Tapping Hitler's Generals

Naturally the Trent Park generals had no knowledge of the events in East Prussia and Berlin, and all the more interesting is it therefore to see how they received the few reports which got through to the London centre. Thoma, Broich, Graf von Sponeck and others showed a positive reaction and regretted Stauffenberg’s failure. Broich brooded: ‘I cannot understand it. Stauffenberg was always such a reliable man. To have used such a small bomb.’ The more they thought it over, the more they doubted it had been a straightforward bomb attempt. The generals could not understand how the majority of those attending the situation conference could have escaped without injury, and finally many concluded that the attempt had been rigged by the Nazi leadership. Probably, they reasoned, the Gestapo had discovered that Stauffenberg belonged to the Opposition and, as before with the Röhm Putsch, had planned a refined plot: a bogus bomb attempt, aimed at the publicity value of the Mussolini visit, would now serve as the pretext for the elimination of all undesirables and to demolish the last Army bastion of power.

No doubt mishearing a word in a radio broadcast, they thought that Himmler had taken over as C-in-C, Army and Guderian was his Chief of Staff. (Hitler had announced in a radio speech that he was appointing Himmler commander of the Heimat (i.e. Homeland) Army. For the generals, the idea that a man like Himmler should now lead them was almost unbearable, and they found it hard to accept that Guderian should have accepted the post of his Chief of Staff (Document 145).

The generals were deeply shocked to learn of the trials before the People’s Court and the first executions, particularly that of Feldmarschall Erwin von Witzleben. That he would be sentenced to death had been clear to the majority, but many could not come to terms with his being hanged and not shot by firing squad as their concepts of military honour demanded. ‘Whoever continues to defend this Nazi system is either stupid, a coward or a characterless person with ambition,’ Thoma wrote in his diary on 8 August 1944.[246]

Unfortunately not all the reactions expressed by the Trent Park generals regarding the events of 20 July 1944 are available,[247] so that the breadth of reactions is based on relatively few documents. Heinrich Eberbach considered that Stauffenberg and Olbricht acted from idealism but belittled the apparent amateurishness of the conspirators’ plan. Generalleutnant Spang criticised the plotters for acting too late. It had long been clear that nothing more could be achieved and all that remained was for the fronts to collapse. Spang emphasised that the attempt had had no effect on his own unit–266.Inf.Div. (Document 149).[248]

In December 1944 General Elfeldt criticised the attempt because if successful Germany would have given up the war. The Allies were not fighting the Nazi Party, however, but the German people, and therefore any such conspiracy was senseless. Two junior Staff officers, Major Rudolf Beck, a cousin of Ludwig Beck, and Major Hasso Viebig, were appalled by the plot. ‘I could not reconcile it with my honour,’ Viebig remarked (Document 152). The violent fighting in Normandy in which both had taken part had not led them to reconsider.

The question as to whether the attempt was genuine or staged was determined at the end of August 1944 when General Choltitz arrived at Trent Park. The last Wehrmacht Commandant of Greater Paris reported to the prisoners in astonishing detail about the upheaval and subsequent events in the Bendler-Strasse, information which he had probably picked up from one of his Staff officers in Paris. Now the British were also in the picture. Whether the original scepticism of some generals that the assassination attempt was genuine influenced the British Government in any way, and strengthened their reservations about the German Resistance Movement, is not known.

4. Concluding Observations

The CSDIC (UK) transcripts are an important resource for researching the Wehrmacht and Third Reich. They allow us to enter the mind of the German soldier in a way that service files and private documents such as diaries and letters seldom can do so comprehensively. The documents published here provide a more colourful and detailed picture of the generals. The protocols do not only add to our knowledge of the Wehrmacht elite, but provide new information: a bridge stretching from the involvement of Choltitz in the mass murder of Jews, to his contacts with the 20 July conspirators, to the experience of General Pfuhlstein under Gestapo arrest in Berlin.