Hitler. Part 24

On the day that German troops entered Hungary, a strange little ceremony took place at the Berghof. The field-marshals, who had been summoned from different parts of the front, witnessed the presentation to Hitler by their senior, Rundstedt, of a declaration of their loyalty, which they had all signed. The signatures had all been collected, on a tour of the front, by Hitler's chief Wehrmacht adjutant, General Schmundt. The idea, characteristically, had come from Goebbels (though this was kept quiet, and not made known to Hitler). It had been prompted by the anti-German subversive propaganda disseminated from Moscow by the captured General Walter von Seydlitz-Kurzbach and other officers who had fallen into Soviet hands at Stalingrad. In reality, the effect of the Seydlitz propaganda was minimal. But these were nervous times for the n.a.z.i leadership. Schmundt's main intention, in any case, was to remove Hitler's distrust towards his generals, and to improve the icy relations which had been so much in evidence at the January meeting interrupted by Manstein. It was, nevertheless, both remarkable in itself and a clear sign that all was not well if, in the midst of such a t.i.tanic conflict, the senior military leaders should see fit to produce a signed declaration of loyalty to their supreme commander and head of state. Manstein, the last field-marshal to sign the doc.u.ment, certainly thought so. He felt the declaration to be quite superfluous from a soldier's point of view. Hitler seemed moved by the occasion. It was a rare moment of harmony in his dealings with his generals.

Normality was, however, soon to be resumed. Within a week, Manstein was back at the Berghof. The 1st Panzer Army, under General Hans Valentin Hube, was in imminent danger of encirclement by Soviet troops who had broken through from Tarnopol to the Dniester. Manstein insisted (against Hube's recommendation that his army seek safety by retreating to the south over the Dniester) on a breakthrough to the west, in order to build a new front in Galicia. For this, reinforcements to a.s.sist the 1st Panzer Army would be necessary. And for these to be provided from some other part of the front, Hitler's agreement was necessary. Sharp exchanges took place between Manstein and Hitler at the midday military conference. But Hitler refused to concede to Manstein's request, and held the field-marshal personally responsible for the unfavourable position of his Army Group. Further deliberation was adjourned until the evening. Disgusted, Manstein told Schmundt that he wished to resign his command if his orders did not gain Hitler's approval.

When discussion continued at the evening conference, however, Hitler had, astonishingly, changed his mind. Who or what had persuaded him to do so, or whether he had simply brooded on the matter before altering his decision, is unclear. At any rate, he now offered Manstein the reinforcements he wanted, including an SS Panzer Corps to be taken away from the western front. Manstein went away momentarily satisfied. But Hitler resented having concessions wrung from him particularly after his initial refusal in front of a sizeable audience. And, from Hitler's point of view, Manstein had in previous weeks been both troublesome and ineffectual in command. Hitler's way of dealing with major military setbacks was invariably (apart from his kid-glove treatment of his old political ally, Goring, as Luftwaffe chief despite the disasters in the air-war) to blame the commander and to look for a replacement who would fire the fighting morale of the troops and sh.o.r.e up their will to continue. It was time for a parting of the ways with Manstein, as it was with another senior field-marshal, Kleist, who, two days after Manstein, had also paid a visit to the Berghof, requesting permission for Army Group A on the Black Sea coast to pull back from the Bug to the Dniester.

On 30 March, Manstein and Kleist were picked up in Hitler's Condor aircraft and taken to the Berghof. Zeitzler told Manstein that after his last visit, Goring, Himmler, and probably Keitel had agitated against him. Zeitzler had himself offered to resign, an offer that had been summarily turned down. Schmundt had seen to it that the dismissals of the two field-marshals were carried out with decorum, not with rancour. They were replaced by Walter Model and Ferdinand Schorner, both tough generals and favourites of Hitler, whom he regarded as ideal for rousing the morale of the troops and instilling rigorous National Socialist fighting spirit in them. At the same time, the names of the army groups were altered to Army Group North Ukraine and Army Group South Ukraine. The Ukraine had, in fact, already been lost. The symbolic renaming was part of the aim of reviving morale by implying that it would soon be retaken.

It would rapidly become clear yet again, however, that changes in personnel and nomenclature would not suffice. The new commanders were no more able to stop the relentless Soviet advance than Manstein and Kleist had been. On 2 April, Hitler issued an operational order which began: 'The Russian offensive on the south of the eastern front has pa.s.sed its high-point. The Russians have used up and split up their forces. The time has come to bring the Russian advance finally to a halt.' It was a vain hope. A crucial component of the new lines drawn up was the provision for the Crimea, to be held at all cost. It was an impossibility. Odessa, the port on the Black Sea which was vital to supply-lines for the Crimea, had been abandoned on 10 April. By early May, the entire Crimea was lost, with Hitler forced to agree in the night of 89 May to the evacuation of Sevastopol by sea. The vain struggle to hold on to the Crimea had cost over 60,000 German and Romanian lives. When the Soviet spring offensive came to a halt, the Germans had been pushed back in some sectors by as much as 600 miles inside a year.

Goebbels had suggested to Hitler that he might speak to the German people on 1 May. He had not been well enough to speak on 'Heroes' Memorial Day' on 12 March, when Grand-Admiral Donitz one of the few military leaders whom Hitler greatly respected, and evidently a coming man subst.i.tuted for him. Hitler told Goebbels (who remarked on his nervous strain, particularly about Hungary, over the past weeks) that he was sleeping only about three hours a night an exaggeration, but the long-standing problems of insomnia had certainly worsened. He did show some apparent inclination to give a radio address on 1 May, but claimed his health was not up to giving a speech in public. He did not know whether he could manage it.

It was an excuse. When, following his discussion with Goebbels, he gave a fiery pep-talk, unprepared and without notes, to his party leaders, there was no hint of concern about whether he might break down part-way through his speech (in which he declared, among other confidence-boosting claims, that the Soviet advance also had its advantages in bringing home to all nations the seriousness of the threat). But when speaking to the 'Old Guard', he was in trusted company. A speech, in the circ.u.mstances, to a ma.s.s audience when he was well aware of the slump in mood of the population was a different matter altogether.

Hitler's birthday that year, his fifty-fifth, had the usual trappings and ceremonials. Goebbels had Berlin emblazoned with banners and a new slogan of resounding pathos: 'Our walls broke, but our hearts didn't.' The State Opera house on Unter den Linden was festively decorated for the usual celebration, attended by dignitaries from state, party, and Wehrmacht. Goebbels portrayed Hitler's historic achievements. The Berlin Philharmonia, conducted by Hans Knappertsbusch, played Beethoven's 'Eroica' Symphony. But the mood among the n.a.z.i faithful at such events was contrived. Goebbels was well aware from reports from the regional Propaganda Offices that the popular mood was 'very critical and sceptical', and that 'the depression in the broad ma.s.ses' had reached 'worrying levels'.

