Valkyrie: The Story of the Plot to Kill Hitler, by Its Last Member (11 page)

The involvement of Georg’s cavalry unit in the group’s projects did not remain secret. Franz von Papen, then the German ambassador in Ankara, writes in his memoirs that in April 1943 he had a confidential discussion with Count Wolf von Helldorf, the Berlin police superintendent, and Gottfried von Bismarck, the governor of Pots dam. The latter told him about plots against Hitler in which the cavalry regiment led by Georg von Boeselager, who was mentioned by name, was to capture the head of state and the principal leaders of the Nazi Party. This description, though somewhat distorted by rumor, shows what a dangerous position my brother and I found ourselves in. Fortunately, these three high officials were playing a double game and took care not to inform the Reich’s dreaded state security police.

Outside these authorized circles, news of the establishment of a cavalry group spread like wildfire within
the little world of the cavalry. On January 25, König and his men had reached Smolensk. Soon thereafter, having been brought into the operation a few weeks later, I left the marshal’s service to join them. Georg worked hard to bring in all the usable cavalry squadrons; to provide them with the proper number of horses again; to set up sufficient artillery cover; to provide the units with communications equipment; to re-create support functions from the ground up; and to recruit enough veterinarians, as one of his major concerns was to ensure that the horses would be well cared for. When spring came, the mares gave birth to seventy colts, which were sent, after a few weeks of being suckled, to East Prussia. The horses consumed a great deal of fodder, most of it imported from Germany. A normal-size horse needs five kilograms of straw per day, and the same amounts of hay and oats. We had to procure sufficient feed and especially to get ready for winter. So we constructed a wooden hay press that allowed us to make rectangular bales that would be stored for the cold season. Georg was willing to deal with every detail. He had as much confidence in Field Marshal Kluge as I did, but nothing was simple. He wrote, telephoned, inspected, visited the herds of horses; he observed, judged, weighed. He pestered Berlin with multiple requests, hoping to wear the officials down. The Army General Staff looked with favor on his projects, and Georg had a good contact in Major Claus von Amsberg, the officer charged with supervising the cavalry, whom
he had met on the Orient Express the preceding summer on his way to Romania.

Absorbed by his incessant activity, Georg almost forgot to eat and drink; a few eggs, a quart of coffee, or a cup of mocha seemed to be enough for him. He slept only five hours a night. He didn’t even have time to ride his own five horses every day; he had entrusted their dressage to Fritz Thiedemann. The only relaxation he allowed himself was to go hunting at dawn, often alone with his dog. Sometimes ranging over the steppe or the forests, sometimes going deep into the marshes, he rediscovered the joys of his youth, hiding in the bushes watching for game. With a rabbit or a fox in his game bag, he came back a few hours later, just as the camp was waking up. His mind cleared, he gave his orders and the day began.

According to Tresckow’s instructions, the cavalry group was supposed to have 28 officers, 160 NCOs, 920 troopers, and a few more than 1,000 horses. By the end of February, 350 Cossacks had joined the group; their integration was handled by Captain Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenburg. The cavalry group, called the Boeselager Reiterverband, was then composed of four cavalry squadrons, a mortar battery, an intelligence detachment, and an artillery squadron. On April 6, the group was transformed into a genuine regiment composed of two battalions. The first was commanded by Captain Walther Schmidt-Salzmann. I took command of the second.

Only a handful of officers were permitted to be in close proximity to the Führer. Among them were his personal aide-de-camp, Rudolf Schmundt, a classmate of Tresckow’s, and, of course, the marshals. But an officer below the rank of general had very few opportunities to approach the dictator and thus to assassinate him. Before any meeting, moreover, one had to remove one’s belt and one’s sidearm. Thus, Tresckow thought that it would be much easier to eliminate Hitler when he came to visit the Russian front than to seek him out in his impregnable headquarters called the Wolf’s Lair
(Wolfsschanze)
. But Army Group Center was only one of the three army groups on the eastern front. Moreover, the Führer had a temporary headquarters on the Russian front and hardly moved around among the troops at all. Tresckow
nonetheless succeeded in drawing Hitler into a trap. Through Schmundt, he let it be known that Kluge was violently opposed to launching Operation Citadel, the attack on the Kursk salient. To allay the marshal’s annoyance, Hitler had to visit the front and restore confidence, if not harmony. The ploy produced its intended effect: the Führer was asked to cajole the marshal, and he was tempted by the amusing prospect of manipulating and converting his detractor. It remained only to set a date for the visit.

