The Plots Against Hitler

by Danny Orbach Narrated by John Telfer

Overview

In 1933, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. A year later, all parties but the Nazis had been outlawed, freedom of the press was but a memory, and Hitler's dominance seemed complete. Yet over the next few years, an unlikely clutch of conspirators emerged - soldiers, schoolteachers, politicians, diplomats, theologians, even a carpenter - who would try repeatedly to end the Fuhrer's genocidal reign. This dramatic and deeply researched book tells the full story of those noble, ingenious, and doomed efforts. This is history at its most suspenseful, as we witness secret midnight meetings, crises of conscience, fierce debates among old friends about whether and how to dismantle Nazism, and the various plots themselves being devised and executed.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

08/15/2016
In this comprehensive history, Israeli historian Orbach scrupulously analyzes the resistance movements that opposed the Nazis from 1933 to 1945. His superb research includes interviews with resistance survivors, family members, and relevant records from archives around the world. It is a balanced history of the resistance that covers the famous Operation Valkyrie plot, but gives equal treatment to the other serious attempts to resist the Nazis and assassinate Hitler. For many readers the extent of the resistance efforts of Admiral Canaris (head of German Military Intelligence), among others, will be surprising. This book is unique in that Orbach attempts to determine the motivation of the resisters in moral and ethical terms. He explains that most historians have either idolized the resisters as heroes or condemned them as self-serving criminals. Orbach sets the record straight when he concludes that the resisters to Hitler’s Nazi government were imperfect but in most cases exceptional human beings who reacted with action to the criminal deeds of the Nazis. Likely to become the definitive general history of the subject and the starting place for all future research, Orbach’s work is a fascinating story of courage and an excellent study of the struggle of individuals to act morally and honorably. B&w insert. Agent: Andrew Lownie, Andrew Lownie Literary (U.K.). (Oct.)

From the Publisher

"Danny Orbach’s The Plots Against Hitler provides a definitive history of the anti-Nazi underground’s efforts to overthrow the Nazi dictator...a riveting read well worth picking up."--Jewish Book Council "In this comprehensive history, Israeli historian Orbach scrupulously analyzes the resistance movements that opposed the Nazis from 1933 to 1945. His superb research includes interviews with resistance survivors, family members, and relevant records from archives around the world. It is a balanced history of the resistance that covers the famous Operation Valkyrie plot, but gives equal treatment to the other serious attempts to resist the Nazis and assassinate Hitler. For many readers the extent of the resistance efforts of Admiral Canaris (head of German Military Intelligence), among others, will be surprising. This book is unique in that Orbach attempts to determine the motivation of the resisters in moral and ethical terms. He explains that most historians have either idolized the resisters as heroes or condemned them as self-serving criminals. Orbach sets the record straight when he concludes that the resisters to Hitler’s Nazi government were imperfect but in most cases exceptional human beings who reacted with action to the criminal deeds of the Nazis. Likely to become the definitive general history of the subject and the starting place for all future research, Orbach’s work is a fascinating story of courage and an excellent study of the struggle of individuals to act morally and honorably."--Publishers Weekly "This fresh look at the German Resistance will be appreciated by students of World War II history."--Library Journal "A robust history of the German conspiracy against Nazism... gripping look at a historical counternarrative that remains relevant and disturbing."--Kirkus  —

Library Journal

06/15/2016
In this account, historian Orbach (fellow, Weatherhead Ctr. for International Affairs) explores the psychological, social, and military dynamics of the network of groups who tried to assassinate German politician and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler between 1938 and 1943. The author uses newly discovered diaries and documents to characterize the attempted murder plots, notably the Oster Conspiracy in 1938, led by Gen. Hans Oster; and Operation Valkyrie in 1944, headed by Officer Claus von Stauffenberg in 1943. Owing to chance or miscalculations, Hitler managed to avoid death at the hands of these high-ranking officials. Another recent work addressing this topic is Philip Freiherr Von Boeselager et al.'s Valkyrie: The Story of the Plot To Kill Hitler, by Its Last Member. VERDICT This fresh look at the German Resistance will be appreciated by students of World War II history.—Harry Willems, Great Bend P.L., KS