VI.

A familiar face, not seen for some months, had returned to the Berghof in mid-April. Since being admitted to the Red Cross hospital at Hohenlychen, sixty miles north of Berlin, for a knee operation (accompanied by severe nervous strain), Albert Speer had been out of circulation. Hitler had seen him briefly in March, while Speer was convalescing for a short time at Klessheim, but the armaments minister had then left for Meran, in South Tyrol, to recover in the company of his family.

An absent minister was an invitation, in the Third Reich, for others thirsting for power to step into the vacuum. Karl Otto Saur, the able head of the technical office in Speer's ministry, had taken the opportunity to exploit Hitler's favour in his boss's absence. When a Fighter Staff had been set up in March linking Speer's ministry with the Luftwaffe to speed up and coordinate production of air-defence Hitler placed it, against Speer's express wishes, in the hands of Saur. And when, stung by the near-unhampered bombing of German cities, Hitler discovered that little progress had been made on the building of huge underground bomb-proof bunkers to protect fighter-production against air-raids, Speer's other right-hand man, Xaver Dorsch, head of the central office of the ma.s.sive construction apparatus, the Organisation Todt, spotted his chance. Dorsch was commissioned by Hitler with the sole responsibility for the building of the six immense bunkers within the Reich thereby overriding Speer accompanied by full authority to a.s.sure the work had top priority.

Speer had not reached his high position, however, without an ability to take care of his own interests in the ruthless scheming and jockeying for position that went on around Hitler. He was not prepared to accept the undermining of his own authority without a fight. On 19 April, he wrote a long letter to Hitler complaining at the decisions he had taken and demanding the restoration of his own authority over Dorsch. He let it be known that he wished to resign should Hitler not accede to his wishes. Hitler's initial anger at the letter gave way to the more pragmatic consideration that he still needed Speer's organizational talents. He pa.s.sed a message to Speer, via Erhard Milch, Luftwaffe armaments supremo, that he still held him in high esteem. On 24 April, Speer appeared at the Berghof. Hitler, formally attired, gloves in hand, came out to meet him, accompanying him like some foreign dignitary into the imposing hall. Speer, his vanity touched, was immediately impressed. Hitler went on to flatter Speer. He told him that he needed him to oversee all building works. He was in agreement with whatever Speer thought right in this area. Speer was won over. That evening, he was back in the Berghof 'family', making small-talk with Eva Braun and the others in the late-night session around the fire. Bormann suggested listening to some music. Records of music by Wagner, naturally, and Johann Strau's Fledermaus Fledermaus were put on. Speer felt at home again. were put on. Speer felt at home again.

In Speer's absence, and despite the extensive damage from air-raids, Saur had in fact masterminded a remarkable increase in fighter-production though with a corresponding decline in output of bombers. Delighted as he was with better prospects of air-defence, Hitler's instincts lay, as always, in aggression and regaining the initiative through bombing. The new chief of the Luftwaffe operations staff, Karl Koller, was, therefore, pushing at an open door when he presented Hitler with a report, in early May, pointing out the dangerous decline in production of bombers, and what was needed to sustain German dominance. Hitler promptly told Goring that the low targets for bomber-production were unacceptable. Goring pa.s.sed the message to the Fighter Staff that there was to be a trebling of bomber-production alongside the ma.s.sive increase in fighters to come off the production lines. Eager to please, as always, Goring had told Hitler of rapid progress in the production of the jet, the Me262, of which the Dictator had such high hopes.

The previous autumn, having removed top priority from production of the Me262 because of its heavy fuel-consumption, Hitler had changed his mind. He had been led to believe possibly it was a misunderstanding by the designer, Professor Willi Messerschmitt, that the jet, once in service, could be used not as a fighter, but as a bomber to attack Britain and to play a decisive role in repelling the coming invasion, wreaking havoc on the beaches as Allied troops were disembarking. Goring, at least as unrealistic as his Leader in his expectations, promised the jet-bombers would be available by May. At his meeting with Speer and Milch in January, when he demanded accelerated production of the jet, Hitler had stated, to the horror of the Luftwaffe's technical staff, that he wanted to deploy it as a bomber. Arguments to the contrary were of no avail.

Now, on 23 May, in a meeting at the Berghof with Goring, Saur, and Milch about aircraft production, he heard mention of the Me262 as a fighter. He interrupted. He had presumed, he stated, that it was being built as a bomber. It transpired that his instructions of the previous autumn, unrealistic as they were, had been simply ignored. Hitler exploded in fury, ordering the Me262 despite all technical objections levelled by the experts present to be built exclusively as a bomber. Goring lost no time in pa.s.sing the brickbats down the line to the Luftwaffe construction experts. But he had to tell Hitler that the major redesign needed for the plane would now delay production for five months. Whether fuel would by that time be available for it was another matter. Heavy American air-raids on fuel plants in central and eastern Germany on 12 May, to be followed by even more destructive raids at the end of the month, along with Allied attacks, carried out from bases in Italy, on the Romanian oil-refineries near Ploesti, halved German fuel production. Nimbly taking advantage of Goring's latest embarra.s.sment, Speer had no trouble in persuading Hitler to transfer to his ministry full control over aircraft production.

Three days after the wrangle about the Me262, another, larger, gathering took place on the Obersalzberg. A sizeable number of generals and other senior officers, who had been partic.i.p.ants in ideological training-courses and were ready to return to the front, had been summoned to the Berghof to hear a speech by Hitler one of several such speeches he gave between autumn 1943 and summer 1944. They a.s.sembled on 26 May in the Platterhof, the big hotel adjacent to the Berghof on the site of the far more modest Pension Moritz, where Hitler had stayed in the 1920s. A central pa.s.sage in the speech touched on the 'Final Solution'. Hitler spoke of the Jews as a 'foreign body' in the German people which, though not all had understood why he had to proceed 'so brutally and ruthlessly', it had been essential to expel.

He came to the key point. 'In removing the Jews,' he went on, 'I eliminated in Germany the possibility of creating some sort of revolutionary core or nucleus. You could naturally say: Yes, but could you not have done it more simply or not more simply, since everything else would have been more complicated but more humanely? Gentlemen,' he continued, 'we are in a life-or-death struggle. If our opponents are victorious in this struggle, the German people would be eradicated. Bolshevism would slaughter millions and millions and millions of our intellectuals. Anyone not dying through a shot in the neck would be deported. The children of the upper cla.s.ses would be taken away and eliminated. This entire b.e.s.t.i.a.lity has been organized by the Jews.' He spoke of 40,000 women and children being burnt to death through the incendiaries dropped on Hamburg, adding: 'Don't expect anything else from me except the ruthless upholding of the national interest in the way which, in my view, will have the greatest effect and benefit for the German nation.' At this the officers burst into loud and lasting applause.

