Claus von Stauffenberg

Few of us will ever find ourselves in a position to kill one to save the many: the classic utilitarian calculation. Von Stauffenberg was such a man. 2,000 Germans were executed as a result of his failed conspiracy of July 20th 1944.  Many more died in the fight to take Berlin in a war that lasted nine more months.  General Fromm, the conspirator who turned his coat and executed Von Stauffenberg just twelve hours after the coup attempt, himself died in March 1945, bereft of honour. Is this not the ultimate utilitarian case study of history, made all the more poignant by that feature of utilitarian ethics: the law of unintended consequences?  Here are some extracts which tell his story.

Adolf Hitler was given to such fits of anger, William Shirer reported in The Rise And Fall of The Third Reich, that he would fall to the floor and chew the rug. Der Fuhrer’s conniption fits may well have been the result of tertiary syphilis, but whatever their cause, German officialdom is rug-biting mad about Tom Cruise being cast as the lead in a film about German hero Claus Philip Schenk von Stauffenberg.

Stauffenberg was the devout Catholic army colonel who planted the bomb in the attempt to kill Hitler in 1944. Official German angst has nothing to do with Cruise’s skills as a thespian or its love for the Catholic faith. Rather, the Germans fervidly oppose Scientology, which they view as a dangerous, totalitarian cult. Cruise is the world’s foremost Scientologist.

Scientology, cooked up in the brain pan of science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, isn’t so much a totalitarian cult as a childish, New Age fantasy world of aliensand spooks. But German officials believe it is tantamount to Nazism; thus, Cruise is anathema, particularly in dealing with the touchy subject of Hitler and one of his most heroic German enemies. As well, one of Stauffenberg’s children, a former general in the post-World War II German army, likewise opposes the choice of Tom Cruise. Yet Cruise may well do a fine job as Stauffenberg in the film, called Valkyrie, and regardless of the opinions of the Germans and Cruise’s acting ability, the upcoming film occasions telling the story of the Catholic hero who attempted to end the Nazi regime.
Von Stauffenberg

1907, Von Stauffenberg “was a man of astonishing gifts for a professional Army officer,” Shirer wrote. Why Shirer thought his gifts “astonishing” because Stauffenberg was an Army officer is unclear, but the count was descended from a long line of German noblemen going back as far as 1255. One was a military hero who fought against Napoleon. His father was privy chamberlain for the last King of Wuerttemberg. “The family,” Shirer wrote, “was congenial, devoutly Roman Catholic and highly cultivated.”

So Stauffenberg was a German aristocrat learned in poetry, literature and art. He was “possessed of a fine physique … [and] of striking handsomeness” with a”brilliant, inquisitive, splendidly balanced mind.” He was also an athlete and a surpassing equestrian. Given his background, and like many of his class, Shirer writes, he was “a monarchist at heart.”

Stauffenberg rose through the ranks of the German Army, and, although he did not oppose the Nazis early on, Kristallnacht and Hitler’s treatment of the Jews repelled him, and he began wondering what kind of man had risen to Germany’s pinnacle of power. Hitler’s brutality, especially to Soviet prisoners of war on the Eastern Front, also appalled him, and it was during his service there that he met two brother officers who drafted him into the conspiracy to assassinate the failed artist.

