Killing Hitler (39 page)

So far, so good. The conspiracy was taking concrete form: the assassination plot was accompanied by plans for a thoroughgoing coup d’état, a shadow government was waiting in the wings, and the military plotters were primed for action. However, as far as the conspirators were concerned, their plot still lacked two vital ingredients—the participation of senior army personnel and an assassin with access to Hitler.

Tresckow set about addressing the first of these problems. In the late summer of 1943, he sought to bring Field Marshal von
Manstein, then commanding Army Group South, into the conspiracy. Though he had already been promised the participation of Field Marshal von Kluge, the experience at Smolensk had convinced him that his superior could not be wholly relied upon in a crisis, especially a crisis of the sort that he hoped to engineer. Manstein, he thought, who had been a persistent critic of Hitler’s tactics, might be trusted to take control of the army in the event of a successful coup.

Accordingly, Gersdorff was dispatched to Zaporozhye that August to sound out the field marshal. He began on what he knew to be safe ground: a criticism of Hitler’s leadership style, his handling of the war, and the urgent necessity of changing course so as to avert catastrophe. Manstein agreed readily but argued that he was not the man to convince Hitler of anything. Gersdorff then replied tartly that perhaps the field marshals should all go to Hitler together and hold a pistol to his chest. Shocked, Manstein’s response neatly summed up the attitude of the older generation of the military. “Prussian field marshals,” he barked, “do not mutiny!”
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This remark confirmed the view that Stauffenberg had expressed earlier in the year, when he commented: “Since the generals have so far done nothing, the colonels must now go into action.”
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Lieutenant Colonel von Stauffenberg was already preparing to put his superiors to shame.

Stauffenberg was to address the second problem: that of finding an officer who was both of sufficient rank to secure access to Hitler and determined and ruthless enough to play the role of assassin. In the autumn of 1943, Stauffenberg thought he had found his man in Colonel Helmuth Stieff, the diminutive head of the General Staff’s organization branch. Stieff had initially been willing to take a bomb into one of Hitler’s briefings, but by the time he received the necessary explosives in October, he had wavered. Stauffenberg, who had described Stieff as “nervy as a racing jockey,” would have to look elsewhere.
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Soon after, Stauffenberg was approached by Axel von dem Bussche. In a long conversation he learned of the massacre at Dubno and of Bussche’s resolve to act in the name of Germany. He was impressed by the young man’s service record and his
uninhibited attitude toward tyrannicide. If he could engineer him into a meeting with Hitler, he might have a good chance of success. He sent his would-be assassin to see Stieff at the high command headquarters in East Prussia, who had conceived of a plan to murder Hitler during a demonstration of new equipment.

Bussche, a tall, blond Aryan with a brilliant service record in one of Hitler’s most prestigious divisions, was well suited for the role of a model Nazi. He was selected by Stauffenberg to wear the new greatcoat, designed for the Eastern Front, during Hitler’s formal inspection.
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Bussche set about planning his attack. Perhaps mindful of Tresckow’s failure at Smolensk, he opted against a British chemical fuse and decided instead on a traditional 4½-second fuse culled from a German stick grenade. This he married to a kilo of explosives and then fashioned the bomb into a form that could fit into his coat pocket. His plan was to set the fuse as Hitler approached, cover its brief hiss by clearing his throat, and then leap on his victim, holding him in a deadly embrace. If he should fail, he planned to carry a stiletto blade tucked into his boot.
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Thus prepared, he was ready for the “demonstration.”

After several delays, Bussche returned to see Stieff at the end of November to make the final preparations. Two weeks later, he was informed that the demonstration had been scheduled to take place in the next few days. Then, on 16 December, he learned that the uniforms that he had been due to display had been destroyed in a British air raid. As replacements could not be sourced quickly, he was transferred back to active service on the Eastern Front, on the understanding that he would be recalled as soon as possible. A month later, however, he lost a leg at Nevel and, spending the remainder of the war in the hospital, was unable to play any further role in the conspiracy. Though a replacement “model” was found, the demonstration of new equipment never did take place and the attack was postponed indefinitely.