He continued: 'Here just as generally, humanity would amount to the greatest cruelty towards one's own people. If I already incur the Jews' hatred, I at least don't want to miss the advantages of such hatred.' Shouts of 'quite right' were heard from his audience. 'The advantage,' he went on, 'is that we possess a cleanly organized ent.i.ty with which no one can interfere. Look in contrast at other states. We have gained insight into a state which took the opposite route: Hungary. The entire state undermined and corroded, Jews everywhere, even in the highest places Jews and more Jews, and the entire state covered, I have to say, by a seamless web of agents and spies who have desisted from striking only because they feared that a premature strike would draw us in, though they waited for this strike. I have intervened here too, and this problem will now also be solved.' He cited once again his 'prophecy' of 1939, that in the event of another war not the German nation but Jewry itself would be 'eradicated'. The audience vigorously applauded. Continuing, he underlined 'one sole principle, the maintenance of our race'. What served this principle, he said, was right; what detracted from it, wrong. He concluded, again to storms of applause, by speaking of the 'mission' of the German people in Europe. As always, he posed stark alternatives: defeat in the war would mean 'the end of our people', victory 'the beginning of our domination over Europe'.

VII.

Whatever nervousness was felt at the Berghof in the early days of June about an invasion which was as good as certain to take place within the near future, there were few, if any, signs of it on the surface. To Hitler's Luftwaffe adjutant, Nicolaus von Below, it seemed almost like pre-war times on the Obersalzberg. Hitler would take Below's wife on one side when she was invited to lunch and talk about the children or her parents' farm. In the afternoon, he would gather up his hat, his walking-stick, and his cape, and lead the statutory walk to the Tea House for coffee and cakes. In the evenings, around the fire he would find some relaxation in the inconsequential chat of his guests or would hold forth, as ever, on usual themes great personalities of history, the future shape of Europe, carrying out the work of Providence in combating Jews and Bolsheviks, the influence of the Churches, and, of course, architectural plans, along with the usual reminiscences of earlier years. Even the news, on 34 June, that the Allies had taken Rome, with the German troops pulling back to the Apennines, was received calmly. For all its obvious strategic importance, Italy was, for Hitler, little more than a sideshow. He would have little longer to wait for the main event.

Hitler seemed calm, and looked well compared with his condition in recent months, when Goebbels accompanied him to the Tea House on the afternoon of 5 June. Earlier, he had told the Propaganda Minister that the plans for retaliation were now so advanced that he would be ready to unleash 300400 of the new pilotless flying-bombs on London within a few days. (He had, in fact, given the order for a major air-attack on London, including use of these new weapons, on 16 May.) He repeated how confident he was that the invasion, when it came, would be repulsed. Rommel, he said, was equally confident. On 4 June Rommel, whom Hitler had the previous autumn made responsible for the Atlantic defences, had even left for a few days' leave with his family near Ulm. Other commanding officers in the west were equally unaware of the imminence of the invasion, though reconnaissance had provided telegraph warnings that very day of things stirring on the other side of the Channel. Nothing of this was reported to OKW at Berchtesgaden or, even more astonishingly, to General Friedrich Dollmann's 7th Army directly on the invasion front.

That evening, Hitler and his entourage viewed the latest newsreel. The discussion moved to films and the theatre. Eva Braun joined in with pointed criticism of some productions. 'We sit then around the hearth until two o'clock at night,' wrote Goebbels, 'exchange reminiscences, take pleasure in the many fine days and weeks we have had together. The Fuhrer inquires about this and that. All in all, the mood is like the good old times.' The heavens opened and a thunderstorm broke as Goebbels left the Berghof. It was four hours since the first news had started to trickle in that the invasion would begin that night. Goebbels had been disinclined to believe the tapping into enemy communications. But coming down the Obersalzberg to his quarters in Berchtesgaden, the news was all too plain; 'the decisive day of the war had begun.'

Hitler went to bed not long after Goebbels had left, probably around 3 a.m. When Speer arrived next morning, seven hours later, Hitler had still not been wakened with the news of the invasion. In fact, it seems that the initial scepticism at the High Command of the Wehrmacht that this indeed was the invasion had been finally dispelled only a little while earlier, probably between 8.15 and 9.30 a.m. Influenced by German intelligence reports, Hitler had spoken a good deal in previous weeks that the invasion would begin with a decoy attack to drag German troops away from the actual landing-place. (In fact, Allied deception through the dropping of dummy parachutists and other diversionary tactics did contribute to initial German confusion about the location of the landing.) His adjutants now hesitated to waken him with mistaken information. According to Speer, Hitler who had earlier correctly envisaged that the landing would be on the Normandy coast was still suspicious at the lunchtime military conference that it was a diversionary tactic put across by enemy intelligence. Only then did he agree to the already belated demand of the Commander-in-Chief in the West, Field-Marshal von Rundstedt (who had expressed uncertainty in telegrams earlier that morning about whether the landing was merely a decoy), to deploy two panzer divisions held in reserve in the Paris area against the beachhead that was rapidly being established some 120 miles away. The delay was crucial. Had they moved by night, the panzer divisions might have made a difference. Their movements by day were hampered by heavy Allied air-attacks, and they suffered severe losses of men and materiel.

At the first news of the invasion, Hitler had seemed relieved as if, thought Goebbels, a great burden had fallen from his shoulders. What he had been expecting for months was now reality. It had taken place, he said, exactly where he had predicted it. The poor weather, he added, was on Germany's side. He exuded confidence, declaring that it was now possible to smash the enemy. He was 'absolutely certain' that the Allied troops, for whose quality he had no high regard, would be repulsed. Goring thought the battle as good as won. Ribbentrop was, as always, 'entirely on the Fuhrer's side. He is also more than sure, without, like the Fuhrer, being able to give reasons in detail for it', wryly commented Goebbels like Jodl, one of the quiet sceptics. There were good grounds for scepticism. In fact, the delay in reaction on the German side had helped to ensure that by then the battle of the beaches was already as good as lost.

The vanguard of the huge Allied armada of almost 3,000 vessels approaching the Normandy coast had disgorged the first of its American troops on to Utah Beach, on the Cotentin peninsula, at 6.30 a.m., meeting no notable resistance. Landings following shortly afterwards at the British and Canadian sites Gold, Juno, and Sword Beaches also went better than expected. Only the second American landing at Omaha Beach, encountering a good German infantry division which happened to be in a state of readiness and behind a particularly firm stretch of fortifications, ran into serious difficulties. Troops landing on the exposed beach were simply mown down. The casualty rate was ma.s.sive. Omaha gave a horrifying taste of what the landings could have faced elsewhere had the German defence been properly prepared and waiting. But even at Omaha, after several torrid hours of terrible bloodletting, almost 35,000 American troops were finally able to push forward and gain a foothold on French soil. By the end of the day, around 156,000 Allied troops had landed, had forged contact with the 13,000 American and British parachutists dropped behind the flanks of the enemy lines several hours before the landings, and been able successfully to establish beachheads including one sizeable stretch some thirty kilometres long and ten deep.

