Dönitz: The Last Führer (63 page)

Hitler’s attitude to all this is known from his remarks during the conferences and fragments of his conversations the following month—on land to raise fifteen new blocking divisions for the east by combing the
Luftwaffe
and
Kriegsmarine
for men, placing these under the nominal command of Himmler, and not giving an inch anywhere—at sea to attack the enemy supply lines and warships fanatically: ‘Should the enemy lose six to eight battleships in the Seine Bay it would have the greatest strategic consequences’
¹⁵⁴
—in the air to challenge the enemy mastery with a great fighter production programme—in overall war strategy:

Dönitz’s attitude is also clear from his conference remarks; he echoed this strategy and assisted in creating the make-believe on which it floated; as he had for Tunis and Sicily and the Crimea, he echoed the Führer’s calls for resistance to the bitter end;
¹⁵⁶
he had learnt nothing from the former disasters inflexibility had brought. As for his personal loyalty to the Führer and the Nazi creed, this had been made clear in every recent speech and directive.

Nor can there be any doubt about the National Socialist ardour of the
third member of this circle, Heinrich Himmler; there is room for doubt about his attitude to the current situation though. He was the most powerful figure in the
Reich
, in control of the internal terror that alone preserved the state from chaos, and of all external intelligence agencies; these provided him with a picture of the real world outside and access to lines of communication with both enemy blocs; in addition he had in the
Waffen-SS
a private army indoctrinated with fanatical loyalty as the true bearer of the National Socialist revolution, the natural rival and potential usurper of the field-grey forces under the old aristocratic officer corps, which now appeared to be splitting apart in ‘defeatism’ and ‘disloyalty’. Himmler was personally ambitious, absolutely ruthless and, as Hitler was wont to repeat, ‘ice-cold in crises—every time it got really bad he became ice cold’.
¹⁵⁷
He was also capable of rationalizing any means of personal advancement as necessary for the attainment of National Socialist ends. It is not fanciful to suggest that such a man, so steeped in Nazi mythology as to carry out genocide as a moral imperative, might have regarded the martyrdom of Hitler in the same light. Goebbels took this view at the end.

Himmler’s later actions leave no doubt that he regarded himself as the Führer’s natural successor, and believed that with Hitler out of the way the western allies might be prepared to make peace with him as the leader of Germany. To conclude from all this that he knew of Stauffenberg’s intent—although not the full extent of the organization behind him—and allowed him his head is not justified on the evidence nor, however, is it ruled out. For there can be no doubt that he gained most from the attempt, the conspirators lost all, and the old guard of generals was finally broken.

At whatever level he was playing, he needed Dönitz and the
Kriegsmarine
, and probably he told him during their talks at this time of the latest strata of disloyalty he was uncovering in the Army. Dönitz’s reaction may be imagined; certainly he stood shoulder to shoulder with the
Reichsführer SS
after Stauffenberg’s bomb went off.

According to the naval staff war diary, Dönitz had intended spending July 20th and 21st at the
Wolfschanze
, but on learning that Mussolini was due there on the 20th, he postponed his visit until the 21st—according to Hansen-Nootbar because the
Duce
’s arrival would curtail his time for discussion with the Führer. On the morning of the 20th—again according to Hansen-Nootbar
¹⁵⁸
—he tried to call Führer headquarters, but could not get through for some time; when at last he did get through, the report
he received was not clear. This must refer to the period immediately after 12.42 when the bomb Stauffenberg had fused and left under Hitler’s map table during his morning situation conference went off. Dönitz could not have been calling up about this since no news of the event leaked for some time; only Himmler, in his headquarters some fifteen miles from the
Wolfschanze
, had been informed, and he immediately left by car for the scene.

It may be that Dönitz was trying to get through to his liaison officer at Führer headquarters,
Kapitän zur See
Assmann, in answer to an urgent wire Assmann had sent him late the previous evening.
¹⁵⁹
On the other hand, Hansen-Nootbar’s account from memory 40 years after the event may simply be wrong.