We were not sure whether to use a firearm or explosives in our attempt on the Führer’s life. The choice of a bomb would limit the opportunities to act, besides causing more casualties beyond Hitler’s immediate entourage, including the conspirators themselves. Thus we decided on a pistol—without, however, excluding the possibility of explosives as a fail-safe. The method we adopted did not, for all that, guarantee success. Through Schmundt, Tresckow had learned that the dictator wore a thin bulletproof vest under his uniform. In addition, Baron Gersdorff had observed that the Führer’s cap was lined with metal. In short, the assassin would have to aim carefully at some chink in the armor. But we were not well-informed enough to be sure that most shots would kill him. And so we concluded that it would be necessary to shoot him in the face.

We were actively preparing, working out scenarios, practicing our aim. Still, we had to decide who was going
to pull the trigger. Shooting somebody in the back already demands a great deal of sangfroid, and shooting him from the front is still more difficult. But shooting someone in the face is something else again. Georg saw Tresckow daily in order to ensure that his cavalry group would have priority. One day Tresckow suddenly asked him straight out whether he was prepared to assassinate the man who had solemnly decorated him a year earlier. My brother was a man of resolute temperament, and hunting had made him a good shot. Tresckow had decided that he wouldn’t get rattled. Georg reflected for a moment, and then conceded that he couldn’t guarantee hitting his mark. He was not afraid for his life, though indeed a solitary shooter would be completely exposed to the bodyguards’ fire. He was afraid that he might get too nervous to aim properly.

He therefore accepted, but only on the condition that he not be alone. There were nine conspirators in all, four from the staff and five from the cavalry unit being formed. Among the former were Captain Schmidt-Salzmann and I. I had delayed for a month taking up my command, which was initially scheduled for March 1, 1943, so as to be able to devote myself more fully to preparing for the assassination attempt. The scenario was as follows: once Hitler had come into the mess hall and sat down for lunch, Georg was to stand up and count “one, two,” whereupon the rest of us would also stand up and fire. There would probably be a few bodyguards, but they would be on the edges of the room, not seated at the main tables. Obviously, we were expecting them to react, but we were counting on the confusion to render them ineffective. It was as simple as that. Everyone knew exactly his position and his role. It was important that there be several shooters, in case an unforeseen obstacle caught one of the bullets.

The officers’ dining room where the March 1943
attempt to shoot Hitler was to take place
.
(photo credit 14.1)

We also had a backup plan in the event that the lunch was canceled at the last minute, as Hitler was not fond of banquets. Wilhelm König’s cavalry squadron would intercept the Führer while he was passing through the forest and hand him over to an improvised military tribunal, which would sentence him to a firing squad. Finally, as a last resort, Schlabrendorff had proposed putting explosives in the Führer’s plane.

It remained to tell Kluge about our preparations. He knew generally what his operations officer was up to, and covered him. The only limit on his tacit approval was imposed by his legendary intelligence and prudence—not for nothing had he been nicknamed Günther the Crafty. To this sixty-year-old Prussian imbued with tradition, assassinating Hitler while he was eating lunch seemed a little cowardly for German officers. He had another reservation as well: the German people would not understand the murder of a man still perceived as an energetic war leader and the last bulwark against humiliating defeat. Hence, when I asked him about the plan, the field marshal did not answer me; instead, he gestured
with his chin as if to say, “Do it at your own risk … I won’t denounce you.”