What appears at times in retrospect to have been almost an inexorable triumph of 'Operation Overlord' could have turned out quite differently. Hitler's initial optimism had not, in fact, been altogether unfounded. He had presumed the Atlantic coast better fortified than was the case. Even so, the advantage ought in the decisive early stages to have lain with the defenders of the coast as it did at Omaha. But the dilatory action was costly in the extreme. The divisions among the German commanders and lack of agreement on tactics between Rommel (who favoured close proximity of panzer divisions to the coast in the hope of immediately crushing an invading force) and General Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg, commander of Panzer Group West (wanting to hold the armour back until it was plain where it should be concentrated), had been a significant weakness in the German planning for the invasion. Allied strategic decoys, as we noted, also played a part in the early confusion of the German commanders on the invasion night itself. Not least, ma.s.sive Allied air-superiority compared with over 10,000 Allied sorties on D-Day, the Luftwaffe could manage to put in the air only eighty fighters based in Normandy gave the invading forces a huge advantage in the cover provided during the decisive early stages. Once the Allied troops were ash.o.r.e and had established their beachheads, the key question was whether they could be reinforced better and faster than the Germans. Here, the fire-power from the air came into its own. The Allied planes could at one and the same time seriously hamper the German supply-lines, and help to ensure that reinforcements kept pouring in across the Normandy beaches. By 12 June, the five Allied beachheads had been consolidated into a single front, and the German defenders, if slowly, were being pushed back. Meanwhile, American troops were already striking out across the Cotentin peninsula. The road to the key port of Cherbourg was opening up.

n.a.z.i leaders, for whom early optimism about repelling the invasion had within days evaporated, retained one big hope: the long-awaited 'miracle weapons'. Not only Hitler thought these would bring a change in war-fortunes. More than fifty sites had been set up on the coast in the Pas de Calais from which the V1 flying-bombs early cruise missiles powered by jet engines and difficult to shoot down could be fired off in the direction of London. Hitler had reckoned with the devastating effect of a ma.s.s attack on the British capital by hundreds of the new weapons being fired simultaneously. The weapon had then been delayed by a series of production problems. Now Hitler pressed for action. But the launch-sites were not ready. Eventually, on 12 June, ten flying-bombs were catapulted off their ramps. Four crashed on take-off; only five reached London, causing minimal damage. In fury, Hitler wanted to cancel production. But three days later, the sensational effect of the successful launch of 244 V1s on London persuaded him to change his mind. He thought the new destructive force would quickly lead to the evacuation of London and disruption of the Allied war effort.

The triumphalist tones of the Wehrmacht report on the launch of the V1, and of a number of newspaper articles, were equally fanciful, filling Goebbels still anxious to sh.o.r.e up a mood of hold-out-at-all-costs instead of dangerous optimism with dismay. The impression had been created, noted the Propaganda Minister with consternation, that the war would be over within days. He was anxious to stop such illusions. The euphoria could quickly turn into blaming the government. He ordered the reports to be toned down, and exaggerated expectations to be dampened persuading Hitler that his own instructions to the press, guaranteed to foster the euphoric mood, should follow the new guidelines.

The continued advance of the Allies, but what seemed the new prospects offered by the V1, prompted Hitler to fly in the evening of 16 June from Berchtesgaden together with Keitel and Jodl and the rest of his staff to the western front to discuss the situation with his regional commanders, Rundstedt and Rommel. He wanted to boost their wavering morale by underlining the strengths of the V1, while at the same time stressing the imperative need to defend the port of Cherbourg. After their four Focke-Wulf Condors had landed in Metz, Hitler and his entourage drove in the early hours of the next morning in an armour-plated car to Margival, north of Soissons, where the old Fuhrer Headquarters built in 1940 had been installed, at great expense, with new communications equipment and ma.s.sively reinforced. The talks that morning took place in a nearby bomb-proof railway-tunnel.

Hitler, looking pale and tired, sitting hunched on a stool, fiddled nervously with his gla.s.ses and played with coloured pencils while addressing his generals, who had to remain standing. Rundstedt reported on the developments of the previous ten days, concluding that it was now impossible to expel the Allies from France. Hitler bitterly laid the blame at the door of the local commanders. Rommel countered by pointing to the hopelessness of the struggle against such ma.s.sive superior force of the Allies. Hitler turned to the V1 a weapon, he said, to decide the war and make the English anxious for peace. Impressed by what they had heard, the field-marshals asked for the V1 to be used against Allied beachheads, only to be told by General Erich Heinemann, the commander responsible for the launch of the flying-bomb, that the weapon was not precise enough in its targeting to allow this. Hitler promised them, however, that they would soon have jet-fighters at their disposal to gain control of the skies. As he himself knew, however, these had, in fact, only just gone into production.

After lunch (taken in a bunker because of the danger of air-attacks), Hitler spoke alone with Rommel. The discussion was heated at times. The field-marshal painted a bleak picture of the prospects. The western front could not be held for much longer, he stated, beseeching Hitler to seek a political solution. 'Pay attention to your invasion front, not to the continuation of the war,' was the blunt reply he received. Hitler waited no longer, and flew back to Salzburg that afternoon. At the Berghof that evening, dissatisfied at the day's proceedings, Hitler remarked to his entourage that Rommel had lost his nerve and become a pessimist. 'Only optimists can pull anything off today,' he added.

The following day, 18 June, the Americans reached the western coast of the Cotentin peninsula, effectively cutting off the peninsula and the port of Cherbourg from reinforcements for the Wehrmacht. Eight days later, the German garrison in Cherbourg surrendered. With this port in their possession (even if it took nearly a month to repair German destruction and make use of the harbour), and almost total control of the skies, the Allies had few further worries about their own reinforcements. Advance against tenacious defence was painfully slow. But the invasion had been a success. Any prospect of forcing the Allied troops, arriving in ever greater numbers, back into the sea had long since dissolved. Hitler was furious that the Allies had gained the initiative. He was left now with little more than the hope that the Alliance would split.

