Walkyrie

ricardo77 a écrit:
si l'attentat n'avait pas échoué il y aurait eu un peu de justice et cet homme coupable de tant de choses n'aurait pas eu le plaisir de se suicider en homme libre.

Roland a écrit:Que serait-il advenu si Hitler était mort ? Sans doute, la guerre civile.

tecumseh a écrit:Salut, Kal!
J'ai l'impression que t'as vexé Islaaamm . Tu Pourrais pa être un peu plus (juste un chouïa) accomodant? (A propos de ce feignant qui était venu vous demander la date de naissance d'Hitler, t'avais répondu quoi? p17C'est juste de la curiosité malsaine )

54: Valkyrie
THE day started routinely. The Goebbels ministry once again lectured outposts that the word propaganda was not to be used synonymously with ‘lies, duping the public, hypocrisy, and rabble-rousing.’1 At nine A.M. the court martial of Colonel Martin, Goebbels’ liaison officer to the Wehrmacht, began; Goebbels’ enemies, who were legion, had rigged the bench to ensure that his man got a stiff sentence.2 After Goebbels presided over his regular eleven o’clock conference Speer came over to show to the Cabinet ministers assembled in the theatre of the propaganda ministry some graphs demonstrating how arms output was increasing.3 Goebbels rounded off with a few well-chosen words and took Speer and Funk back to No.20 Hermann-Göring Strasse for a chat.4
At one o’clock the intercom buzzed. ‘Herr Minister is wanted by the Führer’s HQ—Lorenz is on the line.’ Heinz Lorenz was Dietrich’s deputy at the Wolf’s Lair.
He said: ‘Herr Minister, there has been an attempt on the life of the Führer. He has ordered an immediate announcement broadcast that he is alive and well.’ (The radio news was Goebbels’ exclusive domain.) Lorenz dictated the proposed text down the line.5 Goebbels had a direct phone link to the HQ via the Winterfeld-Strasse telephone exchange. Not many people were aware of that—least of all, apparently, those who had just tried to kill Hitler.6
Although Lorenz shortly phoned again to stress the urgency, Goebbels seemed not to grasp that point at all. He chose caution. A plot against their Führer? ‘You’ve got to soften such a psychological shock,’ he explained, and detailed Hans Fritzsche to draft 840 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
a well-modulated commentary to that end.7 Troubled by a recurring ear-ache, he turned to other business;8 he dispatched a telegram of condolences to Leni Riefenstahl on the death of her father, then withdrew, evidently for his regular nap.9
Nothing is known about his actions for several hours. It is true that soon after the assassin’s bomb exploded at Hitler’s feet at 12:45 P.M. he had ordered all regular telephone links cut while Himmler and Göring were called in.10 Goebbels had his own secret line; yet he appears to have done nothing more about the news until five P.M. Did he perhaps speculate on Hitler being dead?11 Was he waiting to see which way the cat jumped?
BY mid-afternoon suspicion at the Wolf’s Lair had narrowed to Colonel Claus Count Schenk von Stauffenberg, Fromm’s one-eyed chief of staff: he had slipped out of Hitler’s conference and flown pell-mell back to Berlin. Upon arrival there he assured Fromm, General Olbricht, and their fellow plotters that he had seen Hitler dead. The plotters’ signals began to go out at four o’clock, putting the army’s operation Valkyrie, which Goebbels had already encountered after that air raid eight months before, into effect. The scenario was that recalcitrant Nazis had bumped off their beloved Führer, necessitating martial law. The city commandant General Paul von Hase ordered Remer’s guards battalion to cordon off the government district, and he detailed other units to seize the radio station and propaganda ministry and arrest Dr Goebbels as one of the plotters—but in fact the biggest obstacle to any putsch in Berlin.12
When Remer, accustomed to obeying orders, issued them in turn to his men at Moabit one of them, Lieutenant Hans Hagen, smelt a rat. Formerly a member of the propaganda ministry and now the Nazi indoctrination officer attached to Remer’s battalion, he obtained permission to ask Goebbels himself what was going on. Arriving at the ministry on a motorbike pillion at five o’clock he told Regierungsrat Dr Heinrichsdorff, an old friend, that something very fishy was going on. Heinrichsdorff brought Hagen straight round to No.20 Hermann-Göring Strasse. Hearing of Remer’s unusual orders Goebbels sprang to his feet. ‘That’s impossible!’ he exclaimed. FlounGOEBBELS.
MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 841
dering between panic and mistrust he asked Hagen whether this Major Remer was a loyal national socialist? He sent for Remer, then phoned the S.S. Leibstandarte, the most Hitler-loyal unit in Germany, at its barracks in Lichterfelde and told them to stand by.13
Goebbels’ chief of staff Gerhard Schach arrived, puffing and out of breath.14 He had received a telex from Bormann at the Wolf’s Lair warning all gauleiters that a full-scale military putsch was under way. At four o’clock the Wolf’s Lair had monitored strange orders issuing from the war department in Bendler Strasse, with the code word Valkyrie. (At four-fifteen Keitel had already begun notifying the Wehrmacht districts that Hitler was alive, that Fromm was dismissed, and that Himmler was replacing him—exactly as prefigured by the news flash to Stockholm the day before).
At five P.M. the plotters in Bendler Strasse were still issuing mutinous signals to army districts signed by ‘Stauffenberg’ and ‘Witzleben’—a field marshal whom Hitler had long ago relieved of his duties. Was there no end to the treachery? Schach told Goebbels he had tried to reach Count von Helldorff, the police chief, but without success. Suspecting foul play Goebbels told Police General Wunenberg to stand by to take over, and sent for Speer.
Speer arrived hatless and more dishevelled than usual. Goebbels received him in his first-floor study and briefed him on what was going on. ‘I want you with me,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to act prudently.’ Since he hardly consulted with Speer at all in the hours that followed it is evident that he wanted the ambitious young man where he could see him.15 Each time he phoned Hitler, Goebbels sent Speer out of the room.16 Taking up position in the street below they could see soldiers in full combat gear, slung with machine guns, ammunition belts, and hand grenades; trucks with more soldiers rattled past towards the Brandenburg Gate. Goebbels pulled his 6·35-millimetre pistol out of his desk and cocked it, ‘Just in case.’
One of his staff, sent out on an errand, returned with word that a soldier had prevented him from leaving the building. Goebbels began to wonder what was keeping Remer.
842 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
Only now did he telephone the Wolf’s Lair. Hitler, still shaken by the bomb blast but stoical, was meeting with Mussolini. Goebbels spoke with Julius Schaub, Hitler’s adjutant, but Schaub simultaneously received an incoming call from Hitler’s personal adjutant in Berlin, Alwin-Broder Albrecht. Albrecht reported that a detachment of soldiers had just tried to occupy the Reich Chancellery.17 Schaub passed Goebbels on to Hitler. ‘Mein Führer,’ exclaimed Goebbels, ‘Has the army gone mad?
The guards battalion here is standing guard on my ministry. It’s bad for my image, people might think I need military protection.’18 Hitler was puzzled by Goebbels’ naïvete. ‘Doctor,’ he croaked into the telephone, ‘they’ve tried to kill me.’
His head swimming with pain, his ear drums perforated, Hitler ended the conversation.
Around 6:15 P.M. he phoned Goebbels again. ‘Where’s that radio communiqué?’ he asked. It had slipped the minister’s attention completely. He explained that he would release it as soon as Fritzsche had drafted a reassuring commentary.
‘I want that out now!’ exclaimed Hitler. Goebbels picked up another phone and screamed at Fritzsche. Fritzsche no doubt did the same because at 6:28 P.M. the German home service was interrupted with the special announcement that an attempt had been made on the Führer’s life, but that he had survived.19 BY that time, as ordered, Remer had his cordons in place and General von Hase was taking steps to arrest Goebbels. Remer overheard him briefing Lieutenant-Colonel Hermann Schöne to do so.20 Hase also sent a colonel to the army bomb-disposal school, commanded by a fellow-conspirator, with orders to organize three hundred men into squads which would seize the radio building and propaganda ministry and arrest Goebbels.21 At this moment an emissary arrived from Lieutenant Hagen, who had remained with Goebbels, asking Remer to come to see Dr Goebbels at once, as a putsch attempt was under way. Hase naturally forbade Remer to go; equally naturally, Remer was at first less inclined to trust the Machiavelli of Hermann-Göring Strasse than his own commanding officer, but after wrestling with his dilemma he GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 843 decided to go, while leaving instructions on what to do if Goebbels should detain im. With that decision, the putsch in Berlin was doomed.
At 6:35 P.M. Remer’s car drove into Goebbels’ forecourt; five minutes later he was brought up to the minister’s study.22 Stiffly at attention, he explained that the Führer had been assassinated.