Kirkus Review

2016-08-03
A robust history of the German conspiracy against Nazism.Orbach (History and East Asian Studies/Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem) combines intellectual inquiry with thriller dynamics, explaining that “resistance to Hitler…is a field in which historical arguments are not purely academic but wrought through with passions.” The author acknowledges both the admirable aims and ultimate shortcomings of the conspirators, arguing that their story, culminating in Operation Valkyrie in 1944, is deceptively complex, while the plotters’ moral standings remain subject to competing interpretations. Today, he notes, many doubt “not only the moral integrity of the conspirators and their motives but their military skill as well.” Orbach counterbalances this by examining the connections between principal figures as the Nazis took hold of German society. Initially, defiance developed among conservative iconoclasts from the military and the nobility. The author uses organizational theory to explore how resistance to totalitarianism moved from such secretive “cliques” to broader networks, potent but more vulnerable. Of these early groups, “most…were never involved in opposition to the Nazi regime, but a tiny portion went through a process of revolutionary mutation in the opening months of 1938.” A planned coup nearly occurred that year, during Hitler’s aggression against Czechoslovakia, but it fizzled out following appeasement. As one plotter noted, “never, since 1933, was there such a good chance to free Germany and the world.” Amazingly, a disgruntled lone wolf nearly killed Hitler the following year, an event that stands in ironic contrast to the increasingly labyrinthine networks. Orbach tracks the conspiracy’s rise and fall over several years; some participants were motivated by spiraling defeats on the eastern front, others through witnessing genocidal acts. The charismatic Claus von Stauffenberg linked the military, bureaucratic, and civilian cliques into a “wheel conspiracy”; unfortunately, its efficiency permitted the Nazis to punish most plotters following his failed bombing of Hitler’s hideaway. Orbach is thoughtful and careful in portraying a rebellion against evil that ended “honorably, perhaps, but in utter failure.” A dense but gripping look at a historical counternarrative that remains relevant and disturbing.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940175637787
Publisher:	Dreamscape Media
Publication date:	10/25/2016
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

OPPOSITION IN FLAMES

BY JANUARY 30, 1933, the eve of the Nazi takeover, it was still unclear whether Hitler and the National Socialists would rule Germany without a fight. The two anti-Nazi opposition parties, the Communists and the Social Democrats, still held far-reaching networks of activists, many of them armed. They boasted millions of loyal supporters, clubs, and labor unions, and more than enough young men willing to fight. Within a year, all of these seemingly formidable networks of opposition would disappear, consumed by fire.

On the evening of February 27, 1933, two pedestrians and a policeman were walking by the Reichstag, the impressive home of the German parliament in Berlin, when something unusual suddenly caught their eyes. A light, some strange flicker, was dancing behind the windows, followed by a swiftly moving shadow. The policeman knew immediately he was looking at arson, and called for reinforcements. Police entered the Reichstag together, moving through a screen of thick, black smoke. Quickly, they noticed the mysterious trespasser sneaking from the chamber, half-naked, covered in sweat, with a beet-red face and unkempt hair. A passport found on him indicated that his name was Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch citizen. He had used his shirt and a can of gasoline to start a fire. When asked for his reasons, he answered, "Protest! Protest!"

Few of the many Berliners who witnessed the flames in horror imagined that the new Reich chancellor, Adolf Hitler, would use the fire as an excuse to uproot all opposition networks, organizations, and parties in Germany. The chancellor, appointed only one month earlier, on January 30, destroyed in less than one year political parties of all persuasions, the autonomy of the German states, and the powerful trade unions. Dramatic changes also swept the civil service, the judicial system, schools and universities, and, most importantly, the army. By late 1934, Hitler and his Nazi Party were the sole masters of Germany, unobstructed by any effective form of active or potential opposition.

