They Used Dark Forces (41 page)

However the next day, Saturday, he again returned safely but in time for lunch; and the dreaded visit from the Gestapo did not take place that day nor on the Sunday. From fear that he was being watched and if he happened to meet some friend who was already known to have been involved it might later be used against him, von Osterberg refused to leave the house; so Gregory spent a very dull weekend confined to his room. Trudi managed to smuggle up food hidden in a basket for him, but he did not see Sabine for even a few moments.

Most of the time he spent in reading and sleeping; but now that the first excitement about the attempt on Hitler had died down he felt better able to concentrate on trying to reassure Erika that he was safe. In that he felt he had succeeded, as twice he got distinct impressions of her at Gwaine Meads, thinking of and praying for him; and this strengthened his resolution against being lured by Sabine into agreeing to chance a set-back to his supposed affliction should she again become too loving when with him.

By Sunday night it was six days since he had parted from Malacou and after getting away from Poland he had not given the occultist a thought. But that evening he saw Malacou again clearly. With his shoes off, and looking utterly miserable, he was sitting under a hedge eating raw carrots. It looked as though during the past week he had become a tramp and had walked a considerable distance, but whether he was still in Poland or had come west into Germany Gregory could not tell. However, he was aware that Malacou's misery was not caused only by his own wretched fate; he was grieving for Tarik, who was dead. The hunchback had panicked and run from the cottage in an endeavour to escape when the two S.D. men had arrived there. As he had ignored their shouts to halt, one of them had shot him in the back. Owing to the darkness Gregory had not seen his body, but Malacou had found it later.

Regarding Malacou as an unsavoury episode in his life that was now closed, Gregory thought how lucky he was to be in such comfortable quarters instead of, as he might well have
been, eating carrots in a field; then he dismissed the unfortunate Jew from his mind.

On Monday von Osterberg went to work again and Sabine made another trip to Berlin, both to secure what news she could and try other people of her acquaintance in the hope of securing papers for Gregory. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday passed in a similar manner and, as no move by the Gestapo had been made against the Count, it began to look as if he was going to escape the fate that had befallen many of his friends. Sabine continued to have no luck about papers, but every afternoon she returned from her expeditions an hour or more before von Osterberg was due back and was able to give Gregory more and more details about the plot that she had picked up from friends in high places. So, by the end of the week, he had a pretty accurate picture of the development of the conspiracy from its beginning to its disastrous outcome.

As he was aware the Army Chiefs, being convinced that Germany was in no state to face another war, had strenuously opposed Hitler's plans, both for breaking the Versailles Treaty by re-militarising the Rhine Zone and for going into Austria. That he had pulled off both coups successfully, against their advice, had greatly weakened the Generals' position; but when he told them that he intended to annex the Sudetenland, they had decided the time had come when no more risks could be taken, and had made plans to eliminate him. At that time their power was still considerable, so they certainly could have done so. But the ground had been cut from beneath their feet by Munich. Chamberlain and Daladier gave Hitler everything he asked. After three such bloodless triumphs Hitler became more than ever the idol of the German people. However dangerous the Generals knew him to be they positively dare not pull him from his perch, for it would have brought upon them the outraged anger of the whole nation.

In the case of Poland they could do no more than bleat a warning. Again he ignored it and, glumly apprehensive, they entered on the war with all the efficiency for which their caste had long been famous. Poland was finished in a fortnight, but the campaign had necessitated leaving Germany's western frontier almost naked. They thanked their gods that France
showed no disposition to launch an immediate offensive, but were convinced she would launch one in the spring; and the German Army was then weaker than that of France. Again, they had decided that they must eliminate Hitler before they had a full-scale world war on their hands. The result had been the Munich bomb plot in November 1939, in which Hitler had narrowly escaped being blown up. About that Gregory had needed no telling, as he had been involved in it himself.