In 1943, Stauffenberg landed in Tunisia, and on April 7, was nearly killed when British aircraft strafed his car. Shirer reports that Stauffenberg’s car may have driven into a minefield, but in any event his wounds were grievous. Whatever struck the car knocked out his right eye and blew off his right hand and two fingers on his left. Convalescence offered the officer the chance to ponder his future: “I feel I must do something now to save Germany,” he told his wife, Nina. “We General Staff officers must all accept our share of the responsibility.” As well, Stauffenberg said in 1944, “Fate has offered us this opportunity, and I would not refuse it for anything in the world. I have examined myself before God and my conscience. It must be done because this man is evil personified.”
When the Allied invasion at Normandy “threw the conspirators … into great confusion,” Shirer writes, for fear that the time to assassinate the Austrian corporal had passed, conspirator Maj. Gen. Henning Von. Tresckow, whom Stauffenberg met on the Russian front, inspired his colleagues with this explanation of why the plan must go forward: “The assassination must be attempted at any cost…. We must prove to the world and to future generations that the men of the German Resistance movement dared to take the decisive step and to hazard their lives upon it.”
So the group sallied forth. Stauffenberg and his courageous colleagues code-named their plot Valkyrie, after the beautiful maidens in Norse-German mythology who, watching over battlefields, decided which combatants would live and which would die. Valkyrie was also the codename of the Nazi regime’s official plan to use the Home Army to control cities in the event of an uprising. When the conspirators killed Hitler, they would use the Home Army as Hitler would have used it, to seize control of Berlin and other cities. But they would control the troops and declare a new government.
The many conspirators involved in the plot against Hitler makes one wonder how the attempt got as far as it did, and the plan was nearly derailed completely when they disclosed it to the Communist underground, which the Gestapo had penetrated with double agents. When two of the conspirators, one of whom was a dear friend of Stauffenberg’s, were arrested after that disclosure, the anti-Hitler plotters decided to act.

July 20, 1944
In June, Stauffenberg was promoted to full colonel, a fortuitous turn for the conspirators because his new position, chief of staff to General Friedrich Fromm, permitted direct contact with Hitler. As well, Fromm was commander of the Home Army, the unit that would be used to seize Berlin after Stauffenberg dispatched Hitler. As Fromm’s executive officer, Stauffenberg could issue orders to the army. So he “had now become the key man in the conspiracy,” even though he was not its highest ranking officer.

The weapon of choice to kill Hitler was a simple British bomb that would detonate after “breaking a glass capsule, whose acid then ate away a small wire, which released the firing pin against the percussion cap.” Such a bomb had failed to detonate when Tresckow and another officer planted one disguised as two bottles of brandy on Hitler’s plane. The latter escaped, sometimes narrowly, nearly four dozen attempts on his life. He cheated the Grim Reaper twice more between July 11 and July 20, 1944, but just barely.

The first, on July 11, occurred at the Berghoff, Hitler’s home in Obersalzberg. Stauffenberg was supposed to plant a bomb, but he didn’t because the conspirators had sought to eliminate SS Chief Heinrich Himmler and Luftwaffe boss Hermann Goering as well. Himmler wasn’t at the meeting, and when Stauffenberg left the conference for a moment to telephone his co-conspirators, they instructed him to abort the mission.

On July 15, Stauffenberg barely missed killing Hitler again, this time at the Wolf’s Lair, Hitler’s headquarters in Rastenburg. The meeting was set for 1 p.m. Stauffenberg arrived, then left the room to telephone his co-conspirators with news that he was about to plant and activate the bomb, but when he returned, Hitler was gone. The conspirators, thinking Hitler would be killed, complicated the near miss by calling out the Home Army to occupy Berlin. They quickly cancelled the order.

So Stauffenberg had to make yet another attempt. The opportunity presented itself when he received orders to give a report to Hitler on July 20, again at Rastenberg. The night before, after preparing his report, Shirer wrote, Stauffenberg “stopped off at a Catholic Church to pray” about the task at hand: tyrannicide. The question for Stauffenberg and the other Catholic conspirators was whether assassinating Hitler would jeopardize their souls, the latter’s abject evil notwithstanding. “It is believed,” Shirer quotes another author, “that he had previously confessed, but of course absolution could not be granted.” When Stauffenberg informed the Bishop of Berlin, Cardinal Peysing, of the plan, “the bishop replied that he honored the young man’s motives and did not feel justified in attempting to restrain him on theological grounds.” Another priest, Army chaplain Father Hermann Wehrle, told one of the conspirators that the Church did not condone tyrannicide.

Next day, the bomb concealed in a shirt inside his briefcase, Stauffenberg arrived at the Wolf’s Lair a little after 10 a.m.. He first met with one of the vital plotters, the man who would cut communications to Rastenburg and inform the mutineers in Berlin that Hitler was dead so that the Home Army could in turn occupy the city. A little after noon, Stauffenberg arrived at the office of the notorious Wilhelm Keitel, chief of the Reich’s armed forces, and hung his belt and cap in an anteroom outside Keitel’s office. Keitel told Stauffenberg the meeting would be held 30 minutes early because the Italian fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, would soon arrive for a conference with Hitler.