For the military conspirators, 1943 had brought little but frustration. Though they had been bolstered by the appearance of the energetic Stauffenberg, their first assassination attempts had been thwarted by bad luck and their target’s unpredictability.
Understandably, they were growing disheartened. Many believed that their motive force and inner strength had been expended for precious little gain. Tresckow, especially, feared that they had missed their chance. And when he was promoted to the staff of the 2nd Army in November, his contacts to the opposition, which he had done so much to establish, were put under severe strain. Nonetheless, he sought, in vain, to secure access to Hitler himself to make one last attempt.
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His star, it seemed, was waning.

Stauffenberg, too, was becoming impatient. Though he had repeatedly declared himself ready to act as assassin, and is even thought to have prepared an attempt that Christmas, his confederates considered him too important to the success of the coup as a whole to be risked.
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After all, he had personally drawn up the plans for Operation Valkyrie, which would need to be activated in the event of a successful assassination. And few of the conspirators possessed his drive and charisma, not to mention his organizational skills. If Stauffenberg acted as the assassin, his allies believed, he could not be permitted to undertake a suicide mission. Moreover, given his extensive injuries, they doubted that he would be physically able to play the role. This was the impasse that the conspirators faced at the end of 1943. They could only have hoped that 1944 would bring more tangible results.

The opening months of the new year brought little good news, however. German troops were in retreat across Europe. In the east, the siege of Leningrad was finally lifted in January, after nearly nine hundred days, while farther south, Soviet forces were rapidly approaching the former Polish eastern frontier. In Italy, meanwhile, the battle for Monte Cassino was joined and the Anzio landings foreshadowed the capture of Rome. At home, the Royal Air Force and U.S. Army Air Forces continued to pound Germany’s cities to rubble. For the resistance, therefore, the expected military collapse appeared to shuffle closer almost daily, while their own efforts had come to naught. In mid-February, they suffered another blow when the dismissal of Admiral Canaris suggested that the conspiracy itself might be compromised. Slowly, the Nazi security services were homing in.

So by March 1944, a degree of urgency had crept into the
opposition’s planning. It was around this time that Eberhard von Breitenbuch sought out Tresckow. A cavalry captain and aide-decamp to Field Marshal von Busch, the new commander of Army Group Center, Breitenbuch had long been an opponent of Nazism and had been in contact with the conspirators for some time. His own conversion to the cause was a gradual process, mirroring the gradual subordination and corruption of the Wehrmacht. The final break is thought to have come in 1942, when he was witness to a number of executions and brutal anti-partisan actions in the forest of Bialowieża in eastern Poland. With that, he later recalled, the last remnants of his political faith and trust were destroyed. “What I had previously suspected,” he wrote, “I now knew for sure.”
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In early March 1944, Breitenbuch contacted Tresckow to tell him that he would be accompanying Field Marshal von Busch to brief Hitler at Berchtesgaden. After agreeing to attempt an assassination, he was swiftly supplied with explosives but demurred, distrusting their reliability and preferring to use a Browning pistol instead. It was impressed upon him by Tresckow that the chance “to end the war, with all its horrors, lay in his hands.”
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On the morning of 11 March, Busch’s party arrived at Salzburg airport and was whisked to Hitler’s residence by car. By midday, they were waiting in an anteroom in the Berghof. As required, all of them had taken off their caps, belts, and sidearms. In addition, Breitenbuch had already removed his watch and wedding ring, to be sent to his wife, and had concealed his Browning pistol in a trouser pocket. His nerves were harder to conceal. As Göring regaled the visitors with the latest jokes, Breitenbuch was feeling the tension. “My heart was beating in my throat,” he recalled, “as it was clear to me that, within half an hour, I would be dead.”
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Presently, Keitel, Alfred von Jodl, and Goebbels arrived and Busch’s party was finally ushered into the conference room by the SS bodyguard. Bringing up the rear of the group, Breitenbuch was suddenly stopped by a guard and curtly informed that junior aides were not to be admitted. Already nervous, he was then forced to endure his superior’s vain and unwitting attempts to secure
his entry, and was finally turned away, still with the pistol—cocked and loaded—in his pocket.