In the spring there had followed the staggering series of
Blitzkriege
by which Hitler had made himself the Overlord of Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium and France. The Generals had been amazed by their own successes but happily accepted them and, much as they continued to dislike ‘Corporal' Hitler, felt that there could no longer be any question of getting rid of him.

The following year had seen further German triumphs in the Balkans and the great drive into Russia. Over the latter they had always shaken their heads, and by the winter their forebodings were proving only too well justified. But in the meantime their wings had been clipped. Many of them had been sacked for opposing Hitler's ‘inspired' strategy; others were separated by many hundreds of miles and had been forbidden to communicate with one another.

So it had not been until disaster after disaster on the Russian front that a common desperation had driven a number of General Staff officers to risk a series of secret meetings and, in partial collaboration with members of the civilian Resistance groups, again plan to depose or kill Germany's Evil Genius.

They were still hampered by the fact that every officer and man had personally sworn allegiance to Hitler and that, owing to Goebbels' propaganda, millions of Germans still had complete faith in him. But it appeared certain that the Allies were about to invade Europe; so it had been decided that, psychologically, that would be the moment when the German troops and people would most readily accept the overthrow of the Nazi regime.

In consequence, from mid-June the most determined group had begun to make definite plans. The handsome but sadly disfigured young Colonel Count von Stauffenberg had
recently been appointed Chief of Staff to the Replacement Army. In this capacity it was one of his duties to report at Hitler's morning conferences on troop units ready to be despatched to the battle fronts. A satisfactory bomb having been made ready, he volunteered to take it in his brief-case to one of these conferences and leave it there, so that it woud blow Hitler up.

However, it was decided by the plotters that it was essential to eliminate Goering and Himmler from the succession at the same time, so they must both be present when the attempt was made. Hitler was then at Berchtesgaden in the Obersalzberg and it was learned that on July 11th Goering and Himmler would be there too. On that date von Stauffenberg took his bomb to the conference, but it transpired that although Goering was present Himmler was not, so the Count returned with the bomb still in his brief-case.

On the 15th he again took his bomb to a Führer conference at Berchtesgaden, but neither Goering nor Himmler attended it; so again he refrained from setting the fuse of the bomb going.

These abortive attempts had dangerous repercussions for, believing Hitler's death to be imminent, Stauffenberg's confederates in Berlin had twice set the machinery to work for bringing troops into the capital. This had to be laughed off as an exercise against the possibility of a revolt by the foreign workers. But such an excuse would not be accepted again. Therefore it was decided that Stauffenberg must go through with his next attempt whatever the circumstances, even if Goering and Himmler could not be sent in pieces to another world with their Führer.

By the 20th Hitler had moved from Berchtesgaden to the
Wolfsschanze
in East Prussia; so it was there that von Stauffenberg flew with his brief-case containing the bomb. But the stars were against him. Owing to a fault in the ventilation system of the concrete cellar in which Hitler habitually held his midday conferences, it was held instead above ground in a long flimsy wooden hut.

Having made his report, von Stauffenberg, who was sitting next to Hitler, excused himself to go out of the hut to telephone,
leaving his brief-case resting against the leg of Hitler's chair. The bomb went off, the hut was shattered and, feeling certain that Hitler was dead, von Stauffenberg jumped into a car that his A.D.C., von Haften, had ready for him. Owing to his agitation the courageous Count had left his hat and gloves on the conference table. In spite of his being improperly dressed they got past the three check points, although only through the last after having their names taken and von Stauffenberg exercising his authority as a Colonel to overawe the well-disciplined guard who had taken alarm at the sound of the explosion. They then emplaned for their two and a half hours' flight back to Berlin.

Meanwhile Beck and the other Generals had begun to play their parts in the capital. General Fellgiebel, who was in the plot and responsible for communications at the
Wolfsschanze
, had actually seen his Führer blown through the side of the wooden hut; so he immediately put through a call to Berlin to say that the attempt had succeeded. On receiving it General Olbricht, the Chief of Staff of the Home Army, issued the codeword
Walküre
, then went to his C.-in-C., General Fromm, and told him that Hitler had been assassinated.

