing his 'vision and struggles' and his desire 'to
combine ethical socialism with his aristocratic traditions'.[28] For many of
the interrogators, their work was not without some considerable discomfort.
They may have been vicious and sadistic bullies, but they were not fools, and
had been inculcated since childhood with respect for those they regarded as
their 'betters'. Their victims were precisely such betters, men whom, for
various reasons - caste or lineage, social standing and prestige, military or
other accomplishments, intelligence and articulateness - they had revered. It
must have been disconcerting to hear the well-reasoned and eloquently
enunciated arguments of such men - arguments whose validity the interrogators
themselves would have had difficulty ignoring. No one, after all, could be
oblivious to the disaster which, by 1944, Hitler and the National Socialist
hierarchy had brought down upon Germany. No one could be oblivious to the
deteriorating military situation: the Western Allies driving eastwards from
Normandy, the Red Army advancing westwards, British and American heavy
bombers raining death down on German cities by day and night. And no one
could be oblivious to the atrocities of the regime, the wholesale murder of
Jews, Slavs and others, which the conspirators again and again cited as one
of their primary reasons for action.
Under brutal torture - what the Gestapo, with typical bureaucratic euphemism,
called 'sharpened interrogation' - the conspirators displayed extraordinary
bravery and tenacity. Fellgiebel suffered for three weeks before divulging
any names. When he finally did speak, he involved only those he knew already
to be dead. By virtue of such courage, a number of imprisoned individuals
were released, and others were never arrested at all. Thus did men such as
Axel von dem Bussche, Ludwig von Hammerstein and Ewald von Kleist escape and
survive.[29]
All officers implicated in the conspiracy were expelled from the army by a
spurious 'court of honour' - a total of fifty-five men, including ten
generals and a field marshal (Witzleben). This semblance of legality allowed
them to be tried, along with their non-military colleagues, as civilians.
There followed a series of grotesque 'show trials' in the notorious 'People's
Court', under the auspices of its so-called President, Roland Freisler, one
of the most loathsome figures in the entire macabre history of National
Socialism. No presence was made to anything even approximating judicial
procedure. Freisler interrupted the defendants, shouted them down, insulted
them, swore at them, endeavoured to humiliate them by every means possible.
It is not known how many Germans altogether died in reprisal for the abortive
coup, but the total number has been estimated as high as two or three
thousand. In the 'People's Court' alone, some two hundred were sentenced to
death before Freisler, on 21 December 1944, was fatally injured in an Allied
air raid. He was holding, at the time, the papers pertaining to the case of
Fabian von Schlabrendorff, Tresckow's subordinate, who consequently escaped.
Those condemned by Freisler's court were hanged in Berlin's Ploetzensee
prison. The method employed did not, as in conventional hangings, break the
neck. It was a slow and painful death by strangulation, which- sometimes
lasted as long as twenty-five minutes. On Hitler's express orders, the
executions were filmed. Even Kaltenbrunner objected to this obscenity, but
the Fuhrer remained adamant. Nine camera-men were employed by turns, but
filming, after the first day, was curtailed. According to their director: 'I
declared that I could not expect my camera-men to film any more of such
cruelties. All the camera-men were with me on that.'[30]
In the company of close friends, Party officials and selected guests, Hitler
would spend whole evenings watching such footage as had been filmed. He also
had stills made, which Albert Speer reports seeing on his desk. Speer himself
was invited to a showing, but declined in revulsion. The audience, he
observed, consisted primarily of civilians and junior SS personnel. 'Not a
single officer of the Wehrmacht attended.'[31]
Despite the grisly fate awaiting them, the conspirators remained defiant,
even parrying Freisler's abuse in the 'People's Court' and making themselves
heard above his hysterical tirades. When sentenced to hang, Fellgiebel
replied, 'Then hurry with the hanging, Mr President; otherwise you will hang
earlier than we.'[32]
'Soon you will be in hell,' Freisler sneered at the lawyer Dr Josef Wirmer,
one of the civilian conspirators.
'It will be my pleasure when you follow shortly, Mr President,' Wirmer
retorted.[33]
Field Marshal von Witzleben issued a similar prophecy: 'You can hand us over
to the hangman. In three months, the enraged and tormented people will call
you to account, and will drag you alive through the muck in the street.'[34]
Hans Bernt von Haeften, brother of Stauffenberg's aide, was asked how he
could possibly have broken faith with the Fuhrer.