So Stauffenberg’s briefing, Keitel told him, must be concise. The news worried Stauffenberg, who reckoned he must arm his bomb before entering the meeting with Hitler, a risky plan allowing just minutes for him to escape and head back to Berlin. Another complication emerged as well. The meeting would be held in the Lagebaracke, or conference barracks, not in Hitler’s underground bunker. The windowed barracks would not contain the power of the blast and intensify its killing force as the bunker would have.

Just before 12:30 p.m., the pair left Keitel’s office to head for the meeting, but Stauffenberg left his cap and belt hanging outside Keitel’s office and excused himself to retrieve them. “Keitel, as much a bully with his subordinates as he was a toady with his superiors,” Shirer wrote, “was aggravated at the delay and turned back to the building to shout to Stauffenberg to get a move on. They were late, he yelled.”

Unknown to Keitel, who “no doubt realized that it took a man as maimed as the colonel a little extra time to put on his belt,” Stauffenberg was arming the bomb in his briefcase. With his three remaining fingers, he used a pair of tongs to break the capsule, which released the acid that would eat the wire and set off the bomb. It was 12:32. In 10 minutes it would explode, perhaps killing a mass murderer who helped bring the world to war. The bomb armed, Stauffenberg and Keitel went to the meeting, which had begun and included another of Hitler’s generals giving a briefing. As Stauffenberg entered the room, he told the sergeant manning the telephones at the building’s entrance that he was expecting an important telephone call.

On entering the meeting room, Stauffenberg moved to Hitler’s right, and placed the bomb-laden briefcase under the heavy, oaken conference table, which was supported by two thick supports. The bomb was just six feet from Hitler’s legs. Der Fuhrer was scrutinizing maps while listening to his general’s briefing. It was 12:37 p.m. Stauffenberg excused himself from the room, telling Col. Heinz Brandt to watch his brief case because it held secret papers.

At about 10:15 am, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg and his special missions officer, Lieutenant Werner von Haeften arrived in East Prussia at which time the two men drove the ten miles to Wolfschanze. When Stauffenberg arrived, he was asked only to hand over his pistol. His briefcase was not searched. He stopped to speak with General Erich Fellgiebel, a fellow conspirator and the man who was to cut off all communications in and out of the Wolf’s Lair after the bomb exploded. At about 11:30, Stauffenberg went to see General Wilhelm Keitel, Hitler’s Commander-in-Chief of the High Command of the Armed Forces to brief the senior officer on what Claus was prepared to say to the Fuhrer. At about noon, Keitel was informed the briefing would be delayed until 12:30. At about 12:25, as the officers were getting ready to leave for the briefing hut, Claus asked if he could freshen up. He needed time to assure himself Hitler was in the hut and also to set the fuse. Claus and Haeften went into the sitting room. A few minutes later, General Fellgiebel called for Stauffenberg. Staff Sergeant Vogel was sent to tell Stauffenberg. As the Sergeant opened the door, he found it blocked by Claus’ back. Vogel relayed the message and Claus answered he was on his way. Shortly thereafter, Major John, General Keitel’s adjutant called out, “Stauffenberg, do come along!”

In the sitting room Claus and Haeften were preparing the bomb which consisted of two 975 gram lumps of German plastic explosive. Attached to one lump were two British primer charges with 30 minute fuses. Attached to the other lump was a single British primer charge with a 30 minute fuse. Claus had to first remove the fuses from the primers. Then with a pliers (specially designed for Claus because of his injuries) he had to squeeze the copper housing inside which was a glass vial filled with acid. Released, the acid would seep into cotton then slowly eat away at a wire, releasing a spring with a striker pin, thus detonating the explosives. Claus then had to reinsert the fuses into the primers. Leaving the sitting room, the briefcase contained only one of the two lumps. Haeften had the other as he went to retrieve the car to take them back to the airfield.