When Goebbels saw him for a three-hour private discussion on 21 June, he remained resistant, however, to suggestions that the time had come to take drastic steps, finally, to introduce the 'total war' that the Propaganda Minister had advocated for so long. After lunch, sitting together in the great hall of the Berghof, with its huge window opening out to a breathtaking panorama of the Alps, Goebbels expounded his argument. He expressed his doubts about groundless optimism, 'not to say illusions', about the war. 'Total war' had remained a mere slogan. The crisis had to be recognized before it could be overcome. A thorough reform of the Wehrmacht was urgently necessary. Goring, he had observed (here came the usual attacks on the Reich Marshal), lived in a complete fantasy world. The Propaganda Minister extended his attack to the remainder of the top military leadership. The Fuhrer needed a Scharnhorst and a Gneisenau the Prussian military heroes who had created the army that repelled Napoleon not a Keitel and a Fromm (commander of the Reserve Army), he declared. Goebbels promised that he could raise a million soldiers through a rigorous reorganization of the Wehrmacht and draconian measures in the civilian sphere. The people expected and wanted tough measures. Germany was close to being plunged into a crisis which could remove any possibility of taking such measures with any prospect of success. It was necessary to act with realism, wholly detached from any defeatism, and to act now.

Hitler accepted that there were some weaknesses in the organization of the Wehrmacht, and that few of its leaders were National Socialists. But to dispense with them during the war would be a nonsense, since there were no replacements. All in all, Hitler concluded, the time was not ripe for the extraordinary measures the Propaganda Minister wanted. He told Goebbels that the instant he felt the need to resort to 'final measures', he would bestow the appropriate powers on the Propaganda Minister. But 'for the time being he wanted to proceed along the evolutionary, not revolutionary, way'. Goebbels went away empty-handed, leaving what he regarded as one of the most serious meetings he had had with Hitler sorely disappointed.

Goebbels was evidently dubious about Hitler's continued positive gloss on military prospects. He doubted, correctly, the rea.s.surances that it ought to be possible to hold Cherbourg until the two new divisions from the east could arrive; and Hitler's view that a ma.s.sive panzer attack could then destroy the Allied bridgehead. On the 'wonder-weapons', however, the Fuhrer's expectations seemed realistic enough to the Propaganda Minister. Hitler did not, he thought, over-estimate the impact of the V1 (short for Vergeltungswaffe Vergeltungswaffe-1 'Retaliation Weapon 1'), as Goebbels had now dubbed the flying-bomb. But he hoped to have the A4 rocket (later renamed the V2) ready for launching by August, and looked to its destructive power to help decide the war. Hitler ruled out once again any prospect of an 'arrangement' with Britain, but was less inclined so Goebbels inferred to dismiss the possibility at some point of coming to terms with the Soviet Union. This could not be entertained given the present military situation, though a significant shift in fortunes in the Far East might alter the position. As Goebbels realized, however, this was entering the realm of vague musings.

The following day, 22 June 1944, exactly three years since the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, the Red Army launched its new big offensive in the east. Hitler had predicted that Stalin would not be able to resist the appeal of launching his a.s.sault on that day. The main thrust of the ma.s.sive offensive the biggest undertaken, deploying almost 2 million men and over 5,000 tanks, backed by 5,300 planes, and given by Stalin the code-name 'Bagration' after a military hero in the destruction of Napoleon's Grand Army in 1812 was aimed at the Wehrmacht's Army Group Centre. Based on fatally flawed intelligence relayed to Chief of the General Staff Zeitzler by the head of the eastern military intelligence service, Reinhard Gehlen, German preparations had, in fact, antic.i.p.ated an offensive on the southern part of the front, where all the reserves and the bulk of the panzer divisions had been concentrated. Army Group Centre had been left with a meagre thirty-eight divisions, comprising only half as many men and a fifth of the number of tanks as the Red Army had, in a section of the front stretching over some 800 miles. Only belatedly, it appears, did the realization dawn, against Zeitzler's continued advice, that the offensive was likely to come against Army Group Centre. But when Field-Marshal Ernst Busch, Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Centre, recommended shortening the front to more defensible limits, Hitler contemptuously asked whether he too was one of those generals 'who always looked to the rear'.

The relatively mild beginnings of the offensive then misled Hitler's military advisers into thinking at first that it was a decoy. However, the initial opening was sufficient to breach the German defences around Vitebsk. Suddenly, the first big wave of tanks swept through the gap. Others rapidly followed. Bombing and heavy artillery attacks accompanied the a.s.sault. Busch appealed to Hitler to abandon the 'fortified places' (Feste Platze) in Vitebsk, Orsha, Mogilev, and Bobruisk, which had been established in the spring in a vain attempt to create a set of key defensive strongholds fortresses to be held come what may under the command of selected tough generals.

Hitler's answer could have been taken as read. The 'fortified places' were to be held at all costs; every square metre of land was to be defended. Busch, one of Hitler's fervent admirers among the generals, accepted the order without demur. He sought to carry it out unquestioningly as a demonstration of his loyalty. The consequences were predictable. The Red Army swept around the strongholds, and the German not Soviet divisions were tied down, then encircled and finally destroyed by the forces following in the wake of the advance troops. The Wehrmacht divisions lost through such a disastrous tactical error would have been vital in defending other parts of the front.

Within two days of the start of the offensive, the 3rd Panzer Army in Vitebsk had been cut off, followed a further two days later by the encirclement of the 9th Army near Bobruisk. By the first days of July, the 4th Army faced the same fate near Minsk. Reinforcements drawn from the southern part of the front could not prevent its destruction. By the time the offensive through the centre slowed by mid-July, the Soviet breakthrough had advanced well over 200 miles, driven a gap 100 miles wide through the front, and was within striking range of Warsaw. Army Group Centre had by that time lost twenty-eight divisions with 350,000 men in a catastrophe even greater than that at Stalingrad. By this time, devastating offensives in the Baltic and in the south were gathering momentum. The next months would bring even worse calamities and, together with the unstoppable advance of the Allies in the west, would usher in the final phase of the war.

VIII.

Whatever Hitler's capabilities as a military strategist had been, they had paid dividends only while Germany held the whip-hand and lightning offensives had been possible. Once a defensive strategy had become the only one available, Hitler's inadequacies as supreme German warlord were fully exposed. It was not that he was wholly devoid of tactical knowledge, despite his lack of formal training. Nor was it the case that professionals who knew better were invariably forced into compliance with the lunatic orders of an amateur military bungler. Hitler's tactics were frequently neither inherently absurd, nor did they usually stand in cra.s.s contradiction to the military advice he was receiving.

Even so: at points of crisis, the tensions and conflicts invariably surfaced. And by 1944 the individual military crises were acc.u.mulating into one almighty, life-or-death crisis for the regime itself. Hitler's political adroitness was by this time long gone. He dismissed out of hand all contemplation of a possible attempt to reach a political solution. Bridges had been burnt (as he had indicated on several occasions); there was no way back. And, since he refused any notion of negotiating from a position other than one of strength, from which all his earlier successes had derived, there was in any case no opportunity to seek a peace settlement. The gambling instinct which had stood Hitler in such good stead down to 1941 had long since lost its effectiveness in what had become a backs-to-the-wall struggle. But the worse the situation became, the more disastrously self-destructive became Hitler's other overriding and irrational instinct that 'will' alone would triumph over all adversity, even grossly disparate levels of manpower and weaponry. The innate self-destructive tendency which had always been implicit in his characteristic all-or-nothing stance as a politician now conveyed itself, catastrophically, to military leadership.