‘I just spoke with the Führer myself a few minutes ago,’ Goebbels contradicted him. Then: ‘Are you a true national socialist?’ ‘Through and through, Herr Minister! But are you loyal to the Führer?’23 Goebbels gave his word of honour. Remer was still unconvinced. Might he speak with the Führer himself?
It was about seven P.M. The call was put straight through. Hitler knew Remer personally— he had pinned the Oak Leaves on him only a few weeks earlier. ‘Do you recognize my voice?’ he said.
‘Jawohl mein Führer!’ shouted Remer, and slammed his heels together.24 ‘Until the Reichsführer gets there,’ said Hitler, ‘I am making you personally responsible for crushing any plot against the state’s authority.’
Major Martin Korff, commander of a bomb disposal company, arrived with his squad and told Goebbels he had come to arrest him on Hase’s orders. Goebbels and Remer burst out laughing and enlightened the unfortunate major.25 Korf’s comrade Captain Alexander Maître had taken his squad to the propaganda ministry, but promptly placed his men under Remer’s command instead. Remer ordered his men to muster in the garden beneath Goebbels’ windows, then set off back to the traitorous Hase’s HQ, telling the minister that he would phone every twenty minutes to be on the safe side. Hase however had transferred to the Wehrmacht district HQ on Hohenzollerndamm.
On General Olbricht’s orders a Major Friedrich Jacob with troops from the infantry school at Döberitz had occupied the main radio building in Masuren Allee; Olbricht had ordered Jacob to report back when he seized the building. Instead, he phoned Goebbels. The latter sized up the situation in an instant and told the major to accept orders only from him. ‘Nobody broadcasts without my express permission.’26 Wit844 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH nessing this exchange Speer marvelled at Goebbels’ composure. He was ‘as coldblooded as a warlord on a battlefield,’ he would say the next day.27 Hans Fritzsche sent two or three hundred S.S. men over to the radio building under an S.S. Obersturmbannführer. Together with Jacob they secured the building against the traitors all night and this enabled a recording of Hitler’s speech, made with a sound truck at the Wolf’s Lair, to be piped through from East Prussia and transmitted nationwide at one A.M. This dealt a further death blow to the plot.
NOT for nothing had Goebbels had a company of his senior officials given infantry training after Mussolini’s overthrow in 1943.28 Around seven-thirty P.M. they were ordered to pick up their machine guns and report to No.20 Hermann-Göring Strasse.
Major Remer transferred his command post from Hase’s former HQ to Goebbels’ address as well, a more than symbolic move. Eventually there were about a hundred and fifty soldiers trampling around in Goebbels’ garden in the gathering dusk. He went down and spoke briefly to them, illuminated by the light flooding through the open garden door, arousing a fire of holy indignation in these elderly soldiers about the traitors in high places.

Confusion reigned in Berlin even now. When the ministry staff tried to leave their
building at about eight-fifteen the soldiers still detained them. Major Rudi Balzer,
Martin’s successor, phoned Hase’s HQ; here a Major Baron von Massenbach put him
through to a Colonel Fritz Jäger who said he was just on his way over to the ministry.
29 In fact Hase, making one more attempt to get his man, had ordered Jäger with
two units of military police to arrest Goebbels and occupy S.S. Gruppenführer Ernst
Kaltenbrunner’s R.S.H.A. building; however these units also joined forces with
Remer.30 When a Gestapo official shortly told Major Balzer that the army was staging
a coup, he was incredulous, and protested at this peddling of ‘unfounded rumours’
against the army.
There were unsung heroes in these confusing hours, Hadamowsky later told
Goebbels.31 When Colonel Mertz von Quirnheim had falsely announced at Bendler
Strasse that Hitler was dead, a Lieutenant-Colonel Herber, unconvinced, had left
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 845
with about fifteen men for No.20 Hermann-Göring Strasse and armed them with
machine guns and grenades; after confirming that Hitler was alive, they burst in on
General Olbricht, in conference with Stauffenberg and Quirnheim, and arrested
them all after a brief exchange of small-arms fire. There followed an anxious moment
as Remer’s troops arrived, since Herber had no means of contacting either
Hitler or Goebbels to approve of his having arrested these very senior officers.32
Remer had ordered Lieutenant-Colonel Rudolf Schlee to contact this loyal unit at
the war department building. After hearing Schlee’s report, which revealed that the
building was nothing less than the traitors’ headquarters, Goebbels phoned Hitler
and secured authority to smoke them out.33 He told Schlee to go back and arrest
‘every general.’ At about nine P.M. he sent a telex to all the gauleiters—he did not
state by what authority—reporting for their own information that a ‘dilettantish’
plot by reactionary army generals had been uncovered. ‘Gauleiters are called upon
to display extreme vigilance and to ensure that their organisation remains effective
and intact and that they preserve their freedom of action and movement at all costs.
