Hitler assassination plots: Henning von Tresckow
Most of us know about the famous July 1944 Hitler assassination plot that failed, led by Claus von Stauffenberg and code-named Operation Valkyrie. The co-conspirators paid with their lives, and their families were punished as well.
I became interested recently in the life story of one of the co-conspirators, Henning von Tresckow. Like most of the others who plotted to kill Hitler, he was a member of an old aristocratic family (note all those “vons”). They constituted a German Resistance moverment within the Wehrmacht itself.
Tresckow not only was the mastermind of the Valkyrie plot, but it was not his first attempt to kill Hitler. He had tried as early as March of 1943. Tresckow was a German of a certain sort; although born into a military family, he seemed to have had more of the poet’s temperament:
He wore his uniform only when it was absolutely required and disliked the regimentation of army life. He was lyrical, recited Rainer Maria Rilke, and spoke several languages…
His disillusionment with Nazism began very early on, in 1934, after the Night of the Long Knives, when the SS “murdered extrajudicially many SA leaders and political opponents, including two generals.” He saw Kristalnacht as an abomination. Nevertheless (or perhaps because of this), he made a fateful decision to stay in the Wehrmacht:
[Tresckow] sought out civilians and officers who opposed Hitler, such as Erwin von Witzleben. Witzleben dissuaded Tresckow from resigning from the Army arguing that they would be needed when day of reckoning comes. By the summer of 1939, he was saying to Fabian von Schlabrendorff, his cousin by marriage, that “both duty and honor demand from us that we should do our best to bring about the downfall of Hitler and National-Socialism in order to save Germany and Europe from barbarism.”
So he always saw himself as a secret agent, working within the Wehrmacht for the destruction of Hitler. It was a delicate balancing act, one with a multitude of moral complexities. But I cannot find it in my heart to condemn him at all; in fact, I consider him a heroic figure. And he did not remain silent, either:
When he learned about the massacre of thousands of Jews at Borisov, Tresckow appealed passionately to Field Marshall Fedor von Bock: “Never may such a thing happen again! Therefore we must act now. We have the power in Russia!” (Although Bock personally detested Nazism, he remained loyal to Hitler.) As the chief operations officer of Army Group Center, [von Tresckow] systematically placed officers who shared his views in key positions…The headquarters of Army Group Center thus emerged as the new nerve center of Army resistance
What’s more, Tresckow started sending messages that this group was ready for some sort of action as early as 1941, when Hitler’s campaign was going very well. However, it wasn’t until March of 1943 that the first assassination attempt was finally hatched and executed:
[Tresckow] asked Lieutenant Colonel Heinz Brandt who was traveling with Hitler if he would oblige to take a bottle of Cointreau to Colonel Helmuth Stieff (who was then not yet a conspirator) at Hitler’s headquarters in East Prussia as a payment for a lost bet. Brandt readily agreed. The “Cointreau” was actually a bomb constructed of a British plastic explosive “Plastic C” placed into the casing of a British magnetic mine, with a timer consisting of a spring which would be gradually dissolved by acid. Before Hitler’s Condor plane was to take off, Schlabrendorff activated the 30-minute fuse and handed the package to Brandt, who boarded Hitler’s plane. After takeoff, a message was sent to the other Berlin conspirators by code that Operation Flash was underway, which they expected to take place around Minsk. Yet when Hitler landed safely at his East Prussian headquarters, it became obvious that the bomb had failed to detonate (probably due to the extremely low temperature in the unheated luggage compartment thereby preventing the fuse from working). The message of failure was quickly sent out and Schlabrendorff retrieved the package to prevent discovery of the plot.
One week later, another attempt was made, this time by co-conspirator Gersdorff, who volunteered to be a suicide bomber while giving Hitler a tour of a military museum:
He had with him bombs with ten-minute fuses, knowing that Hitler was scheduled to be in the museum for 30 minutes. However, at the last minute just before Hitler was to appear, the duration of his stay was reduced to just eight minutes as a security precaution. Hitler breezed through in two minutes. As a result Gersdorff could not accomplish his mission, and the assassination plan failed again, but he barely managed to get out and defuse the bombs.
Hitler lived a charmed life, apparently. After Operation Valkyrie—the plot that actually was carried out, but failed to do any serious harm to Hitler—failed, Tresckow killed himself at the front. “To protect other conspirators, he staged an appearance of partisan attack by firing his pistols and then dispatched himself by holding a hand grenade below his chin.”