The politicians of the new regime were quick to arrive at the burning building. First among them was Hermann Göring, one of Hitler's paladins and speaker of the Reichstag. The commander of the firefighters gave him a report on the attempts to extinguish the fire, but Göring was more interested in extinguishing something else. "The guilty are the Communist revolutionaries," he said. "This act is the beginning of the Communist uprising, which must be promptly crushed with an iron fist." Hitler and his propaganda master, Josef Goebbels, were not far behind. "From this day on," declared the new chancellor, "anyone standing in our way will be done for. Softness will not be understood by the German people. The Communist deputies have to be hanged tonight."

The Reichstag, one of the last relics of the dying Weimar Republic, was reduced to a blackened shell. Alarm swept the country, fed by sensationalist headlines in the morning papers. "AGAINST MURDERERS, ARSONISTS AND POISONERS THERE CAN ONLY BE RIGOROUS DEFENSE," read one of them. "AGAINST TERROR, RECKONING THROUGH THE DEATH PENALTY." Alarm soon became hysteria. "They wanted to send armed gangs to the villages to murder and start fires," noted Luise Solmitz, a conservative schoolteacher, in her diary. "So the Communists had burned down the Reichstag," wrote Sebastian Haffner, a young jurist and one of the few remaining skeptics.

That could well be so, it was even to be expected. Funny, though, why they should choose the Reichstag, an empty building, where no one would profit from a fire. Well, perhaps it really had been intended as the "signal" for the uprising, which had been prevented by the "decisive measures" taken by the government. That was what the papers said, and it sounded plausible. Funny also that the Nazis got so worked up about the Reichstag. Up till then they had contemptuously called it a "hot air factory." Now it was suddenly the holy of holies that had been burned down ... The main thing is: the danger of a Communist uprising has been averted and we can sleep easy.

Neither the government nor the Communists were sleeping easy. On the eve of the Reichstag fire, Hitler had yet to win support from the majority of Germans. The National Socialist Party was still far from a Reichstag majority. The opposition parties from the left, the Social Democrats and the Communists, were still major political powers. Now, the Nazis used the red scare to rally large parts of the German public to their cause. Many people, even if cold to Hitler and his radical ideas, began to consider him the lesser evil. Others, especially adherents of the National Conservative right, turned to the Nazi leader as a redeemer. The teacher Luise Solmitz, though married to a converted Jew, was one of them. "The feelings of most Germans are dominated by Hitler," she confided in her journal. "His fame rises to the stars. He is the savior of a wicked, sad world." The fears of the public were exploited to kick off a half-planned, half-improvised campaign for total political, cultural, and ideological subjugation of Germany. Needless to say, the charged atmosphere made it easier to neutralize all centers of power from which prospective opposition might arise.

Who really burned the Reichstag? Was it a National Socialist sham, or an act of solitary lunacy committed by van der Lubbe? Scholars have debated this question ever since. In any case, the Nazis were the only winners. When they formed the government, they demanded only two portfolios apart from the chancellorship: the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Reich and the corresponding ministry in Prussia, the largest and most important German state. They knew what they were doing. These two ministries gave them total control over the police, the secret police, and internal security apparatus all over the Reich. Using their newly won power, they set out to destroy the opposition root and branch by way of propaganda, temptation of Germans who were not yet convinced Nazis, and terror against remaining members of the opposition.

Resistance became ever more dangerous. One of the founding fathers of the German resistance movement, Hans Bernd Gisevius, wrote bitterly later, "Was it the Reichstag alone? Was not all Berlin on fire?" The campaign to eliminate the opposition and its institutions was a part of a larger process, which was later called Gleichschaltung (bringing into line). Its intention was to take full control of German society by injecting National Socialist ideology into all aspects of life, accompanied by lucrative carrots for collaborators and sharp sticks for anyone who dared to resist.

On February 28, one day after the Reichstag fire, the constitutional barriers were broken. The new government passed emergency decrees "for the protection of people and state," allowing it to monitor letters, telegrams, and phone calls, and to restrict the freedom of speech and the press. More importantly, the right of habeas corpus was suspended, so enemies of the regime could not even expect proper redress by law.