It is more reasonable perhaps to follow the naval staff war diary account, which states that Dönitz received an urgent call from the Admiral at Führer headquarters at about 1.15 telling him to come at once, but giving no reason. This would have been soon after Himmler had arrived at the
Wolfschanze
and about the time or shortly before a phone call was put through by Himmler’s adjutant to his Berlin headquarters to summon a team of detectives to investigate the explosion. Dönitz’s attempts to get through to Führer headquarters, recalled by Hansen-Nootbar, might have taken place after this as he tried to find out the basis of the enigmatic call. He would not have been able to get through then since the
Wolfschanze
exchange was shut down for the next two hours to prevent news of the attempt emerging.

In any event, he and Hansen-Nootbar took off in his plane one and a half hours later, arriving at Rastenburg airfield at 4.45, where he was met by one of his staff officers and given the first account of the attempt as they were driven the short distance to Führer headquarters. The explosion had been tremendous, wrecking the timber conference hut and killing and wounding several near the Führer who, however, had been stretched out across the heavy map table and had escaped with slight burns, bruising and burst ear-drums; he had recovered sufficiently to meet the
Duce
when he had arrived in his special train at four that afternoon and had immediately taken him on a tour of the still smoking scene of his miraculous escape.

Himmler had nosed out the culprit by this time—not a difficult task since Stauffenberg had left the conference chamber shortly before the explosion that morning just as he was due to make his report, and had then made a hasty exit from the headquarters compound and driven to
the airfield at Rastenburg; his car had been checked out through the first guard-post minutes after the explosion; the fact that he managed to get through two posts manned by SS at this time is surprising. In any case there could be little doubt of his guilt. And in Himmler’s mind there seems to have been no doubt about the guilt of his immediate superior, General Fromm, for reports were coming in from Berlin that made it clear the attempt was part of a
Putsch
to seize power organized at Fromm’s Bendlerstrasse headquarters. Before leaving for Berlin himself, at about the time Dönitz’s car was heading for the
Wolfschanze
, Himmler obtained a commission from Hitler as Commander of the Reserve Army in place of Fromm, and phoned orders to his Berlin headquarters to have Stauffenberg arrested. The SS Colonel and two detectives assigned this task were too late at the airport, so went to the Bendlerstrasse and walked into the nest of conspirators, where they themselves were arrested.

It was about this time that Dönitz joined Hitler and his guest the
Duce
for a bizarre tea party which has been described often. Göring and Ribbentrop were also present, having driven there after hearing the news, as were several permanent members of the entourage including Bormann and Keitel; all were naturally anxious to congratulate the Führer on his miraculous escape and assure him of their own loyalty and conviction that this dramatic exposure of treason would mark a turning point in the war; with the internal sabotage of the generals lanced, the nation united would prove invincible. Dönitz and Ribbentrop apparently led the attack on the generals, furiously resisted by Keitel, and during the mutual recriminations, in which Göring joined, Dönitz turned on the
Reichsmarschall
and relieved his long-repressed feelings about the
Luftwaffe
’s failure to support the Navy. Hitler sat quietly through the shouting, cotton wool protruding from his damaged ears, popping coloured lozenges into his mouth until someone mentioned the Roehm plot and the blood purge of 1934, when he rose, suddenly galvanized into frenzy, and with bulging eyes screamed vengeance on the traitors who had dared attempt to frustrate the providence which had chosen him to lead the German people. The surrounding quarrels were silenced by the power of the rage consuming him; apparently he continued, pacing with foam flecking his lips for an hour until interrupted by a telephone call from Berlin. That, at least, is the outline of the scene described by one of Mussolini’s entourage, who thought he was in the presence of a madman.
¹⁶⁰

In Berlin, meanwhile, the
coup
had run into trouble; the conspirators had been off to a slow start because the pre-arranged signal that Hitler was dead had not been sent from the
Wolfschanze
. They also failed, for some reason, to take over the telephone exchange and radio stations, and Goebbels in Berlin was able to call the
Wolfschanze
and talk to Hitler in person. Afterwards he broadcast an announcement that, despite an attempt on the Führer’s life, Hitler had received no injuries beyond light burns and bruises. This went out over the air throughout Europe at about 6.45.

