Those whose resistance was motivated primarily by nationalist concerns were the most torn. Their dilemma stemmed not only from the fact that Hitler shared their nationalism-in however exaggerated a form-but that for a long time his achievements reflected their desires. From the annexation of Austria to the victory over France, notes and reports written at the time by people like Hassell, Stieff, and Schulenburg attest to their divided sentiments: horror at the disgrace heaped on Germany and its good name through incessant criminal acts and yet pride in the growing power and increasing influence of the fatherland. “There is no doubt,” wrote Ulrich von Hassell in October 1940, “that if this system emerges victorious, Germany and Europe are headed for terrible times. But if Germany is defeated, the consequences are simply unimaginable.”5
The kinds of resistance were as varied as the motives, ranging from quiet disapproval and withdrawal to efforts on behalf of the persecuted and finally to active opposition to the Nazi regime, which itself took many forms. Easiest to understand are those people who strongly disapproved of the Nazis from beginning to end, particularly political opponents such as Leber, Mierendorff, the Kreisauers, Hammerstein, and Oster. Somewhat more complicated are those like Mertz von Quirnheim, Jens Peter Jessen, and Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenburg, whose early enthusiasm for the Nazis turned to disappointment, anger, and finally, bitter rejection. Yet another strand is represented by Ernst von Weizsäcker, the state secretary in the Foreign Office, who traveled a slippery path between conformity and accommodation on the one hand and resistance on the other, with all the attendant illusions and entanglements one might expect. Other cases are stranger, like that of Count Wolf-Heinrich von Helldorf, a rather coarse, boorish man who rose-for good reason-within the ranks of the SA. More unfathomable still was the transformation of SS Gruppenführer Arthur Nebe, who as chief of criminal police in Reich Security Headquarters was one of the architects of the totalitarian police state and later served as commander of Einsatzgruppe B who found his way into resistance circles in the late 1930s after becoming closely acquainted with Oster. No case is the same as the others; each must be looked at in a different light, and all are overshadowed by the darkness of those years.
These brief examples show that the conspirators, though frequently bound together by personal ties and occasionally by ties between the various groups, had no real common denominator or unifying idea, not even a collective name. Far from representing a tightly knit social elite hoping to regain its lost preeminence, the opposition to Hitler consisted of a motley collection of individuals who differed greatly in their social origins, habits of thought, political attitudes, and methods of action. Even the term resistance was not used until after the war, and to say that someone “joined” the resistance is misleading. People who were hostile to the regime found their way to one another through friendships, chance encounters, and in some instances persistent searches. Sometimes they remained active in the circles they discovered; at other times they dropped out. They were buffeted by the hazards of war, and they forged new connections whenever circumstances permitted. The extreme diversity of their views is illustrated by the fact that even close friends and philosophical allies could not agree on so basic an issue as whether Hitler should be assassinated.
All that united the resistance were a few fundamental maxims: a refusal to participate in the violence, mindlessness, and injustice on all sides; a strong sense of right and wrong; and, as one member of Tresckow’s circle observed, a desire “somehow simply to survive with a sense of decency.”6 In October 1944 Helmuth von Moltke wrote to his two sons from his prison celclass="underline" “I have struggled all my life- beginning in my school days-against the narrow-mindedness and arrogance, the penchant for violence, the merciless consistency and the love of the absolute, that seem to be inherent in the Germans and that have found expression in the National Socialist state. I have also done what I could to ensure that this spirit-with its excessive nationalism, persecution of other races, agnosticism, and materialism-is defeated.”7 Hans Oster, writing to his own son from prison, expressed similar sentiments, though couched in simpler terms reminiscent of an earlier era; the important thing, he wrote, is to remain “to your last breath the decent sort of fellow you were taught to be in the nursery and in your training as a soldier.”8
Their clear sense of conscience and morality lent the conspirators an uncompromising, categorical outlook that was the source of much of their inner strength. But coupled with their fondness for abstract theorizing and elaborate intellectualism, it tended to impede action. Well after they had finally decided to resort to violence-indeed on the afternoon of July 20-they nevertheless renounced the use of firearms in army headquarters so as not to besmirch the righteousness of their cause; this was an expression more of their romantic impracticality and their inconsistency than of their high moral purpose. Eugen Gerstenmaier, who had always favored killing Hitler, turned up at army headquarters carrying both a revolver and a Bible, as if hoping to demonstrate the compatibility of religious faith and tyrannicide. He urged the conspirators to take up arms as a visible sign of their determination, arguing that rebels who failed to go the limit were not rebels at all but sacrificial lambs.9
But lofty moral principles had in fact come into play much earlier. For instance, General Alexander von Falkenhausen was not admitted into the inner circle of conspirators because he had a mistress. Similarly, Helldorf was kept at arm’s length because of misgivings about his moral fiber, and it was possibly for this reason that he was left without instructions on July 20. Although Rommel certainly had reservations of his own about the conspiracy, the rebels made little attempt to win him over, because he clearly had little sympathy for their strict moral imperatives, ethics, and concern with matters of conscience. Nor were they swayed by the fact that Rommel was the only public figure with sufficient authority to challenge Hitler. They would permit no outsider to taint the purity of the new beginning they were proposing. Throughout the struggle there were similar moral gestures, including the determination of the Stauffenberg brothers to turn themselves over to the courts for judgment if the coup proved successful.10
None of the leading participants felt at ease with the role of conspirator. Born and raised in secure circumstances with a solid core of values and beliefs, extensive social ties, and firm loyalties, they had known only sheltered existences, and they had difficulty even comprehending what Hitler had done to their ostensibly reliable world. Ernst von Weizsäcker, asked if he had a pistol in case worst came to worst, replied, “I’m sorry, but I was not brought up to kill anyone.”11 For a while, most of the conspirators concealed or simply endured their torn loyalties. Henning von Tresckow, for example, threw himself into planning troop movements for the invasion of Czechoslovakia at a time when he had already urged that forceful measures be taken against the SS and the Gestapo. Such inconsistencies grew increasingly hard to live with, however, and eventually compelled the opposition to confront the fact that fighting for their country meant advancing the very brutality they despised.