The plotters were probably well aware of the tensions within the Allied coalition, but this only heightened their fears rather than diminished them. It seemed most inauspicious that the various attempts to resume contacts with London after the French campaign had met with no response, and it was easy to foresee that as time passed and more people were killed, attitudes would only harden. As the likelihood of an Allied victory increased, the prospect of negotiations would grow even dimmer. This would remain true, the conspirators felt, as long as Moscow, London, and Washington did not agree on a joint policy toward Germany. Even if the Allies did reach agreement, it was likely that every dispute would be settled at Germany’s expense, for when coalitions of this kind seek a common denominator they usually find it in the harshest possible conditions for the vanquished.
Concern over the shrinking window of opportunity heightened the pressure on the opposition to act. During the summer of 1942, German forces again began scoring impressive victories, especially along the southern wing of the eastern front. This did nothing, however, to prevent heated controversies from erupting once more between Hitler and his generals. After an angry exchange, Halder was finally sent packing in September. Although he had long kept his mounting hatred of the regime to himself and no longer actively participated in the resistance, the opposition circles felt they were losing their last contact in the highest echelons of the military. In their notes from this period they write again and again of “little hope,” “few chances for success,” and “no initial spark.” Their generally depressed state of mind was such that they developed no plans and lacked any real drive or even a leader whom they all recognized. Exhausted by the continual setbacks, they placed their hopes on the visibly worsening relations between Hitler and the army, which they thought might prompt some as-yet-unknown officer to lead a revolt, and on the stirrings within Army Group Center.
Considering that the movement was led by experienced officers, it is remarkable how little planning had been done by this point and how much better the conspirators were at theorizing than they were at organizing. It was by no means easy, of course, to put together a resistance organization in a police state. Under the constant supervision of a huge security apparatus, the movement faced countless dangers and difficulties: it had to keep to a manageable size and yet be broad enough to have players in all the key positions; it had to bring together large numbers of people who were both reliable and willing to run tremendous risks. As it grew, the danger of discovery through recklessness or betrayal mounted.
Enormous efforts were required just to build up and bring together the three main hubs of resistance: the field army, the home army, and the civilian groups. In March Beck’s office was finally designated as the headquarters.25 At about the same time the conspirators scored perhaps their greatest success so far when Oster managed to establish close ties with General Friedrich Olbricht, the head of the OKW General Army Office and the acting commander of the reserve army. By nature and in manner a prudent administrative officer, General Olbricht proved one of the most determined and resolute opponents of the regime. Perhaps because he lived by the maxim that “a general staff officer doesn’t make a name for himself,” he has never received the recognition he deserves for the role he played in the preparations for July 20 and in the actual events of that day.26
In contrast to many of his fellow officers, Olbricht had supported the Weimar Republic and never allowed himself to be seduced, after the Nazi seizure of power, by any of Hitler’s successes or his hints of future rewards. It was typical of Olbricht that as early as 1940, at the height of Hitler’s triumphs, he had reached the conclusion that the dictator would have to be overthrown in a violent coup. Olbricht was motivated primarily by religious and patriotic considerations but also by the profound distaste of a cultivated man for the primitiveness of the Nazis and their moral unscrupulousness. He became the de facto technical head of the conspiracy, and it was his task to lay the groundwork for the government takeover to follow Hitler’s assassination. His removal would provide the much-discussed “initial spark” that would set the rest of the plan in motion.
With Beck, Tresckow, and Olbricht, the opposition at last had the foundation it had lacked for so long. Nevertheless, it was still very loosely organized, it faced enormous risks, and it had to follow many a circuitous path. The various resistance groups were continuing to operate largely on their own, and so, to bring them closer together and to facilitate coordination of their plans, Tresckow asked Schlabrendorff to act as a sort of permanent intermediary between Army Group Center on the one hand and Beck, Goerdeler, Oster, and Olbricht on the other.
Tresckow also placed high hopes in Kluge, the new commander in chief of Army Group Center. Tresckow’s relationship with Bock had soured for good after the field marshal cut him short during a last attempt to bring him over to the opposition; Bock had replied sharply that he would tolerate no further attacks on the Führer. Initial inquiries showed Kluge to be more alert, concerned, and accessible. He had sufficient insight to realize that Hitler was leading Germany and the Germans straight to catastrophe, and he was morally sensitive enough to be shocked by the crimes of SS and SD units behind the front. Furthermore, he was by no means submissive, occasionally even speaking out against Hitler’s interference in the struggle at the front and his increasingly obvious contempt for the officer corps.
Recognizing that any successful revolt would have to be led by an army group commander or at least by a well-known military figure, Tresckow from the very outset focused all his talent and persuasive powers on winning Kluge over. He ordered his staff to make sure that Kluge saw all negative information: horrifying reports about the Einsatzgruppen, news about fresh enemy units appearing on other parts of the front, and memoranda about the huge capacity of the United States for the production of war materiel. When, on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday, Kluge received a handwritten message from Hitler along with a check for 250,000 marks, Tresckow immediately suggested that he could only justify accepting such an amount in the eyes of posterity by claiming that preparations to overthrow the regime were already under way and he had to avoid raising the slightest suspicion.27
It was not for nothing, however, that Hans Kluge (whose surname means clever in German) was widely known as “clever Hans,” a reference less to his raw intelligence than to the smoothness and presence of mind with which he escaped from any jam. In the “dogged, drawn-out struggle” that Tresckow waged for his soul, Kluge would seem to yield one minute, only to slip away the next, to agree and then to disagree, to provide assurances and then to express surprise that he had ever done such a thing. Schlabrendorff spoke of Tresckow as a “clockmaker” who wound Kluge up in the morning “so that he would run and chime away all day, until by nightfall he had wound down and everything had to be repeated all over again.”28 But Tresckow’s indefatigable efforts and the political and moral intensity of his arguments gradually succeeded in drawing Kluge closer to the conspirators.