'Because,' Haeften answered, 'I consider the Fuhrer the executor of the evil
in history.'[35]
On 21 July, the day after the abortive coup and just before his own suicide,
Tresckow stated:
Now they will all fall upon us and cover us with abuse. But I am convinced,
now more than ever, that we have done the right thing. I believe Hitler to be
the arch enemy not only of Germany, but indeed of the entire world . . . No
one among us can complain about his death, for whoever joined our ranks put
on the poisoned shirt of Nessus. A man's moral worth is established only at
the point where he is prepared to give his life for his convictions.[36]
He went on to say:
In a few hours' time, I shall stand before God and answer for both my actions
and the things I neglected to do. I think I can with a clear conscience stand
by all I have done in the battle against Hitler. Just as God once promised
Abraham that he would spare Sodom if only ten just men could be found in the
city, I also have reason to hope that, for our sake, he will not destroy
Germany.[37]
Tresckow's unwavering certainty was echoed in the last words of other
conspirators. Immediately before his execution, Julius Leber sent a statement
to his associates:
One's own life is a proper stake for so good and just a cause. We have done
what lay in our power. It is not our fault that we all turned out like this,
and not otherwise.[38]
In a farewell letter to his mother, one of Stauffenberg's cousins, Peter
Yorck von Wartenburg, wrote:
Perhaps there will yet come a time that will judge us not as scoundrels but
as prophets and patriots.[39]
The night before his death, Yorck wrote to his wife:
I, too, am dying for my country, and even if it seems to all appearances a
very inglorious and disgraceful death, I shall hold up my head and I only
hope that you will not believe this to be from pride or delusion. We wished
to light the torch of life and now we stand in a sea of flames.[40]
One of Stauffenberg's closest friends and associates was Count Fritz-Dietlof
von der Schulenburg. Schulenburg's was among the oldest and wealthiest of
Prussian 'Junker' families. Like Stauffenberg and Tresckow, Schulenburg
himself was a passionate devotee of Stefan George's poetry. His wife's
birthday was on 20 July. On the evening of the I 8th, he had returned home to
visit her, saying he wished to celebrate in advance.
The children were to be got out of bed again . . . When he drove away again
in the early morning and sat on the driver's seat he . . . waved his cap like
a civilian, bowed low and gravely and went off, to the laughter of the
gesticulating children.[41]'
No sooner had he reached Berlin than he learned that his brother had been
killed in Normandy.
In his trial before the 'People's Court', Schulenburg stated:
We have accepted the necessity to do our deed in order to save Germany from
untold misery. I expect to be hanged for this, but I do not regret my action
and I hope that someone else in luckier circumstances will succeed.[42]
Just before his execution, he wrote to his beloved wife: 'What we did was
inadequate, but in the end history will judge and acquit us.'[43]
Berlin's Ploetzensee Prison is still in use today, but the room in which the
conspirators died is not. It is a cold room. At the end of it Opposite the
entrance, five bleak meat hooks swing from a metal beam In front of these
hooks, there are usually banks of flowers.
Despite its grimly stark appearance, the atmosphere of the place suggests
something of a shrine. People approach it deferentially, in small groups or
singly. Their talk ceases. They stand in contemplative silence for a few
moments, then walk slowly on.
The nine months between 20 July 1944 and the end of the war in Europe were to
witness an appalling loss of life. There was the prolonged Allied thrust from
the Atlantic wall into Germany, with such major engagements as Arnhem and the
so-called Battle of the Bulge; and the even more costly Russian advance from
the east, into the shattered ruins of Berlin. There was also the Allied air
offensive, with its sickening toll of both air crew and German civilians,
which culminated in the devastation of Dresden. Lives continued to be lost at
sea, as well as in occupied countries such as Greece and Yugoslavia.
Thousands died in London from V-1 'buzz-bombs' and V-2 rockets. Most
appalling of all, millions were exterminated in the death camps. Altogether,
the last nine months of the war in Europe took more lives than the previous
four years and eleven months of conflict. This statistic offers some gauge of
the stakes involved in Stauffenberg's conspiracy. Had Hitler died on 20 duly
1944, the total casualties of the Second World War could have been halved.
Stauffenberg himself eluded Hitler's vindictive sadism and the gruesome fate
that befell so many of his co-conspirators. Shortly after midnight on the
morning of 21 July, he, Olbricht, Haeften and Merz von Quirnheim were lined
up before a pile of sand in an inner courtyard of the War Office. They were
supposed to be shot in order of rank: Olbricht first, then Stauffenberg, then
Merz, then Haeften. One of the latter two - Haeften according to some
accounts, Merz according to others - is reported to have lunged in front of
Stauffenberg and received the bullets intended for him. The firing squad was
compelled to take aim again. An instant before the fatal shots cut him down,
he shouted something defiant into the faces of his executioners. Amid the
reverberating echoes from the surrounding walls, the words were indistinct.
According to some accounts, he shouted: 'Es lebe unser heiliges Deutschland!'
('Long live our sacred Germany!') According to other accounts (and these
would appear to be more accurate), Stauffenberg's last words invoked his
master, the poet Stefan George, and the title of George's poem he had
conferred on the German resistance: 'Es lebe unser geheimes Deutschland!'
('Long live our secret Germany!').[44]
pp. 42-67
--[cont]--
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris
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