Further directives follow. Heil Hitler. REICHSLEITER DR GOEBBELS.’34
At the same time Bormann, the more usual signatory for such directives, telexed
to the gauleiters his theory that the ‘reactionary criminal vermin’ had staged the
putsch in conjunction with the traitors in Moscow (he named General von Seydlitz
and Count Einsiedel). Had it succeeded, he said, a generals’ clique consisting of
Fromm, Olbricht, and Hoepner were to take power and make peace with Moscow.
Bormann followed with a further message at nine-forty, warning that ‘a General
Beck’ was trying to take over the government. ‘The erstwhile Field-Marshal von
Witzleben is posing as the Führer’s successor. Of course no national socialist gauleiter
will allow himself to be duped by, or accept orders from, these criminals…’35
EVEN now Dr Goebbels’ situation was anything but secure. An armoured brigade
under Colonel Ernest Bolbrinker, one of Rommel’s toughest Afrika Corps regimental
commanders, had arrived at Fehrbelliner Platz from the armoured warfare school
at Krampnitz.36 Another tank unit under Colonel Wolfgang Glaesemer had churned
846 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
to a halt in the Tiergarten park, only a few hundred yards west of Goebbels’ residence.
Remer’s adjutant Lieutenant Siebert found out that General Guderian, the
tank commanders’ superior officer, had given them orders to shoot anybody who did
not obey his orders. What was he up to? It was common knowledge that Hitler had
treated him shabbily in December 1941.37
Remer’s predecessor Lieutenant-Colonel Kurt Gehrke offered to go to Fehrbelliner
Platz to find out. Not fully trusting any army officers now, Goebbels sent Hadamowsky,
his chief of staff in the RPL, as well and even when Gehrke reported that Guderian’s
officers were ‘for the Führer’ he was not satisfied and had Remer telephone the
Panzer Reserve Brigade at Cottbus to send a battalion of heavy tanks to Berlin in case
it came to a firefight with Guderian.38
General von Hase was still doggedly trying to salvage Valkyrie. He sent an officer
over to order Remer to return to him. Major Remer, equipped now with Hitler’s
personal authority, replied that on the contrary the general was to come to No.20
Hermann-Göring Strasse. Hase arrived with Schöne and Massenbach. A monocled,
upright officer of striking appearance, Hase put on his most affable air and told Remer
that General Hermann Reinecke (a loyalist Nazi) had ordered him to seize the Bendler
Strasse building. Goebbels intervened and no less affably invited Hase to remain
under his roof as his guest. Hase inquired whether the kitchens could provide a meal,
and there was a courteous exchange about whether a Rhine wine or a Moselle would
complement it better before Goebbels turned to more pressing business. After a
while, Hase asked Remer, ‘Major, could you ask the minister whether I can go—my
wife is waiting for me.’
At this moment however an S.S. man brought a message in to Goebbels. A search
of Hase’s office had turned up a rubber stamp reading ‘Stauffenberg’ and a pad of
blank gate-passes. ‘I am sorry,’ said Goebbels, ‘but I must ask you to remain.’39
Shortly General von Kortzfleisch, the one-eyed commander of Wehrmacht District
III (Berlin) appeared at Goebbels’ door. No doubt anxious to establish his credentials
he snapped at Hase, ‘Well, Mr von Hase! You didn’t expect to find me here!’
He told Goebbels that earlier that day General Olbricht had placed him under close
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 847
arrest when he failed to declare for the plotters, and had replaced him with General
Baron von Thüngen (the judge on whom Goebbels’ enemies had banked at that morning’s
hearing against Colonel Martin). Kortzfleisch unhesitatingly identified Fromm,
Olbricht, and Stauffenberg as the ringleaders.40
Goebbels spared him, although there were sound reasons not to. This was an evening
when he turned a blind eye on many an officer’s shortcomings. Even Guderian’s
actions seemed ambivalent, but Goebbels thought highly of him and Hitler would
shrewdly appoint him to replace Zeitzler the next day. All of these men—including
Hase, Witzleben, Thüngen, Schöne—would eventually be hanged. In fact death was
already beginning its harvest. General Fromm had already had his fellow-conspirators
Olbricht, Quirnheim, and Stauffenberg shot by firing squad in the light of motor
headlamps behind the Bendler Strasse building.