On their way to the briefing, John tried to take the briefcase. Claus pulled it away from him. Usually these meetings would be held in an underground bunker, but due to the proximity of Russian troops, an evacuation was being planned, so it was held in an above ground briefing hut with a large oak table on which maps of the various battles were laid out. This was of critical importance to the assassination attempt’s chances of success. In an underground bunker, the blast would be contained to a smaller area, thus magnified.

At approximately 12:40 pm, outside the door, Claus handed the briefcase to Major John and requested a place near the Fuhrer. The two men then entered the room. Hitler was standing with his back to the door as General Heusinger was reporting on the situation in the East. Keitel interrupted, introducing Stauffenberg. Hitler looked up at Claus, let the Colonel shake his hand, then said he would take his report next. Major John asked someone near Hitler to give up his place. Claus took a spot next to Heusinger, the only man between him and Hitler. John placed the briefcase in front of Stauffenberg. Claus pushed the briefcase as close to Hitler as possible, whispered something then motioned to Major John. The two men left and Stauffenberg said he needed to speak with General Fellgiebel. John ordered the operator to make the connection and as Claus picked up the phone, the Major left. Claus then put down his belt and hat and left for the adjutant’s building where he met Haeften and Fellgiebel.

As Heusinger continued, Colonel Heinz Brandt found the briefcase in his way and moved it to the opposite side of the large table support, further away from the Fuhrer. As Heusinger was finishing his report, Keitel looked up and asked, “Where’s Stauffenberg?” General Buhle went to look in the anteroom then came back and said, “I can’t find him. He went to make a telephone call.” The General was continuing his report when the bomb exploded. The roof fell in, the windows were blown out and the room was filled with smoke and flames.

Stauffenberg watched the explosion and sure that Hitler was dead, he and Haeften drove toward the entrance to Wolfschanze. They were stopped at the last checkpoint but Stauffenberg managed to get hold of a fellow conspirator within the complex who ordered the guard to let him through. Hitler was wounded but not seriously, and not killed as the conspirators had supposed. But Stauffenberg and Haeften did not know this as they boarded the plane back to Berlin. Claus thought he had seen Hitler’s body being carried out from the hut. He believed the Fuhrer was dead and that the coup would go forward with haste.
Shortly after the explosion, Fellgiebel cut off two of the five communication banks. Then, seeing Hitler alive, he failed to cut off the other three and did not inform Generals Beck and Olbricht, the two leaders of the coup in Berlin either of his lack of action or if Hitler was alive or dead as per the coup plans. Even though Hitler was alive, these “mistakes” cost the coup any momentum and likely sealed the plotters’ fates.

The conspirators including General Olbricht, General Beck, Field Marshal von Witzleben and General Hoepner met at the offices of the Home Army awaiting word from Fellgiebel that Hitler was dead. The call never came. Between 3:30 and 3:45, Haeften called from the airfield in Berlin to say he and Stauffenberg had arrived and demanded to know why no car had been sent. Lieutenant Colonel Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim, General Olbricht’s Chief of Staff, who had answered the phone, wanted to know whether Hitler was alive or dead. Haeften insisted he was dead and on that note, the Valkyrie orders were issued commanding the local garrisons to seize control of Berlin.

Stauffenberg and Haeften arrived shortly before 5:00. Berthold was there for a short time before he left. Claus was asked by Beck whether Hitler was alive or dead. Claus insisted the Fuhrer was dead. Olbricht told Claus that he had spoken with his superior, General Fromm. General Fromm had spoken to Keitel who had insisted that Hitler was alive. Claus went to Fromm’s office and told Fromm that Keitel was lying as usual. Olbricht broke in with news that the proclamation of a State of Emergency had already been issued. At that, Fromm, livid with rage, demanded to know who issued the order. Olbricht replied that it was his Chief of Staff Mertz von Quirnheim. Fromm demanded to see him immediately at which point, Stauffenberg admitted to having planted the bomb himself. Fromm replied, “…the attempt has failed. You must shoot yourself.” Stauffenberg retorted, “I shall do nothing of the kind.” Olbricht then tried to convince Fromm of the need for action, that it was the only chance they would get to overthrow Hitler. Enraged, Fromm told them they should consider themselves under arrest. Instead, the conspirators announced that it was Fromm who was under arrest and as he went for his gun, he was subdued and placed in the office next door under guard. But the door remain unlocked.

