The End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler’s Germany, 1944–1945

On 20 July 1944 such ideas—engendered, adumbrated and elaborated in a conspiracy involving prominent figures in the armed forces, military intelligence, the Foreign Ministry, and other sectors of the regime’s leadership—culminated in the attempt on Hitler’s life undertaken by Count Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and the subsequent failed coup d’état launched from the headquarters of the Replacement Army in Berlin. Stauffenberg had placed a bomb under Hitler’s table at a military briefing just after noon that day at Führer Headquarters in East Prussia. The bomb had exploded, killing or badly injuring most of those present in the wooden barrack-hut. But Hitler had survived with only minor injuries. Once it had been plainly established that Hitler was alive, support had drained away from the coup planned to follow his presumed death, which collapsed in the course of the evening. Stauffenberg and three other close collaborators were shot by a firing squad late that night. The other plotters were soon rounded up. Most were tortured, subjected to appalling show trials, and then barbarously executed.

Stauffenberg’s assassination attempt marked an internal shift in the history of the Third Reich.²⁸ With the failure of the plot came not only the fearful reprisals against those involved but also a sharp radicalization of the regime, both in repression and in mobilization. The aftermath of the failed plot had a significant impact on the governmental structures of the regime, on the mentalities of the civilian and military elite (to some extent, too, on the ordinary public), and on remaining possibilities both for ‘regime change’ and for ending the war.

III

Looking back during his post-war interrogations in May 1945, Göring thought it had been impossible to organize an effective anti-Hitler movement at the time of the bomb plot.²⁹ So, in the same month, did General Hoßbach, Hitler’s one-time Wehrmacht adjutant. According to Hoßbach, the attempt on Hitler’s life had no basis of support in the mass of the people or the Wehrmacht. ‘Despite all setbacks, Hitler still enjoyed high popularity in 1944,’ he adjudged. The association of Hitler with patriotic support for the country at war was a strong bond, making it extremely difficult ‘to topple the god’.

³⁰ Indeed, those engaged in the plot to kill Hitler knew only too well that their actions lacked popular backing.³¹

Stauffenberg himself accepted that he would ‘go down in German history as a traitor’.³² The immediate reactions to the events of 20 July lend credence to such views.

Among ordinary Germans, there was a widespread sense of deep shock and consternation at the news of the failed assassination. Effusive outpourings of loyalty and support for the Führer were immediately registered in all quarters, alongside furious outrage at the ‘tiny clique’ of ‘criminal’ officers (as Hitler had labelled them) who had perpetrated such a vile deed, and rank disbelief that such base treachery could have been possible. It would, of course, have been near suicidal to voice regrets in public that Hitler had survived—though certainly that was the private feeling of a good many people. So the recorded expressions of support inevitably provide a distorted impression of attitudes. This was even more the case with the extremes of pro-Hitler fervour emanating from the big ‘loyalty rallies’ staged within days all over Germany by a revitalized Nazi Party straining every sinew to mobilize the population by orchestrating ‘spontaneous’ demonstrations of joy at the Führer’s survival and outrage at the monstrous attempt to assassinate him.³³ Even so, all the indications are that there was an upsurge of genuine pro-Hitler feeling in the immediate aftermath of the attack on his life.

The SD took immediate soundings of opinion on the day after the assassination attempt. ‘All reports agree that the announcement of the attempt has produced the strongest feelings of shock, dismay, anger and rage,’ ran the summary of initial reactions. Women were said to have broken into tears of joy in shops or on the open streets in Königsberg and Berlin at Hitler’s survival. ‘Thank God the Führer is alive,’ was a common expression of relief. ‘What would we have done without the Führer?’ people asked. Hitler was seen as the only possible bulwark against Bolshevism. Many thought his death would have meant the loss of the Reich. It was at first surmised that the strike against Hitler was the work of enemy agents, though this presumption soon gave way to recognition that it had been treachery from within, and fury at the fact that this had come from German officers.³⁴