On March 7, Hans von Dohnanyi, Hans Oster’s assistant, came to the headquarters of Army Group Center. Coded signals had been set up with him to launch the coup d’état in the event of the assassination’s success. On March 12, 1943, the day before the Führer was to visit, we learned that Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, would not be coming along with him. Kluge withdrew his approval at the last minute: to kill Hitler without seizing Himmler was to risk starting a civil war. As soon as the Führer was dead, the SS would take power and begin a merciless repression. It would then be necessary to dislodge them in turn from supreme power. In short, Hitler’s elimination, though possible, would not have the necessary strategic significance without the concomitant liquidation of Himmler, the Reichsführer SS. The operation was canceled, and we were overwhelmed by a feeling of disappointment equal to the length we had gone to mobilizing for the project.

Flying in from Vinnytsya, the Führer’s plane, a Focke-Wulf Condor, landed at the aerodrome. The stairs were lowered, the door opened, and Hitler descended. Himmler, as reported, was not there. The day was unbearable. At every stage of the visit, we were mentally following the development of the scenario for which we had so long planned, timed, and prepared. Hitler and Kluge were meeting in the conference room; I can still see the
Führer’s personal physician, Professor Theodor Morell, snoring in the waiting room, his mouth open, insolent and tranquil while we cooled our heels. During the lunch, we had to put up with Hitler’s good humor; he was glad to be among real soldiers. The Führer had brought along his personal cook and the physician assigned to taste his food. Hunched over his plate, his elbows on the table, raising his head only to swallow a mouthful of wine, he was a despicable sight.

We obeyed Kluge’s interdiction. But Tresckow and Schlabrendorff had planned something else. Such a fine opportunity could not be missed: Hitler was not to live to the end of the day. As a simple reserve officer, Schlabrendorff felt less bound by the obligation of obedience incumbent on the regular soldier. During lunch Tresckow had ascertained that his tablemate Colonel Heinz Brandt was going to be in the Führer’s plane on the way back. On the pretext of surprising Helmut Stieff, Schlabrendorff gave Brandt two bottles of French cognac in a wooden case. Gifts of wine and spirits were common among military men, and the sentry for the plane was easily taken in by Schlabrendorff’s ruse. It was in reality a case of explosives, whose preparation had cost me several nights’ work. The detonator, which Schlabrendorff had activated, was set to go off in midflight, somewhere near Minsk.

Our stupefaction was boundless when we learned that evening that the Führer’s plane had landed safely in
Rastenburg, in East Prussia, after an uneventful flight. For Fabian von Schlabrendorff, the news was still more ominous. However, it was not yet time for lamentations. We had to act quickly, but not so abruptly as to arouse suspicion; hence, we could not arrange to take a special flight. Instead, the next day at dawn, Schlabrendorff left in a regularly scheduled mail plane. Two hours later, he was at the aerodrome where the Führer had landed. Maintaining his sangfroid, he found Brandt, recovered his case of cognac, and exchanged real wine bottles for the explosives. On examination, it turned out that the detonator had malfunctioned, probably owing to the extremely low temperature in the plane’s baggage compartment.

The following week, in Berlin, Gersdorff was supposed to show the Führer some of the spoils taken from the Soviets. He was to accompany General Walther Model. Tresckow had managed at the last minute to send this pro-Nazi general instead of Kluge, whom he wanted to be available in the event that the assassination attempt succeeded. March 20 was Heroes’ Day, dedicated to the memory of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who had already fallen at the front. Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Göring were also to be present: another unhoped-for opportunity. Gersdorff was supposed to sacrifice himself in this attempt. Our common desire to eliminate the Führer was such that Gersdorff hadn’t hesitated for a moment when Tresckow suggested the idea to him. A
few moments after the Führer entered the arsenal, he activated the time bomb attached to his belt. Unfortunately, Hitler was in a hurry, and passed through the exposition at a run, without listening to any of the explanations and without pausing before the display cases, despite Göring’s urging. Left alone, Gersdorff had time to rush to the lavatory, smash the detonator, and flush it down the toilet. He had saved his own life, but Hitler was still alive.