It was inevitable that seasoned military strategists and battle-hardened generals, schooled in more subtle forms of tactical command, would clash with him often stridently when their reading of the options available was so diametrically at variance with those of their supreme commander, and where the orders he emitted seemed to them so plainly militarily suicidal. They were also, however, schooled in obedience to orders of a superior; and Hitler was head of state, head of the armed forces, and since 1941 disastrously commander-in-chief (responsible for tactical decisions) of the army. Refusal to obey was not only an act of military insubordination; it was a treasonable act of political resistance.

Few were prepared to go down that route. But loyalty even to the extent of belief in the Fuhrer's mission was no safeguard against dismissal if near-impossible demands were not met. In accordance with his warped logic, where 'will' had not triumphed, however fraught the circ.u.mstances, Hitler blamed the weakness or inadequacy of the commander. Another commander with a superior att.i.tude, he presumed, would bring a different result however objectively unfavourable the actual position. The commander of Army Group Centre, Field-Marshal Busch, a Hitler loyalist, correspondingly paid the price for the 'failure' of Army Group Centre during the onset of the Soviet offensive. He was dismissed by Hitler on 28 June, and replaced by one of his favourite commanders, the tough and energetic newly-promoted Field-Marshal Walter Model (who at the same time retained his command of Army Group North Ukraine) dubbed by some, given the frequency with which he was charged with tackling a crisis, 'Hitler's fireman'.

Within days, there was a change of command, too, in the west. Reports to the High Command of the Wehrmacht submitted by the Commander-in-Chief, Field-Marshal von Rundstedt, and the Commander of Panzer Group West, General Geyr von Schweppenburg, had drawn a pessimistic picture of the prospects of holding the lines against enemy inroads in France. Jodl played to Hitler's sentiments by noting that this meant the first step towards the evacuation of France. The report had followed similarly realistic a.s.sessments of the situation on the western front delivered by Rundstedt and Rommel at the Berghof two days earlier, on 29 June. On 3 July, Rundstedt received a handwritten notice of his dismissal from Hitler. Officially, he had been replaced on grounds of health. The sacking of Geyr and Field-Marshal Hugo Sperrle, who had been responsible for air-defences in the west, also followed. Rundstedt's replacement, Kluge, at that time high in Hitler's esteem, arrived in France, as Guderian later put it, 'still filled with the optimism that prevailed at Supreme Headquarters'. He soon learnt differently.

Another military leader who fell irredeemably from grace at this time was Chief of the Army General Staff Kurt Zeitzler. When appointed as replacement to Halder in September 1942, Zeitzler had impressed Hitler with his drive, energy, and fighting spirit the type of military leader he wanted. The relationship had palled visibly since the spring of 1944, when Hitler had pinned a major part of the blame for the loss of the Crimea on Zeitzler. By May, Zeitzler was indicating his wish to resign. The Chief of Staff's strong backing at the end of June for withdrawing the threatened Army Group North in the Baltic to a more defensible line, and his pessimism about the situation on the western front, amounted to the last straw. Zeitzler could no longer see the rationale of Hitler's tactics; Hitler was contemptuous of what he saw as the defeatism of Zeitzler and the General Staff. At the end of his tether following furious rows with Hitler, Zeitzler simply disappeared from the Berghof on 1 July. He had suffered a nervous breakdown. Hitler never spoke to him again. He would have Zeitzler dismissed from the Wehrmacht in January 1945, refusing him the right to wear uniform. Until his replacement, Guderian, was appointed on 21 July, the army was effectively without a Chief of the General Staff.

The Soviet advance had left the Red Army, in the northern sector of the front, poised not far from Vilna in Lithuania. Already, the borders of East Prussia were in their sights. On 9 July, Hitler flew with Keitel, Donitz, Himmler, and Luftwaffe Chief of Staff General Gunther Korten back to his old headquarters near Rastenburg in East Prussia. Field-Marshal Model and General Johannes Friener, recently appointed as commander of Army Group North in place of General Georg Lindemann, joined them from the eastern front. The discussions ranged mainly over plans for the urgent creation of a number of new divisions to sh.o.r.e up the eastern front and protect any inroads into East Prussia. Model and Friener sounded optimistic. Hitler, too, thought his Luftwaffe adjutant, Below, also remained positive about developments on the eastern front. Hitler flew back to the Berghof that afternoon. He had already hinted that, in the light of the situation in the east, he would have to move his headquarters back to East Prussia, even though the fortifications of his accommodation there were still incomplete. Reading between the lines of one or two comments, Below gained the impression, he later wrote, that during what were to prove Hitler's last days at the Berghof, before he left on 14 July for the Wolf 's Lair, never to return, he was no longer under any illusions about the outcome of the war. Even so, any hints of pessimism were more than countered by repeated stress on continuing the war, the impact of the new weapons, and ultimate victory. Once more, it was plain to Below that Hitler would never capitulate. There would be no repeat of 1918. Hitler's political 'mission' had been based from the outset on that premiss. The entire Reich would go down in flames first.

Hitler had lived amid the relative tranquillity of the Obersalzberg for almost four months. The regular entourage at the Berghof had dwindled somewhat in that time. And in the days before departure there had been few guests to enliven proceedings. Hitler himself had seemingly become more reserved. On the last evening, perhaps sensing he would not see the Berghof again, he had paused in front of the pictures hanging in the great hall. Then he had kissed the hand of Below's wife and Frau Brandt, the wife of one of his doctors, bidding them farewell. Next morning, 14 July, he flew back to East Prussia, arriving at the Wolf 's Lair, now heavily reinforced and scarcely recognizable from its appearance when first set up in 1941. He arrived in the late morning. At one o'clock he was running the military conference there as if he had never been away. He was more stooping in his gait than earlier. But his continued strength of will, despite the ma.s.sive setbacks, continued to impress the admiring Below.

For others, this strength of will or obstinate refusal to face reality was precisely what was preventing an end to the war and dragging Germany to inevitable catastrophe. They were determined to act before it was too late to save what was left of the Reich, lay the foundations of a future without Hitler, and show the outside world that there was 'another Germany' beyond the forces of n.a.z.ism.

25.

Luck of the Devil

I.