Fromm refused to believe it. Yet all might still have been well had not Fellgiebel suddenly got cold feet. Instead of permanently sabotaging the telephone exchange at the
Wolfsschanze
after putting through his call, as had been intended, on being warned that he was watched he left the exchange undamaged.

To convince Fromm that Hitler was dead, Olbricht offered to telephone the
Wolfsschanze
expecting the line to be useless. Instead he got straight on to Keitel, who assured Fromm that the Führer was still alive.

At that, Fromm refused to play; so Beck, who had by then arrived, arrested him and put him in another room with a junior officer to stand guard over him. General von Hase had also arrived and, as Commander of the troops in Berlin, ordered the Guard Battalion to surround the Government quarter. Then, apparently, the conspirators simply sat back and waited for the dynamic von Stauffenberg to join them.

It so happened that a Major Otto Remer, who had recently
been posted as C.O. of the Guard Battalion, was a convinced Nazi. Even so, he would probably have carried out the orders of his Army superiors but for another piece of ill luck that befell the conspirators. Hitler's faith in the loyalty of the Army had deteriorated to the point of taking a leaf out of the Russians' book, and attaching Political Commissars to all formations. His nominee with the Guard Battalion was a Lieutenant Hagen, previously employed in Goebbels' Ministry. Hagen queried the order and persuaded Remer to let him go with it to Goebbels and, instead of arresting him, consult him about it.

Hagen found that Goebbels had already heard about the attempt on his Führer's life over the still-open telephone line from the
Wolfsschanze
. Believing the Generals to have seized Berlin, he was down in a cellar under his Ministry holding a pistol and contemplating blowing out his brains. On Hagen's arrival he realised that there was still a chance of defeating the
Putsch
and sent him to fetch Major Remer.

By then Remer's men had surrounded the War Office, but he did not like to go in. The tanks had also arrived from the Training Depot, but their Commander had queried his orders with his Chief, General Guderian, who happened to have a jealous hatred of most of the other Generals and was inclined to be pro-Nazi. He told his subordinate that, although he was to carry out Exercise
Walküre
, in no circumstances was he to use his tanks against S.S. troops or Government buildings.

Von Stauffenberg reached the War Office at about five o'clock, to find that in the past three hours little had been done. The new Commander-in-Chief designate, Field Marshal von Witzleben, had belatedly turned up with his uniform in a suitcase, but finding Remer's troops round the War Office instead of attacking the Gestapo headquarters, and the tanks under orders not to help in the
Putsch
, he had got cold feet and had gone home again; while none of the others knew quite what to do.

After an interval of indecision on both sides Remer decided to obey Goebbels' summons. By then Goebbels had been on to the
Wolfsschanze
and had learned the truth about what had happened there.

The bomb had gone off at eighteen minutes to one. It was believed that a Colonel Brandt, who had been seated on the other side of Hitler from von Stauffenberg, had pushed the brief-case further under the heavy table, thus somewhat reducing the effect of the explosion. But, in any case, had the conference been held as usual, in the concrete bunker, everyone there would have been killed. As it was, two Generals, Brandt and Hitler's stenographer received mortal wounds, and several others, including Colonel-General Jodl, were seriously injured. Hitler escaped only because a minute before the explosion he had left his seat at the table to walk to the far end of the room and look at a wall map. Nevertheless the whole flimsy building had been disintegrated by the blast, and all of them were blown through the roof or walls, Hitler landing burnt, bruised and without his trousers.

Remer had been ordered to arrest Goebbels but still felt uncertain which side to take; so Goebbels picked up the telephone and put him on direct to Hitler. To his amazement, his Führer immediately placed him, a Major, in full command of all the troops in Berlin for the next twenty-four hours, and told him to arrest anyone, whatever his rank, who opposed his orders. Hitler then ordered Goebbels to get out a broadcast as swiftly as possible, attributing the attempt to a small group of fanatics and stating that he had come to no harm.