Hitler's Charisma (24 page)

Though some officers present that day sympathised with Beck’s position, it was clear to everyone that Beck’s views were increasingly placing him on the periphery of power. One lieutenant colonel, who had been close to Fritsch, remarked that the events of the last few weeks had “opened his eyes” to the fact that leading figures in the German army were not a “tight knit community” but merely “public servants,” and “replacements” could be found for each of them—indeed one was presumably “already available” for Beck. But this kind of cynical talk did not appeal to ambitious officers like Lieutenant Colonel Röhricht or Major Schmundt or Lieutenant Colonel Jeschonnek and, significantly, they would all go on to achieve high office. By 1945 Röhricht was an infantry
general serving with the 17th Army on the Eastern Front, and the year before Schmundt—by then also a general, and head of personnel for the entire German army—had been killed on 20 July 1944 by the bomb designed to assassinate Hitler. Jeschonnek had also died at the Führer’s headquarters, but in 1943 when, as chief of the Luftwaffe General Staff, he had committed suicide because he felt he had let Hitler down.

Meanwhile, Beck was still determined to convince his colleagues not to follow a plan for aggression that he was convinced would lead Germany into the abyss. And it’s possible, once again, to see in the way Hitler managed to neutralise Beck during the summer of 1938 the importance of his charisma in this history—for without Hitler’s ability to persuade the rest of his generals to follow his lead, often against their logical objections, it is hard to see how Germany could have been taken down such a destructive path.

Beck handed the latest in a stream of complaining memoranda to Brauchitsch on 16 July. It was his most forthright yet—almost calling for mutiny. “I consider it to be my duty this day to raise the urgent request that the Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht [i.e., Hitler] be prompted to abandon the preparations for war ordered by him.”
¹⁷
Shortly afterwards, when Beck met Brauchitsch, he said that the military high command should all resign together if Hitler did not change his plans. A few days later, after consulting with sympathetic colleagues, Beck told Brauchitsch that the task at hand was nothing less than altering the nature of Nazi rule. Beck still persisted in seeing the problem less as Hitler than the pernicious influence of the Gestapo and SS. “Arguably for the last time,” wrote Beck, “fate offers [us] an opportunity to liberate the German people, as well as the Führer himself, from the nightmare of the secret police … There can and must not arise any doubt about this fight being fought for the Führer.”
¹⁸
And not only did he seek to argue that any “struggle” against war should be undertaken on Hitler’s behalf, he even suggested that a possible “catchword” for his proposed course of action could be, “For the Führer—Against War.”

Beck must have recognised that any attempt to gain the head of the army’s consent in a direct conspiracy against the head of state would be—to say the least—risky; and so he preferred to say, against direct evidence to the contrary, that Hitler was not driving events himself, but was influenced unduly by party institutions like the SS and Gestapo. Beck
shared Hitler’s aim of eliminating Czechoslovakia as a barrier to German expansion, only disagreeing about the timing; and he revered the old imperial system of governance and a head of state who respected the advice of the military. “Why couldn’t Hitler be more like the Kaiser?” was a question that would almost certainly have been somewhere deep in Beck’s mind. Most likely, Beck wanted Hitler reduced to the almost figurehead status the Kaiser had sunk to during the First World War.

But what Beck still did not yet fully understand was that Hitler was not a conventional political leader who could be swayed by closely argued memoranda. As Professor Adam Tooze
¹⁹
puts it, “He isn’t a statesman in the normal sense of the word, making straightforwardly rational calculations and assuming always that there will be a high probability of ultimate success. This is a man for whom politics is drama, a tragic drama that may not have a happy end. And so he is willing to take risks that he thinks are inescapable even if the odds are very highly stacked against Germany.”