The first victims were the Communists. The Nazis blamed them for the fire and ordered the arrest of their Reichstag section leader. In just a few weeks, the party disintegrated: its newspapers closed, organizations were banned, and all leaders were placed under arrest. The Communist force, deemed a mortal threat by so many Germans, was paralyzed. Its ranks in disarray, it offered almost no resistance. Its swift disappearance surprised its supporters and many ordinary Germans alike; they had once thought of it as an armed and violent revolutionary force. By contrast, no one anticipated anything from the Social Democrats. Haffner wrote,

A Communist attack was what we expected. The Communists were determined people, with fierce expressions. They raised their fists in salute and had weapons — at least, they used guns often enough in the everyday pub brawls. They boasted continually about the strength of their organization, and they had probably learned how to do "these things" in Russia. The Nazis had left no one in doubt that they wanted to destroy them. It was natural, indeed obvious, that the Communists would retaliate.

But they did nothing of the kind.

Why did the Communist Party go down so quickly in spite of long preparations for violent action against both democracy and fascism? Peter Hoffmann has argued that its leaders were fettered by their own dogmatic ideology. They and their patron, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, believed that the rise of the Nazis was nothing but the death rattle of the liberal bourgeoisie, that is, the Weimar Republic. The Communist Party, said a Russian diplomat in Berlin to Friedrich Stampfer, editor of the Social Democratic journal Vorwärts, would surely take the government, but only after Hitler had destroyed democracy to clear the way. This false confidence led the Communists to make disastrous decisions, above all their refusal to join the Social Democrats in a united anti-Nazi front. Finally, the Communist Party's predictions of a popular revolution failed to materialize, and its politicians were surprised by a determined and peremptory rival. As a party, it ceased to exist.

The Social Democratic Party, known as the main rival of the Nazis and the strongest political mainstay of the Weimar Republic, was paralyzed as well, though for very different reasons. Its leaders were fixated on "legality," even when their rivals trampled every law in their quest for absolute power. Somehow, the Social Democratic leaders believed, they would be protected: by the police, by the courts, by the state, by someone. They believed this until it was too late.

The Social Democratic Party had not always been so lethargic. During the stormy year of 1920, in response to a monarchist coup d'état by conservative politician Wolfgang Kapp, the party mobilized the workers for a general strike. The mass protests forced Kapp and his lieutenants to give up power, and practically restored the Weimar Republic. But in 1933, after the Reichstag fire, the Social Democratic leaders did not call for a general strike, the most effective weapon they had. Instead, they opted to comply, in order not to give the government "excuses" to ban them, as if the Nazis needed any.

The National Socialists, meanwhile, were constantly moving. In March, using the crisis to bolster their hold over the state, they drafted the so-called Enabling Act, which allowed them to pass legislation without parliamentary approval. That law, carefully drafted, laid the legal basis for the future dictatorship of the Third Reich. The parties of the center and the right decided, foolishly enough, to vote for the act. Still not knowing Hitler well enough, they thought that would give them enough credit with the Nazis to survive. Hitler himself did everything he could to soothe them: he promised to use his newly won power only rarely, against a Communist revolution and only after due consultation with the president. Still, he lacked the parliamentary majority of two-thirds, required to approve the new law. The Communists and the Social Democrats still held a blocking majority. The Nazis, though, would not be stopped by such trifles. On March 5, all Communist deputies were arrested. Göring, president of the Reichstag, made it clear that if necessary, Social Democrats would be kept out of the chamber to secure the right number of votes.

The left-wing deputies who did make it into the provisional chamber of the Reichstag, located in a Berlin opera house, discovered an atmosphere far from amiable. The SA, the private militia of the Nazi Party, filled the galleries and intimidated the deputies with loud interjections, boos, and singing. Still, the Social Democrats did not give up. Their leader, Otto Wels, delivered the swan song of the parliamentary left in Germany. "We, the German Social Democrats," he said, "pledge ourselves to the principles of humanity and justice, liberty and socialism. No enabling act will give you the power to destroy these indestructible, eternal values." Hitler was not impressed: "You are late, but still you come! ... No one needs you anymore ... The star of Germany will rise, and yours will fall. Your death bells are already tolling ... I am not interested in your votes. Germany will be free, but not through you."