Meanwhile Goebbels had connected Hitler on the telephone with the Commander of the battalion sealing off the government quarter for the conspirators. This was the call that broke the Führer’s manic raving. The grating voice, no doubt harsher after its recent exercise was unmistakable, and after receiving instructions to restore order and shoot anyone who tried to disobey, the Guards Commander swung his force against the rebels.

At Führer headquarters Hitler slumped back into his chair, suddenly spent. ‘I am beginning to doubt if the German people is worthy of my genius. No one appreciates what I have done for them’—a remark that was true so far as the tea circle was concerned, although not in the sense intended. All hastened again to assure him of their loyalty, Dönitz recounting the heroic feats performed by the Navy. He was soon recalled to more urgent matters: a call came through from Admiral Krancke in Paris, who wanted assurance that the Führer was alive; he had just received an order sent out in the name of a retired Field Marshal, von Witzleben, claiming that Hitler was dead and he, von Witzleben, was the new C-in-C of the armed forces. Dönitz told him Hitler was very much alive, and that no orders were to be obeyed unless from himself or the
Reichsführer SS
. He then set about composing a proclamation, which went out at 8 o’clock:

This was an accurate summary of Hitler’s own feelings about his escape.
Dönitz ended with a call to rally round the Führer ‘and fight with all our strength till victory is ours’.

Hitler had decided he would broadcast to his people that night, and he suggested that Dönitz should follow him. Dönitz called Hansen-Nootbar and told him to sit down and write a short speech for him ‘not too long, short and pithy—you know how’, then he phoned ‘Koralle’ and instructed his staff to promulgate a decree from Keitel to all naval Commands: no orders from Witzleben, Fromm or Hoepner were to be obeyed, only those from Keitel or Himmler; he followed it with his own instructions at 8.50, again to be issued immediately to all group headquarters:

When he came to collect the radio address Hansen-Nootbar was preparing he threw it away in disgust and said he would do it himself. A recording van was hastening towards the
Wolfschanze
from Königsberg, some 70 miles away, and the Führer’s forthcoming speech was announced at intervals between continuous Wagner excerpts. There could have been no more appropriate background to the events now taking place in Berlin. The conspirators in the Bendlerstrasse were overpowered by loyalists from within the building as the Guards battalion cordoned it off outside; Fromm who had refused to lend his authority to the revolt after speaking on the telephone to Keitel during the afternoon now, to prove his loyalty, had the four leading members of the conspiracy taken down to the courtyard and executed by firing squad, while the nominal head of the government-to-be, General Beck, was allowed to take his own life. Fromm then rang through to Führer headquarters.

Hansen-Nootbar answered; Fromm asked to speak to Keitel, but when told this Keitel shouted he did not wish to speak to that bastard, ‘Tell him I’m in a meeting with the Führer!’ a refrain taken up by everyone else Fromm asked for; Hansen-Nootbar eventually had to note down the message himself; it was that Fromm had ordered a street Court
Martial and the following officers had been sentenced to death and executed: General Olbricht, Colonel Stauffenberg, Lieutenant Haeften (Stauffenberg’s adjutant), Colonel Mertz von Quirnheim. When Hansen-Nootbar came in to the assembled chiefs and read this out, there was an explosion of ‘growling rage’, particularly against Fromm; no doubt it was felt he was attempting to cover his tracks. This testimony
¹⁶³
to the unsavoury mood at Führer headquarters that night adds authenticity to the stories of the earlier scenes at the tea party.