This is what he told a colleague before he died:
Hitler is the archenemy not only of Germany but of the world. When, in few hours’ time, I go before God to account for what I have done and left undone, I know I will be able to justify what I did in the struggle against Hitler. God promised Abraham that He would not destroy Sodom if just ten righteous men could be found in the city, and so I hope that for our sake God will not destroy Germany. No one among us can complain about his death, for whoever joined our ranks put on the shirt of Nessus. A man’s moral worth is established only at the point where he is ready to give up his life in defense of his convictions.
It is of interest that most of the Wehrmacht plotters were religious men as well as aristocrats and patriots. I believe that was of consequence; note the religious reference in Tresckow’s final words. He fought Hitler the best way he knew, and if he was a failure, he was aware that at least his gesture proved that there were some righteous people in Germany.
Good for the folks who tried. The failures of the various plots were so…odd…that one thinks there was an evil protector.
Neo,
Take a look, too, at the remarkable story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, at told by the formidable Eric Metaxas.
Bonhoeffer was a Christian who walked the walk.
Jamie Irons
Richard Aubrey: Hitler certainly thought he was protected.
Too bad they couldn’t coordinate…
http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/assassination_attempts.html
Another one of the conspirators who is well worth remembering: Hans Oster. He fully understood the evil of Naziism long before many of the others did, and was a key organizer of the conspiracy and recruiter of other members.
More here
neo-neocon: It is of interest that most of the Wehrmacht plotters were religious men as well as aristocrats and patriots. I believe that was of consequence; note the religious reference in Tresckow’s final words.
Tresckow was almost certainly Lutheran, given his final comments. Bonhoeffer obviously was. The “left undone” formulation is straight out of the Lutheran Confession of Sins. As a committed Lutheran (I believe) and military officer, Tresckow no doubt came to believe that to fail to at least attempt to assassinate Hitler would put his immortal soul in grave danger.
hollyweird constantly does progressive culture bombs, when there is such a wealth of real interesting bigger than life stories like rotting fruit fallen from the trees.
Having been burned in 1918 by leaving those “vons” free to fight another day, the western allies were in no mood to repeat that mistake. In hindsight they probably should have, but it would have taken beyond-human dispassion to have seen this at the time. While a few million lives might have been spared had the war ended in ’43 or ’44, the Germany Tresckow & co wanted to save was dead no matter whether their plot had succeeded or not.
There is a very good memoir about the native German resistance which I read years ago – Germans (mostly of a very religious background) who were anti-Nazi from the beginning. The author was Bernt Engelmann, who was a resistant from the time he was 12 years old, along with his family and many those friends of his family.
http://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Germany-Bernt-Engelmann/dp/0394524497
I grew up in a fairly devout Lutheran family; in the congregations that I knew as a child and teenager in Southern California were a fair number of German emigres who had left Germany in the 1930s precisely because they were anti-Nazis.
My mother told me that one of the most horrendous ruckuses in one of those congregations came about because an elderly, American-born member left in his will sufficient funds to buy an American flag and a stand so that it could be put on display in the chancel. The German-emigre contingent went absolutely spare at this, remembering how the Nazis had demanded that the Nazi flag be displayed in German churches. And when the American-born contingent found out about the comparison … oh, my. The ruckus was so impassioned and prolonged that my mother doesn’t actually remember who won, eventually.
I do recommend the Bernt Englemann book, by the way.
Artfl…There is a Hollywood movie about the anti-Hitler bomb plot: Valkyrie. My review is here.
I thought it was generally a good film; however, the portrayal of Erich Fellgiebel was IMO unpardonable license with the character of a real person.
I think there is a summary of the attempts to kill Hitler in “Assassin” by Paul Elliot. Johann Georg Elser is my choice for the bravest; Tresckow et. al. for the thoroughest and noblest. Many of the assassins have had postage stamps in their honor. That makes me uneasy, but the world would be better place if Putin, Chavez, Castro, etc. had more worries instead of fewer.
armchair.
I think you’re right. I would expand your point to make it the reason for unconditional surrender in Germany.
And the plans for invading anc onquering Japan. Letting’em up easy didn’t work so well post 1918 and it wasn’t going to happen again, even for first-time offenders.
Fortunately, we had the atomic bomb so we didn’t need to fight for every square inch of Japanese soil.
david foster Says: Artfl…There is a Hollywood movie about the anti-Hitler bomb plot: Valkyrie.
i am familiar with Valkyrie, and that there were woods fghters too… but BOTH were nto made until 70 years AFTER the war..
i can list out dozens and dozens of incredible stories that have NOT been made movies, and with EACH of them list 5 movies that were only hits because the pretend awards want us to payola them to the top, like gay cowboys in love, and a whole list of crud, along with a huge list of remakes reimagining them to the progressive ideal (charlie and the chocolate factory vs willy wonka with gene wilder. or rudolph by rankin bass and its remake with big stars who dont have credits but is a marxian remake)
Chosin would make a great movie
you know who Audie Murphy is, and you know who Alvin York is…
do you know David Hackworth?
