The conspirators would not overcome this basic flaw until shortly before July 20, 1944. Whereas in the fall of 1938 they made their coup contingent on Hitler’s going to war and on a firm response from Britain and France, they later made their activities dependent on Hitler’s victories and defeats: victories, they felt, made him popular with the people and therefore unassailable, while defeats laid them, his internal enemies, open to accusations of aiding and abetting the downfall of their own country. Most of the conspirators never escaped this dilemma, and the infirmity of purpose that is often imputed to the German resistance stemmed to a large extent from this self-imposed dependence on external circumstances. The alternative to this approach was embodied by Gisevius, the “eternal plotter,” as the other conspirators derisively called him. His radicalism, which so annoyed Halder, stemmed largely from his firm focus on the criminal nature of the Nazi regime. This enabled him to liberate action from all considerations of tactics, ultimate aims, and outside influences. Similar approaches were taken by Oster, Henning von Tresckow, Friedrich Olbricht, Cäsar von Hofacker, and Carl Goerdeler, who had warned repeatedly against waiting for the “right psychological moment” and now considered emigrating to the United States.41
One evening soon after the debacle of September 28, Oster and Gisevius somberly burned the plans and notes for the coup-all that remained of their daring dream-in Witzleben’s fireplace. Many months would pass before the resistance began to recover from the blow it had suffered. Only a small, highly committed core of conspirators remained, and even they felt completely spent; their nerves were too frayed and their energy too depleted for them to organize another coup attempt, especially since to do so went against the grain of all they had been taught, their way of thinking and their traditions, which, though honorable, had been overtaken by the times. The industrialist Nikolaus von Halem, who maintained ties with a variety of opposition groups, had already dismissed the officers’ ideas as “romantic” in the summer of 1938 and observed that Hitler, the “messenger of chaos,” could only be removed from this world by a professional hit man, or at least some figure from the renegade old soldiers’ organizations. For a long time he considered attempting to persuade the former leader of the Oberland Freikorps, Beppo Romer, to undertake such an attempt.42
But Halem’s approach was ultimately just another brand of romanticism. Much closer to reality was Franz Halder, who steadfastly held to his highly negative view of the regime, refusing to allow himself to be seduced by any of Hitler’s triumphs and finding in the mounting horrors new confirmation of his belief that Hitler was evil incarnate. His willingness to take action flared up once again, but weakly and only for a passing moment For the rest of the time, he doggedly performed his duty, served his country, kept himself isolated, nursed his hatreds, and, despite the darkness and horror on all sides, would not be persuaded to act. At noon on September 28, when news of the Munich conference broke, he lost his composure after so many days of feverish preparation. According to one observer, he “utterly collapsed” on his desk, “weeping and saying that all was lost.”43
It had been a trying time for Hitler, too, who also thought that all was lost, his life’s work in ruins. But he set about searching relentlessly for ways to recoup the situation. That was the crucial difference.
4. FROM MUNICH TO ZOSSEN
While the opponents of the regime were in the throes of depression, wondering whether it was possible to take moral stands in such a fallen world or whether those who did so inevitably ended up looking like fools, Hitler forged resolutely ahead. Although still disappointed with the Munich agreement, he realized that an opportunity had arisen to resolve the smoldering conflict with the army once and for all.
Only two weeks after the Wehrmacht had marched into the Sudetenland through the cheering throngs in the second of its “flower wars,” Hitler presented the OKW with the outline of an executive order that was dressed up in the form of an “Appeal to Officers.” It denied military leaders the right to form political judgments, demanding instead “obedience,” “rock-solid confidence,” and “faithful, aggressive determination.” The principle that the general staff should share in political decision making was eliminated, as was the traditional practice, extending back to the era of the kaisers, of registering dissenting views in writing. To the extent they could agree on anything, the generals had joined together from the very beginning in warning against virtually every political decision Hitler had made- and they had been proved wrong time and again. Now the Führer informed the commanders in chief, “I don’t want any more cautionary memoranda.”1
Under the pressure of this dispute, a split developed within the officer corps for the first time, or at least more visibly than before. On the whole, the officer corps had preserved a surprising degree of internal solidarity over the previous few years and possibly for this reason had managed to maintain a certain self-confidence despite all the setbacks. Hitler had long hoped to break this cohesion; he tested it with the sudden expansion of the Wehrmacht after 1935, which also enabled him to push a greater number of ideologically reliable officers into leadership positions in the military. For much the same reason, the exact responsibilities of the army, navy, and air force were never clearly defined. In addition, Hitler purposely sowed conflict between the high command of the armed forces (OKW), which reported directly to him, and the high command of the army (Oberkommando des Heeres, or OKH), led by the obstinate old officers’ caste. Despite all this, internal cohesion remained solid. The only exception had occurred early in the year when Admiral Erich Raeder, commander in chief of the navy, rejected an appeal to help with the rehabilitation of Fritsch: “That’s a mess that the boys in red pants got themselves into,” he said, “and they can get themselves out of it.”2
In the light of Hitler’s foreign policy successes, however, the ranks now began to waver. For the first time, senior officers endorsed his rebuke of the army high command. They lamented the lack of faith and loss of confidence the OKH showed in the Führer. The full extent of the split is evidenced in a letter written by OKW general Alfred Jodl in which he describes the OKH as the “enemy side.” The consequence was that no resistance was offered when Hitler took advantage of the situation to reshuffle personnel for a second time, dismissing a number of generals whose skeptical attitudes boded ill for the sort of unconditional obedience he now expected, including Wilhelm Adam, Hermann Geyer, and Wilhelm Ulex. Nevertheless, despite all the traps Hitler attempted to set within the officer corps and despite the tensions that did arise, the traditional esprit de corps remained quite strong. Those who opposed Hitler or even conspired against him over the ensuing years were generally safe from denunciation by their fellow officers. Among the rare exceptions to this rule were Erich von Manstein, who informed on Tresckow early in 1944; Wilhelm Keitel, who threatened to denounce any officer who criticized the Führer, “including on church or Jewish questions”; and Heinz Guderian, who only refrained from denouncing a fellow officer when he was similarly threatened in return.3