The attempt to kill Hitler on 20 July 1944 had a lengthy prehistory, dating back as far as the Sudeten crisis of 1938. The complex strands of this prehistory contained in no small measure profound manifestations and admixtures of high ethical values and a transcendental sense of moral duty, codes of honour, political idealism, religious convictions, personal courage, remarkable selflessness, deep humanity, and a love of country that was light-years removed from n.a.z.i chauvinism. The prehistory was also replete how could it have been otherwise in the circ.u.mstances? with disagreements, doubts, mistakes, miscalculations, moral dilemmas, short-sightedness, hesitancy, ideological splits, personal clashes, bungling organization, distrust and sheer bad luck.

The actions of a lone a.s.sa.s.sin, the Swabian joiner Georg Elser, who shared none of the hesitancy of those within the power-echelons of the regime, had come within a whisker of sending Hitler into oblivion in the Burgerbraukeller on the night of 8 November 1939. Good fortune alone had saved Hitler on that occasion. With the left-wing underground resistance groups, though never eliminated, weak, isolated, and devoid of access to the corridors of power, the only hope of toppling Hitler thereafter lay with those who themselves occupied positions of some power or influence in the regime itself.

On the fringes of the conspiracy, the partic.i.p.ation in n.a.z.i rule in itself naturally created ambivalence. Breaking oaths of loyalty was no light matter, even for some whose dislike of Hitler was evident. Prussian values were here a double-edged sword: a deep sense of obedience to authority and service to the state clashed with equally profound feelings of duty to G.o.d and to country. Whichever triumphed within an individual: whether heavy-hearted acceptance of service to a head of state regarded as legitimately const.i.tuted, however detested; or rejection of such allegiance in the interest of what was taken to be the greater good, should the head of state be leading the country to ruin; this was a matter for conscience and judgement. It could, and did, go either way.

Though there were numerous exceptions to a broad generalization, generational differences played some part. The tendency was greater in a younger generation of officers, for example, than in those who had already attained the highest ranks of general or field-marshal, to entertain thoughts of active partic.i.p.ation in an attempt to overthrow the head of state. This was implied in a remark by the man who would lead the attempt on Hitler's life in July 1944, Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg: 'Since the generals have so far managed nothing, the colonels have now to step in.' On the other hand, views on the morality of a.s.sa.s.sinating the head of state in the midst of an external struggle of t.i.tanic proportions against an enemy whose victory threatened the very existence of a German state differed fundamentally on moral, not simply generational, grounds. Any attack on the head of state const.i.tuted, of course, high treason. But in a war, distinguishing this from treachery against one's own country, from betrayal to the enemy, was chiefly a matter of individual persuasion and the relative weighting of moral values. And only a very few were in a position to acc.u.mulate detailed and first-hand experiences of gross inhumanity at the same time as possessing the means to bring about Hitler's removal. Even fewer were prepared to act.

Beyond ethical considerations, there was the existential fear of the awesome consequences for the families as well as for the individuals themselves of discovery of any complicity in a plot to remove the head of state and instigate a coup d'etat coup d'etat. This was certainly enough to deter many who were sympathetic to the aims of the plotters but unwilling to become involved. Nor was it just the constant dangers of discovery and physical risks that acted as a deterrent. There was also the isolation of resistance. To enter into, even to flirt with, the conspiracy against Hitler meant acknowledging an inner distance from friends, colleagues, comrades, entry into a twilight world of immense peril, and of social, ideological, even moral isolation.

Quite apart from the evident necessity, in a terroristic police state, of minimizing risks through maximum secrecy, the conspirators were themselves well aware of their lack of popular support. Even at this juncture, as the military disasters mounted and ultimate catastrophe beckoned, the fanatical backing for Hitler had by no means evaporated and continued, if as a minority taste, to show remarkable resilience and strength. Those still bound up with the dying regime, those who had invested in it, had committed themselves to it, had burnt their boats with it, and were still true believers in the Fuhrer, were likely to stop at nothing, as adversity mounted, in their unbridled retribution for any sign of opposition. But beyond the fanatics, there were many others who naively, or after deep reflection thought it not merely wrong, but despicable and treacherous, to undermine one's own country in war. Stauffenberg summed up the conspirators' dilemma a few days before he laid a bomb in the Wolf 's Lair: 'It is now time that something was done. But the man who has the courage to do something must do it in the knowledge that he will go down in German history as a traitor. If he does not do it, however, he will be a traitor to his own conscience.'

As this implies, the need to avoid a stab-in-the-back legend such as that which had followed the end of the First World War and left such a baleful legacy for the ill-fated Weimar Republic was a constant burden and anxiety for those who had decided sometimes with a heavy heart that Germany's future rested on their capacity to remove Hitler, violently or not, from the scene, const.i.tute a new government, and seek peace terms. They worried about the consequences of removing Hitler and seeming to stab the war effort in the back after a major disaster, even when final victory had become no more than a chimera. Rather than controlling the moment for a strike, the conspirators let it rest on external contingencies that, in the nature of things, they could not orchestrate.

When the strike eventually came, with the invasion consolidated in the west and the Red Army pressing towards the borders of the Reich in the east, the conspirators themselves recognized that they had missed the chance to influence the possible outcome of the war through their action. As one of their key driving-forces, Major-General Henning von Tresckow, from late 1943 Chief of Staff of the 2nd Army in the southern section of the eastern front, put it: 'It's not a matter any more of the practical aim, but of showing the world and history that the German resistance movement at risk of life has dared the decisive stroke. Everything else is a matter of indifference alongside that.'

II.

All prospects of opposition to Hitler had been dimmed following the astonishing chain of military successes between autumn 1939 and spring 1941. Then, following the promulgation of the notorious Commissar Law, ordering the liquidation of captured Red Army political commissars, it had been Tresckow, Field-Marshal von Bock's first staff officer at Army Group Centre, who had been instrumental in revitalizing thoughts of resistance among a number of front officers some of them purposely selected on account of their anti-regime stance. Born in 1901, tall, balding, with a serious demeanour, a professional soldier, fervent upholder of Prussian values, cool and reserved but at the same time a striking and forceful personality, disarmingly modest, but with iron determination, Tresckow had been an early admirer of Hitler though had soon turned into an unbending critic of the lawless and inhumane policies of the regime. Those whom Tresckow was able to bring to Army Group Centre included close allies in the emerging conspiracy against Hitler, notably Fabian von Schlabrendorff six years younger than Tresckow himself, trained in law, who would serve as a liaison between Army Group Centre and other focal points of the conspiracy and Rudolph-Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff, born in 1905, a professional soldier, already an arch-critic of Hitler, and now located in a key position in the intelligence section of Army Group Centre. But attempts to persuade Bock, together with the other two group commanders on the eastern front, Rundstedt and Leeb, to confront Hitler and refuse orders failed. Any realistic prospect of opposition from the front disappeared again until late 1942. By then, in the wake of the unfolding Stalingrad crisis and seeing Hitler as responsible for the certain ruin of Germany, Tresckow was ready to a.s.sa.s.sinate him.