Another adjutant, similarly barred from the conference, accompanied Breitenbuch as he was escorted from the Berghof. While the two relaxed on the terrace outside, enjoying the view, they chatted. After a time, however, Breitenbuch fell silent. As his companion recalled:

I noticed that [he] was no longer reacting when I spoke. His forehead was beaded with sweat and his hands were shaking. I asked him if he was ill and if we should order a car to take him to a hospital in Berchtesgaden, but he refused help and said he would be better soon.
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Only many years later would Breitenbuch reveal the reason for his sudden attack of nerves.

As 1944 wore on and Tresckow faded out of the reckoning, the resistance was left with little else to do but to hone its plans, reword its numerous declarations, and squabble over the makeup of the putative post-assassination government. Everything that they had tried had been thwarted, and now they had no one with access to Hitler. To make matters worse, events in the military sphere that summer appeared to herald the final collapse of Nazi Germany. On 5 June, Rome fell to the Americans, and the following day the Allied landings in Normandy opened the long-awaited second front. In the east, meanwhile, mid-June saw the start of a colossal Soviet offensive—code-named “Bagration”—against Army Group Center, which would cost Germany fully thirty divisions and over three hundred thousand men.
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At around that time, on 20 June, Stauffenberg achieved the breakthrough that his tenacity and determination had deserved. Promoted to full colonel, he was appointed chief of staff to the commander of the Home Army, General Fromm. In this capacity, he was required to supervise the raising, training, and supply of troop detachments across Germany for service at the front.
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As befitted such an important post, he was also required to report to Hitler personally.

Stauffenberg first met Hitler on 7 June 1944. He had been summoned to a special briefing at Berchtesgaden, together with his superior officer General Fromm. Stauffenberg’s reputation as a brilliant staff officer had evidently preceded him, and Hitler greeted him warmly, taking his one maimed hand in his. As was his way with new acquaintances, Hitler held eye contact with Stauffenberg in silence for a few moments, but Stauffenberg did not flinch.
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The conference, when it began, was a small affair. Alongside Stauffenberg, Fromm, and Hitler, only Göring, Keitel, Himmler, and Speer were present. The items under discussion included arms production and a new type of mine intended to destroy minesweepers.
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Stauffenberg’s task was to outline the official preparations for Operation Valkyrie. Though drafts of the plan had been in existence for some two years by 1944, interest in them had been reawakened by the events of that summer.
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Hitler listened attentively to Stauffenberg and approved the proposals.

Many who came into personal contact with Hitler came away profoundly moved, even hypnotized, by his magnetism and the force of his personality. Stauffenberg was not one of these. When asked by his wife whether Hitler’s eyes had been impressive, he replied: “Not at all. Nothing!…as if veiled.”
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He went on to describe the atmosphere of the meeting as degenerate and fetid and claimed that he had found it hard to breathe. Of his fellow participants, he noted, only Albert Speer gave the impression of normality. The others, he said, were “patent psychopaths.”
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A month later, on July 6, Stauffenberg was summoned back to Berchtesgaden to see Hitler again. Bringing explosives with him, in what Speer described as a “remarkably plump briefcase,”
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he hoped to persuade Colonel Stieff to attempt an attack during another presentation of new uniforms to Hitler, scheduled for the following day at Schloss Klessheim near Salzburg.
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Stieff’s refusal, however, demonstrated to Stauffenberg that if he was to have any real chance of success, he would have to act alone.