Brauchitsch’s exact response to Beck’s pleas is not known, but he certainly did not offer immediate support for the idea of a threatened joint resignation. However, at a conference of senior officers on 4 August, Brauchitsch did ask his colleagues what they thought of the proposed plan to invade Czechoslovakia. Many supported Beck and spoke of the practical problems involved—chiefly the likelihood that Britain and France would be drawn into the conflict. Brauchitsch ended the conference by admitting openly that following Hitler’s timetable for war would lead to the destruction of Germany.
²⁰

It was a vital moment in the history of the Third Reich. Had the generals been loyal to each other and united in their rejection of Hitler’s plans then they would have precipitated a crisis in the Nazi state. But the generals were not united. Instead, General Walther von Reichenau went to Hitler and told him what had happened at the meeting. Reichenau was one of a handful of senior German generals who genuinely seems to have had complete faith in his Führer. Serving with General Blomberg in East Prussia, he first met Hitler in 1932 and from then on believed that he would prove to be the saviour of Germany. So it was no accident that it was Reichenau that tipped Hitler off about the 4 August meeting.

Hitler’s immediate reaction was predictable—rage of the most intense kind. He ordered Brauchitsch to a meeting at Berchtesgaden where he screamed at the head of the German army for more than an hour. He
then convened a conference on 10 August for all the generals who had been present at the original 4 August meeting. Typically, this was not to debate the merits of his proposals with his military experts, but to lecture them on why he was certain that he was right. When one general dared to question the security of the Westwall—Germany’s defensive fortifications against France—Hitler shouted at him that he was wrong. During another speech five days later, after a military exercise at Jüterbog, Hitler criticised those—implicitly Beck—who had let themselves become weak, and emphasised that the decision to invade Czechoslovakia primarily involved political, not military, judgements.

It was another confident performance by Hitler in front of his generals, one that was underpinned by a familiar component of his leadership—his absolute certainty that he was right. And since Hitler’s judgement had been proved right in similar circumstances in the recent past—given that Beck and others had warned that moving into Austria might result in war—Hitler now implied that little weight should be given to their latest warnings. Thus, despite all of the practical reasons why the generals were right to be so concerned about the consequences of an invasion of Czechoslovakia, many of them were prepared to support Hitler. This route of least resistance was epitomised by Lieutenant General Erich von Manstein
²¹
who told Beck that he should leave the politics to Hitler and concentrate on working out the practicalities of beating the Czechs in battle.

Yet there was more behind Hitler’s successful appeal than merely the insistence that his generals should follow his orders. Hitler was also offering them something special—the chance of glory, of heroism, of military success that would make them famous in German history. Of course there were immense risks, but Hitler had made it clear that he would take all the responsibility for the decision to invade Czechoslovakia on himself. It was a classic example of what Dr. Fritz Redl called “the magic of the initiatory act”
²²
—the notion that leaders, if they are charismatic enough, can burden themselves with the risk and potential guilt of any course of action that they initiate. As a result, they are able to create a tremendous sense of liberation in their followers.

However, in this case, not all the followers. Beck remained unconvinced, as did a number of other generals, like von Hase and von Witzleben. Admiral Canaris, head of the intelligence service, the
Abwehr
, also
appeared to flirt with these figures opposed to Hitler’s actions, though he was such a habitual intriguer that it is likely that he was also a double agent, with links to Heydrich and Himmler. Canaris’ deputy, Hans Oster, was more committed to the opposition cause, as was Hjalmar Schacht. Via intermediaries these gentlemen, together with others, managed to approach the British Foreign Office in August 1938. “From then on Beck and that group of Germans—they didn’t represent all the generals by any manner of means—kept in touch with us by underground means, and they used to come through me,” says Sir Frank Roberts, then a diplomat serving on the German desk in the Foreign Office in London. “And it was the sort of thing ‘if only you and the French will stand up to Hitler then we’ll do something about him,’ and we rather saying ‘well, hadn’t you better start doing something about him, then perhaps we can help you.’ But of course, as Hitler went on having success after success the influence of this group of German generals became less and less.”
²³

Whilst Beck, his co-conspirators and the British all dithered, Hitler made a speech in early September 1938 that passionately attacked not just the Czech government but the whole question of the way Czechoslovakia had been formed after the First World War: “The majority of its people was simply forced to submit to the structure construed at Versailles without anyone asking for their opinion. As a true democracy, this state immediately began to suppress the majority of its people, to abuse them and to rob them of their inalienable rights.”
²⁴
As for the Sudeten Germans, their situation had become “unbearable.” Hitler claimed that, “In an economic context, these people are being ruined methodically and hence are subject to a slow and steady extermination. The misery of the Sudeten Germans defies description.”