he is the most decorated soldier in US history, 90 decorations, citations and awards…
Combat Infantryman Badge
Distinguished Service Cross (with oak leaf cluster)
Silver Star (with 1 Silver Oak Leaf Cluster and 4 Oak Leaf Clusters)
Legion of Merit (with 4 Oak Leaf Clusters)
Bronze Star (with V device and one silver Oak Leaf Cluster and one Oak Leaf Cluster)
Purple Heart (with one silver Oak Leaf Cluster and one Oak Leaf Cluster)
Air Medal, Army Commendation Medal, Good Conduct Medal, World War II Victory Medal, Army of Occupation Medal, Korean Service Medal, Vietnam Service.
After World War II, Audie Murphy went on to star in 44 movies and establish himself as a country western music composer.
Matt L. Urban
Joe Hooper
George Lawson Keene
The honor for the most decorated woman veteran goes to Colonel Ruby Bradley.
Legion of Merit medals
Bronze Star
two Presidential Emblems
the Meritorious Unit Emblem
The American Defense Service Medal
the American Campaign Medal
the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal
the World War II Victory Medal
the Army Occupational Medal with Japan clasp
three Korea Service medals
the Philippine Liberation Medal
the Philippine Independence Ribbon
the United Nations Service Medal
Robert L. Howard was the only member to be up for THREE Congressional Medal of Honor Awards within a thirteen month period
Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller…
Paul Jarrett
James Williams
and thats just military…
what about great literature?
science fiction i would not mind seeing
Stranger in a strange land (over battlefield earth?)
The Roads Must Roll
Childhood’s End
The Nine Billion Names of God
The Sirens of Titan
Dorsai!
A Canticle for Leibowitz
The Stainless Steel Rat
oh how they massacred dune in the first movie by making it rain, and destroying all the other movies by doing so
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (would be GREAT today)
give me Ringworld, take away waterworld…
and how about the GOR series (more interesting than sadism on tap in saw)
Dhalgren
how about classical lit?
Lady Windermere’s Fan
The Clockmaker
White Narcissus
Absalom, Absalom
The Death of Ivan Ilyich
Diary of a Madman (lu xun)
A Doll’s House
The Idiot
Journey to the End of the Night
The Man Without Qualities
Midnight’s Children
Old Goriot
if i listed out the works that WERE done, you would be VERY surprised, but MOST were done BEFORE the socialist revolution and the desire to destroy culture and remove any uplifting anything…
so if you want to see…
Zorba the Greek
Wuthering Heights
War and Peace
The Trial
Pride and Prejudice
Othello
you have to go back, to before socialist take over of media, school, etc… (after that, even greats have been re-imagined to carry the party line)
no in stead this year we get
Piranha 3D
The Bounty Hunter
The Back-up Plan
Clash of the Titans 3D
Cop Out
Grown Ups
The Last Airbender
heck, i can even give you science stories that would be niftier…
Another anti-Hitler schemer who is overlooked is Erich Hoepner.
He’d been trying to kill Hitler/overthrow him since 1939ish.
He commanded Panzer Group North — to include the 3rd SS Division. That’s the one composed ENTIRELY of Death Kamp troops. He gave it every single rotten task he could come up with; he tried to kill every last man in the formation. Dang near did it, too.
He DELIBERATELY frustrated further advances upon reaching Leningrad — burning out German attack power. He rightly feared that the collapse of Leningrad — in a pocket — might trigger a domino chain.
Eventually, he was pulled from command after enough complaints and suspicions.
Subsequently hauled in after the bomb plot. Died on piano wire cursing Hitler and letting him know — for sure — that he’d screwed him big time in ’41.
Hence, the commentary you’ll see in “Downfall” about his Generals DELIBERATELY frustrating him in the East. Obviously, a reference to Hoepner — no one else fits.
This also explains why Hitler became ever more involved with personal interventions: allegations of perfidious command decisions were floating all over OKH. ( First as finger pointing, second as many commanders were gagging on Hitler’s fantastically destructive repression there WAS some kick.
Another
Deitrich Bonhoffer
Great piece, thanks neo-neocon!
This book, although a bit prosaic, but quite enlightening about the resistance to AH and many of the conspirators:
Matriarch of Conspiracy:
Ruth Von Kleist, 1867-1945
By Jane Pejsa
It also includes Bonhoeffer
Henning was my great Uncle. We are proud of his efforts and appreciate your research.
AM
Thank you very much, Winifred-Alice, and you should indeed be proud of your great Uncle. He had great courage and great foresight.