At this point, it was 5:30. Furiously the conspirators tried to take control of Berlin but already things were falling apart. News of Hitler’s survival was spreading and as such, important men did not act. From 6 until 10, Claus was on the phone almost constantly, trying to get military leaders in the field to act. In many cases the orders from Berlin arrived at the same time as the news of Hitler’s survival. In Vienna and Prague, SS battalions were rounded up by army commanders. In Paris, the SS establishment was arrested but then released as news of Hitler’s survival reached the leaders there. Between 10 and 11, loyalists on Fromm’s staff attacked the conspirators. Stauffenberg was shot in the shoulder and he, Beck, Fromm, Olbricht, Mertz, and Haeften were put under arrest. At that point, Beck requested to keep his pistol. Fromm agreed and Beck tried to shoot himself but failed only grazing his head. Meanwhile Fromm told the other four men they had time to write letters if they wanted. Fromm left and as the others wrote, Claus remained defiantly silent. Fromm returned and in a summary court martial sentenced them to death. Claus took full responsibility and asked that he be the only one executed. Fromm denied the request. He ordered a firing squad to take them into the courtyard to be shot. As they were taken out, Beck requested to try to kill himself again. Again, he failed. The others were lined up in front of a sand pile against the wall. As the bullets rang out, Claus cried, “Long Live our Sacred Germany.” After the executions, Fromm ordered Beck shot. The bodies of the conspirators were taken to a cemetery and buried. Himmler ordered them dug up on July 21, and the bodies were cremated.

From the beginning of September 1943 until 20 July, 1944, von Stauffenberg was the driving force behind the plot to assassinate Hitler and take control of Germany. His resolve, organizational abilities, and radical approach put an end to inactivity caused by doubts and long discussions on whether military virtues had been made obsolete by Hitler’s behavior. With the help of his friend Henning von Tresckow, he united the conspirators and drove them into action.[23]
Stauffenberg was aware that, under German law, he was committing high treason. He openly told young conspirator Axel von dem Bussche in late 1943, “ich betreibe mit allen mir zur Verfügung stehenden Mitteln den Hochverrat…” (“I am committing high treason with all my might and means….”).[24] He justified himself to Bussche by referring to the right under natural law (“Naturrecht”) to defend millions of people’s lives from the criminal aggressions of Hitler (“Nothilfe”).

Stauffenberg was third in line to be executed, with Lieutenant von Haeften after, however, when it was Stauffenberg’s turn, Lieutenant von Haeften placed himself between the firing squad and Stauffenberg and received the bullets meant for Stauffenberg. When his final turn came, Stauffenberg spoke his last words, “Es lebe unser heiliges Deutschland!” (“Long live our sacred Germany!”)[25][26] Others say the last words were: “Es lebe das geheime Deutschland”(“Long live the secret Germany!”)[26][27] Fromm ordered that the executed officers (his former co-conspirators) receive an immediate burial with military honors in the Matthäus Churchyard in Berlin’s Schöneberg district. The next day, however, Stauffenberg’s body was exhumed by the SS, stripped of his medals, and cremated.

He let things come to him, and then he made up his mind … one of his characteristics was that he really enjoyed playing the devil’s advocate. Conservatives were convinced that he was a ferocious Nazi, and ferocious Nazis were convinced he was an unreconstructed conservative. He was neither. Nina Von Stauffemberg

As Nigel Jones writes in his piece “Claus von Stauffenberg – The Man Who Tried to Kill Hitler”:

“The decision to topple Hitler weighed heavily on Stauffenberg. Was it right, he asked a relative in mid-1943, to sacrifice the salvation of one’s own soul if one might thereby save thousands of lives? He concluded that it was not only right, but imperative. Around that same time, he told several people, including Margarethe von Oven, a Replacement Army secretary who typed the orders he drafted, that he was consciously “committing high treason.” He added that, faced with such an evil regime, he had had to choose between action and inaction, and as an active Christian there could only be one decision.”