It was another example of Hitler’s self-confessed leadership technique of shouting “louder and louder” and then observing how his opponents reacted. The British and the French had already put pressure on the Czech government to compromise with Hitler, but after his speech at Nuremberg it was clear that the situation was escalating dangerously.

Thanks to the journey to London in midsummer of Ewald von Kleist-Schmenzin, a member of Beck’s opposition clique, Chamberlain was well aware that key members of the German elite felt that Hitler was trying to drive Germany into war. But when British Cabinet ministers discussed German Foreign Policy on 30 August 1938
²⁵
they were more considered
and less certain in their own view. Other intelligence—like the opinion of the British Ambassador to Berlin, Sir Nevile Henderson—argued against Hitler being determined to cause another European conflict. But what pervades the minutes of the meeting is the sense that sophisticated political operators like Neville Chamberlain and his Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, simply couldn’t believe that a chancellor of Germany, and thus leader of a cultured European nation, could actually
want
another war.

They also felt that if the British threatened to go to war over the German occupation of the Sudetenland this might, given what they perceived as the unstable personality of Adolf Hitler, actually provoke him further. To Chamberlain and Halifax, both of whom had vivid memories of the suffering of the First World War, the prospect of another European conflict was horrific—especially given the new danger of aerial bombardment from the Luftwaffe.

It was to try and prevent this catastrophe that Chamberlain decided on a dramatic flight to meet Hitler in Germany—and, in the process, “invented modern summitry.”
²⁶
Having left London at around half-past eight on the morning of 15 September, Chamberlain arrived at Munich just after half-past twelve. By five o’clock that evening he was walking up the steps of the Berghof, Hitler’s house above Berchtesgaden. During the subsequent discussion Chamberlain announced that he, personally, was quite prepared for the Sudeten Germans to leave Czechoslovakia and join the Third Reich, but he wanted assurances that Hitler had no further demands—like conquering the whole of Czechoslovakia. Hitler reassured Chamberlain that was not the case and the next day Chamberlain returned to Britain. He had spent less than four hours in Hitler’s presence, but had still formed a clear opinion of him. Far from Hitler possessing any charismatic powers, he was, Chamberlain wrote, “entirely undistinguished. You would never notice him in a crowd, and would take him for the house painter he once was.”
²⁷
Moreover, as Chamberlain subsequently remarked to the British Cabinet, Hitler was the “commonest little dog I have ever seen.”
²⁸

Chamberlain was not the first member of the British political elite to have formed the view that Hitler was most definitely not a “gentleman.” A British delegation, led by Lord Halifax, had visited Hitler at the Berghof the year before and had come to a similar conclusion. One of the senior Foreign Office officials present, Ivone Kirkpatrick, thought
that Hitler behaved like a “spoilt sulky child” during lunch. Worse, after they had eaten, Hitler told Halifax that the British should solve any problems they had in India by shooting Gandhi, “and if that does not suffice to reduce them [i.e., the Indians] to submission, shoot a dozen leading members of Congress; and if that does not suffice, shoot two hundred and so on until order is established.” Kirkpatrick recalled that as Hitler suggested the British commit mass murder in India the beautifully mannered Lord Halifax looked at Hitler “with a mixture of astonishment, repugnance and compassion.”
²⁹

Halifax and many others in Britain were thus immune to Hitler’s charisma. They were intelligent enough to recognise that millions of Germans had succumbed to his appeal, but they still felt that, in person, Hitler was much more of a tradesman than a demi-God. He was still dangerous and possibly unbalanced, but he remained a figure almost of contempt—the antithesis of all the values that they held most precious.