The death bells of the Social Democratic Party were indeed tolling, to the cheers and applause of their rivals. On June 22, 1933, National Socialist Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick declared the party "an enemy of state and nation," and ordered it dissolved forthwith. The biggest party of the German left ceased to exist.

The parties of the center and the right did not fare any better, in spite of their previous cooperation with Hitler. On June 21, police and SA forces stormed the headquarters of the Nationalist People's Party. The party leader, Alfred Hugenberg, was a political ally of Hitler and shared many of his ultranationalist, imperialist, and anti-Semitic views. He even served as a cabinet minister. But the Nazis showed no mercy to the person whose close cooperation helped them to win power. The party was forced to dissolve itself, and on June 26, Hugenberg resigned from the government. One week later, on July 4 and 5, the two Catholic parties were forced to disband as well. Their fate was sealed on July 14, when the government issued the following act, turning Germany officially into a one-party state: "The German National Socialist Workers' party is the only political party in Germany. Any individual taking upon himself to form an organization of another political party, or to establish another political party, is subject to imprisonment for up to three years, or detention from six months to three years."

That was the end of the political parties, the most natural, most important source of legal opposition in Germany.

The Gleichschaltung, however, did not stop there. Now Hitler turned to the other centers of national power, and swept them aside without resistance.

That outcome was far from obvious. Germany had a strong tradition of regionalism, going back to the preunification era. Before 1871, the German-speaking territories were divided into numerous independent principalities with their own currencies, governments, and armies. When these principalities saw the need, many did not hesitate to fight each other or to form alliances with outside powers. Some, like Prussia, were considered world powers. After the unification, under Bismarck, the newly formed German Empire did not abolish the principalities but instead rearranged them under its own political authority. Even in 1918, when a wave of revolution swept through the principalities and turned them into republics, the federal structure of the country was kept intact and the states retained local governments of their own. One of them, Bavaria, had been on the verge of separatism in the early 1920s.

Now things were different. The local governments kowtowed to the regime, only to be tossed out one after another. Instead of elected prime ministers, the new rulers appointed National Socialist governors (Gauleiter), who answered not to their constituencies but only to the Nazi Party in Berlin. Only Bavaria, the southern Catholic state with its strong local identity, resisted, before a coup solved that problem. National Socialist militiamen, working in close cooperation with the police, stormed local prime minister Dr. Heinrich Held's office. Held was removed and replaced by one of Hitler's lieutenants. Now, Bavaria, too, had been integrated in the Gleichschaltung.

The trade unions, which boasted millions of members from all over the Reich, were also quick to fade away. To the surprise of some of their more ardent supporters, the scenario of 1920 did not repeat itself, and a general strike against the new regime was not even considered. The trade-union leaders believed that by going along with Hitler, they might reach a modus vivendi with the regime. Therefore, they competed with one another to declare the most ardent loyalty to Hitler. That didn't help them. The Nazi leadership did not tolerate competing power centers, let alone ones hitherto associated with the left.

In this case, the Nazis resorted to a ploy. Hitler declared May 1 to be Workers' Day, a National Socialist holiday, and the trade unions were invited to celebrate it along with the party. The festivities were boisterous, with an impressive parade held by both National Socialists and trade unionists. Years later, Communist activist Franz Jung bemoaned the fact that he and his comrades "marched thickly surrounded by SA, SS, and Hitler Youth." An ideal picture of class harmony, indeed.

The scheme worked as planned. The leaders of the trade unions felt warm and secure, only to be mortally surprised the next day. The brouhaha of the parades had not quite died down when the trade unions were confronted by an all-out attack. Their offices were stormed, documents were seized, and they — who had really tried to prove their loyalty to the new regime — were duly led to concentration camps. With the trade unions all but gone, the German workers were quickly swallowed in the maelstrom of the Gleichschaltung and reorganized in a countrywide Nazi organization called the Labor Front.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "The Plots Against Hitler"
by .
Copyright © 2016 Danny Orbach.
Excerpted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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