The German Resistance

History has been kind to the anti-German resistance in most of Nazi-occupied Europe. In part, of course, this is a consequence of Allied propaganda during the war itself. In the struggle for `hearts and minds', much was to be gained by stressing the rôles of Free French, Free Polish, Free Czech and other forces fighting alongside those of Britain, the Empire as it then existed, and the United States. There were also vested interests, both during the war and afterwards, in stressing the activities of partisan organisations in occupied France, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland, Greece and, after September 1943, northern Italy — activities ranging from smuggling Allied airmen to safety and transmitting messages to co-ordinating air raids, engaging in sabotage and conducting large-scale guerrilla operations. In the English-speaking world, even the most cursory account of the war will accord some notice to the work of the underground resistance; and there can scarcely be a cinema-goer or television viewer who has not seen at least one film revolving around resistance activities, from Scandinavia to the Balkans and Greece. Nor must one forget the actions of partisans within the former Soviet sphere of influence, and within the former Soviet Union itself.

The German Resistance, or `Widerstand', has received altogether less attention from serious historians, and virtually no popular attention whatever. For most people, the Third Reich looms as a single sinister monolithic entity — the entire German population standing mesmerised, in docile thrall to Hitler's spell. In some quarters, it may even come as a surprise that a German resistance existed at all. Although there will generally be a vague awareness of the abortive plot to assassinate Hitler on 20 July 1944, for most non-historians, this will figure only as it was depicted at the time by the Nazis themselves and by Allied propaganda — a single doomed flash-in-the-pan attempt at a coup d'état improvised, in slapdash and amateurish fashion, by a few disgruntled high-ranking officers. Even among the better-informed, the plot of 20 July is seen as nothing more than an ad hoc and bungled endeavour to remove Hitler personally, rather than a manifestation of a coherent, longstanding, widespread and well-organised resistance movement.

In fact, a subterranean and organised German resistance had existed since before 1938 — before Hitler's invasion of Czechoslovakia and the notorious conference in Munich which, according to Neville Chamberlain, promised `peace in our time'. This resistance consisted of senior military officers and civil servants, and international diplomats, jurists, intellectuals and men of letters. Some of these were among the most august and influential names in Germany. Hjalmar Schacht, President of the Reichsbank and former Minister of Economics, was involved, as well as Julius Leber, refugee of concentration camps and chief spokesman for German socialism. There were Carl Gördeler, former Mayor of Leipzig, Ulrich von Hassell, former German ambassador to Italy, and Adam von Trott zu Solz, one-time Rhodes Scholar at Oxford and probably the most brilliant mind in the German Foreign Office. Eminent jurists like Counts Peter Yorck von Wartenburg and Helmuth James von Moltke — cousins of the Stauffenberg family and founders of the intellectual `Kreisau Circle' — took part, as did Pastor Dietrich Bonhöffer, the internationally distinguished teacher, lecturer, scholar and theologian.

Among the military, the list is equally impressive. It starts with Colonel-General Ludwig Beck, beloved former Chief of the General Staff, and Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, Chief of Military Intelligence, and goes on to involve at least eight senior commanders, including two other former Chiefs of the General Staff, two field marshals and the military governor of France, as well as numerous junior officers.

Although the true number can never be known, one historian records at least forty-six significant attempts on Hitler's life between 1921 and 1945. In 1933 alone, there were ten which the police regarded as both genuine and serious. Some of the projected assassination schemes were wildly flamboyant and romantically dramatic — a battalion of German and Cossack paratroops, for example, dropping into the airport near Berchtesgaden, storming the headquarters and capturing the Führer, who would no doubt have been shot while trying to escape. Others were more realistic and, in other circumstances, might well have succeeded. And quite apart from plans to remove Hitler by violent means, there were numerous other plots for deposing the National Socialist régime and seizing power. A few of these are worthy of note.

On 11 March 1938, the `Anschluss' of Austria occurred. German troops marched into Vienna, and the original domains of the once-proud 600-year-old Habsburg empire were annexed to the Greater German Reich. Hitler then turned his designs to Czechoslovakia, a country which, unlike Austria, was not going to submit peaceably. Under its Chief of Staff, Ludwig Beck, the German high command was alarmed at the prospect of a major European war. Even apart from the moral issues, and the guilt Germany would incur for such aggression, the country was militarily unprepared for a large-scale conflict. If at first Beck's opposition was based on simple expediency, it soon became a matter of duty and honour:

History will indict these commanders of blood guilt if, in the light of their professional and political knowledge, they do not obey the dictates of their conscience. The soldier's duty to obey ends when his knowledge, his conscience and his sense of responsibility forbid him to carry out a certain order.

Towards the end of July 1938, Beck prepared a statement to Hitler:

The Commander-in-Chief of the Army, together with his most senior commanding generals, regret that they cannot assume responsibility for the conduct of a war of this nature without carrying a share of the guilt for it in face of the people and of history. Should the Fü4hrer, therefore, insist on the prosecution of this war, they hereby resign from their posts.

While most of the high command shared Beck's objections to war, few of them possessed his integrity and preparedness to act on his principles. Lacking the requisite unanimity of support from his subordinates, Beck resigned alone on 18 August, to be succeeded by...