He hoped he had thus saved his own neck. Brought up to Goebbels’ study, the sixfoot
two general, until now commander of Germany’s reserve army, demanded to
be allowed to speak by phone with Hitler. Goebbels ordered his arrest. He believed
he was beginning to understand. So this was why the barracks were full of idle troops.
Fromm, Olbricht, & Co had been cynically holding them back for their Valkyrie. ‘I’ll
see to it, general,’ he told Kortzfleisch, ‘that your barracks empty. And that they are
refilled. Bank on it!’ Inadvertently, the traitors had made Total War a near-reality, and
his heart sang with joy.
His house overflowed with fearful ministers, party officials and prisoners. Arriving
there after midnight Major Balzer found fifty people milling around upstairs. Somebody
asked him to keep an eye on Fromm. Still feigning innocence, Fromm related
that after returning from the Wolf’s Lair that afternoon Stauffenberg and Olbricht
had placed him under arrest. ‘The background as described by Fromm was a bit
obscure,’ reported Balzer, ‘and he was very agitated as he regarded his conveyance to
Goebbels’ home as a kind of arrest.’ After ten minutes’ questioning by Kaltenbrunner,
Fromm was removed—‘It certainly looked like an arrest to me,’ reported Balzer the
next day.41 Smoking nervously, Goebbels telephoned Magda in Dresden and told her
some officers had tried to murder Hitler. She burst into tears. More officers arrived
848 GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH
during the night, including General Hermann Reinecke and Colonel-General Stumpff,
commanding Luftwaffe forces within the Reich. Göring telephoned an offer of flak
units to crush the army revolt. Goebbels turned it down. After midnight Himmler
put in a belated appearance. His explanation that he had been ‘directing counteroperations
from outside Berlin’ seemed reasonable enough. In Goebbels’ study
Himmler expressed relief that Goebbels had used the army itself and not the Waffen
S.S. to crush the putsch. There must not be the slightest blemish on the army’s name.42
It was now July 21. The fated day had passed. At three-forty A.M. Bormann issued a
triumphant dispatch. ‘The traitors’ action can be regarded as at an end.’43 Around
four-thirty Goebbels emerged from his study and announced, ‘Gentlemen, the putsch
is over.’44 He escorted Himmler to his car and shook hands with him. By five his
house was almost deserted. He took Naumann, Schwägermann, and Oven upstairs,
pausing on each tread to tell them more tidbits. At the top he briefly shared a little
table with a bronze bust of the Führer. ‘That was like a purifying thunderstorm,’ he
said, irreverently propping an elbow on the famous quiff. He lit another cigarette.
Months later he would reflect, ‘The Twentieth of July was in fact not only the nadir of
our war crisis, but Day One of our resurgence.’45
WHILE Hitler called all his ministers to the Wolf’s Lair on July 21, Goebbels necessarily
stayed in Berlin. At his ministerial conference he narrated what had happened,
though with cosmetic flourishes. The tanks assembling in Berlin, he averred, were
General Guderian’s, which ‘the Führer had provided for protection.’ Kortzfleisch
had been magnificent. Hase, he scoffed, had behaved like a fool on his arrest—asking
if he ‘might telephone his wifey’ and might he have a sandwich and a bottle of wine,
‘preferably a Moselle.’ It was their duty, Goebbels insisted, to ensure that no stain
attached to the army’s other generals. Himmler, he revealed, had told him that Fromm
had kept six hundred thousand soldiers idle in Germany; these would now be released
to the fighting front. Thus, this putsch was a real breakthrough toward Total
War.46
GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH 849
Some of his listeners remained unconvinced. Immanuel Schäffer wondered how
all this could have escaped Himmler’s notice. And what about Göring’s wiretappers?
47 The London press had a field day, with sarcastic references to several of
Goebbels’ previous utterances. Goebbels instructed his outposts to organise spontaneous
open-air demonstrations of the public’s happiness and joy.48
Inevitably, he claimed that Hitler’s ‘miraculous escape’ was further proof that their
Führer was protected by Providence. Otherwise he ordered the putsch glossed over,
like the Hess affair. He released no word of the plotters’ aims, let alone of the true
scale of the conspiracy which had extended from the eastern front to Paris and Vienna.
49 The traitors remained for Goebbels a ‘minuscule clique of reactionary officers.’
Despite all his efforts however there was enduring damage to the army; it violated
sensibilities that their traitors had been hanged, rather than shot. Officers felt that
their entire caste had been impugned.50 Indeed, the Twentieth of July left residual
issues which were still unresolved in Germany fifty years later.