During the course of 1942, a number of focal points of practically dormant opposition within Germany itself army and civilian had begun to flicker back to life. The savagery of the warfare on the eastern front and, in the light of the winter crisis of 19412, the magnitude of the calamity towards which Hitler was steering Germany, had revitalized the notions, still less than concrete, that something must be done. Ludwig Beck (former Chief of the Army General Staff), Carl Goerdeler (one-time Reich Price Commissar), Johannes Popitz (Prussian Finance Minister), and Ulrich von Ha.s.sell (earlier the German Amba.s.sador in Rome) all connected with the pre-war conspiracy met up again in Berlin in March 1942, but decided there were as yet few prospects. Even so, it was agreed that Beck would serve as a central point for the embryonic opposition. Meetings were held soon after with Colonel Hans Oster head of the central office dealing with foreign intelligence in the Abwehr, the driving-force behind the 1938 conspiracy, who had leaked Germany's invasion plans to Holland in 1940 and Hans von Dohnanyi, a jurist who had also played a significant part in the 1938 plot, and, like Oster, used his position in the foreign section of the Abwehr to develop good contacts to officers with oppositional tendencies. Around the same time, Oster engineered a close link to a new and important recruit to the oppositional groups, General Friedrich Olbricht, head of the General Army Office in Berlin. Olbricht, born in 1888 and a career soldier, was not one to seek the limelight. He epitomized the desk-general, the organizer, the military administrator. But he was unusual in his pro-Weimar att.i.tude before 1933, and, thereafter driven largely by Christian and patriotic feelings in his consistent anti-Hitler stance, even amid the jubilation of the foreign-policy triumphs of the 1930s and the victories of the first phase of the war. His role would emerge as the planner of the coup d'etat coup d'etat that was to follow upon the successful a.s.sa.s.sination of Hitler. that was to follow upon the successful a.s.sa.s.sination of Hitler.

Already as the Stalingrad crisis deepened towards the end of 1942, Tresckow later described by the Gestapo as 'without doubt one of the driving-forces and the "evil spirit" of the putschist circles', and allegedly referred to by Stauffenberg as his 'guiding master' was pressing for the a.s.sa.s.sination of Hitler without delay. He had become convinced that nothing could be expected of the top military leadership in initiating a coup. 'They would only follow an order,' was his view. He took it upon himself to provide the 'ignition', as the conspirators labelled the a.s.sa.s.sination of Hitler that would lead to their removal of the n.a.z.i leadership and takeover of the state. Tresckow had already in the summer of 1942 commissioned Gersdorff with the task of obtaining suitable explosives. Olbricht, meanwhile, coordinated the links with the other conspirators in Berlin and laid the groundwork for a coup to take place in March 1943. The plans to occupy important civilian and military positions in Berlin and other major cities were, in essence, along the lines that were to be followed in July 1944.

One obvious problem was how to get close enough to Hitler to carry out an a.s.sa.s.sination. Hitler's movements were unpredictable. An undependable schedule had in mid-February 1943 vitiated the intention of two officers, General Hubert Lanz and Major-General Hans Speidel, of arresting Hitler on an expected visit to Army Group B headquarters at Poltava. The visit did not materialize. Hitler's personal security had, meanwhile, been tightened considerably. He was invariably surrounded by SS bodyguards, pistols at the ready, and was always driven by his own chauffeur, Erich Kempka, in one of his limousines, which were stationed at different points in the Reich and in the occupied territories. And Schmundt, Hitler's Wehrmacht adjutant, had told Tresckow and Gersdorff that Hitler wore a bullet-proof vest and hat. This helped persuade them that the possibilities of a selected a.s.sa.s.sin having time to pull out his pistol, aim accurately, and ensure that his shot would kill Hitler were not great.

Nevertheless, preparations were made to shoot Hitler on a visit to Army Group Centre headquarters at Smolensk on 13 March. This plan was abandoned, since there was a distinct possibility of Field-Marshal von Kluge, commander of Army Group Centre, and other senior officers being killed alongside Hitler. Tresckow reverted to the original plan to blow up Hitler. During the meal at which, had the original plans been carried out, Hitler would have been shot, Tresckow asked one of the Fuhrer's entourage, Lieutenant-Colonel Heinz Brandt, travelling in Hitler's plane, to take back a package for him to Colonel h.e.l.lmuth Stieff in Army High Command. The package looked like two bottles of cognac. It was, in fact, two parts of a bomb that Tresckow had put together.

Schlabrendorff carried the package to the aerodrome and gave it to Brandt just as he was climbing into Hitler's Condor ready for take-off. Moments before, Schlabrendorff had pressed the fuse capsule to activate the detonator, set for thirty minutes. It could be expected that Hitler would be blown from the skies shortly before the plane reached Minsk. Schlabrendorff returned as quickly as possible to headquarters and informed the Berlin opposition in the Abwehr that the 'ignition' for the coup had been undertaken. But no news came of an explosion. The tension among Tresckow's group was palpable. Hours later, they heard that Hitler had landed safely at Rastenburg. Schlabrendorff gave the code-word through to Berlin that the attempt had failed. Why there had been no explosion was a mystery. Probably the intense cold had prevented the detonation. For the nervous conspirators, ruminations about the likely cause of failure now took second place to the vital need to recover the incriminating package. Next morning, Schlabrendorff flew to Army High Command with two genuine bottles of cognac, retrieved the bomb, retreated to privacy, cautiously opened the packet with a razor-blade, and with great relief defused it. Mixed with relief, the disappointment among the opposition at such a lost chance was intense.

Immediately, however, another opportunity beckoned. Gersdorff had the possibility of attending the 'Heroes' Memorial Day', to take place on 21 March 1943 in Berlin. Gersdorff declared himself ready to sacrifice his own life in order to blow up Hitler during the ceremony. The attempt was to be made while Hitler was visiting an exhibition of captured Soviet war-booty, laid on to fill in the time between the ceremony in the Zeughaus (the old armoury in the centre of Berlin), and the wreath-laying at the cenotaph outside. Gersdorff positioned himself at the entry to the exhibition, in the rooms of the Zeughaus. He raised his right arm to greet Hitler as the dictator came by. At the same moment, with his left hand, he pressed the detonator charge on the bomb. The best fuse he had been able to come up with lasted ten minutes. He expected Hitler to be in the exhibition for half an hour, more than enough time for the bomb to go off. But this year, possibly fearing an Allied air-raid, Hitler raced through the exhibition, scarcely glancing at the material a.s.sembled for him, and was outside within two minutes. Gersdorff could follow Hitler no further. He sought out the nearest toilet and deftly defused the bomb.

Once again, astonishing luck had accompanied Hitler. The depressed