Valkyrie: The Story of the Plot to Kill Hitler, by Its Last Member (6 page)

The situation in my sector was no better. But the story of my adventures at the turn of the year 1941–42 is briefer than that of the episodes Georg was involved in during those bloody weeks, because a wound I’d received during the first hours of combat, which nearly cost me my life, sent me away from the front. Since the beginning of December, fighting had raged around Moscow, and the
Eighty-sixth Division had been violently torn out of its torpor. On December 10, it was decided to retake a town called Ignatovo, which the Russians had seized. An artillery regiment had left a valuable part of its equipment there. The temperature was now –42°C (–43°F). The cyclist squadron, commanded by Lieutenant Blomberg, was to attack from the south, supported by three heavy machine guns, an antitank gun, and a light cavalry mortar.
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My cavalry squadron was assigned to lead the attack from the north. We first had to go around the village on the west and through the forest. The snow was so deep that it blocked the antiaircraft gun and the cavalry mortar. Only our heavy machine gun made it to the site.

A merciless battle began that was to last several hours. The Russians resisted stubbornly. Despite the cover provided by artillery camouflaged in a nearby forest—and which unfortunately once landed a shell among our own troops—we were not able to reach the houses on the village outskirts. We had to fight for a house, a fence, a vegetable garden. The enemy firepower dramatically increased and was concentrated on the northern sector. This shift in the Soviet defenses seemed to me inexplicable, although it was tragically simple: the German head adjutant, who was supervising the telephone connection and at the same time commanding the artillery battery, hadn’t received the message ordering the division to retreat. The Russians, finding the pressure on their south and west flanks relieved by the departure of
the cyclists, had shifted all their efforts to the cavalry squadron, which, kneeling or crawling in the snow as the light faded, persisted in a vain attempt to move forward. It was at that point that a searing pain flattened me. I had been hit in the abdomen. I didn’t have much time to think about my fate or even to suffer, because I lost consciousness. When I came to, I managed to stay on the battlefield for a while. The situation was becoming increasingly desperate. Grenades were exploding in the icy snowdrifts, throwing up little columns of snow and powder along with bits of wood and glass. The wounded men’s cries of pain, mixed with the crackling of machine-gun fire, shattered the late afternoon; as if through the fog of a slow nightmare, the sound managed to reach my consciousness, despite the blood I’d lost, and despite the sensation of both immense weakness and a certain light-headedness that comes with being seriously wounded. Snow began to fall, heavy, thick, and abundant, but it did not mute the din of the fighting. Soon the light machine guns began to jam. Only the horses were still going about their task, heroic, impassive, moving out damaged equipment and wounded soldiers.

The squadron had already lost thirty-five men. I was wounded again, this time in the left shoulder. I nonetheless had the strength to give the order to retreat at nightfall. The few dozen men who were still on their feet, helped by the inexhaustible horses, hurriedly loaded up the equipment, the wounded, and the frozen bodies of
the dead, and set out to look for the battalion, whose location they no longer knew. It seems that they walked for hours in the fresh snow, carrying me on a stretcher. The scouts were in the lead, and were sinking thigh-deep in the snow. The men were stumbling with fatigue, but got up again when they came in contact with the wet snow or were scratched by the ice.

I owed my survival solely to the attention of my men and to the devotion of one adjutant in particular. During the night, we ran into the battalion’s physician, who gave me first aid and dressed my wounds. “Lieutenant,” he said, “to have any chance of surviving, you must not eat anything for the next several days. Absolutely nothing!” He gave me an entire carton of cigarettes to ward off hunger, and loaded me on a sleigh driven by a Russian prisoner. This man, who had been captured a month earlier, was one of those Russians who viscerally rejected communism and hoped that a German victory would mean a return to the old order. For ten days he drove me over the icy plain. He was a teacher and spoke a little German, but my physical condition prevented me from conversing much with him.

At the Syschevka railway station I was loaded—and that is the right word—onto a freight train, along with forty-two other seriously wounded men. The train remained for three whole days at the station in Orel, without any care or food being given to the wounded. The moans ceased, one by one. Half of the wounded died
of the cold. Aerial attacks on the station killed a number of men. I, however, escaped with a piece of shrapnel in my right knee the first night, and another in my left tibia the following night. The few survivors were taken on to Smolensk. There we were transferred, in another freight train, to Germany. I had eaten practically nothing since December 10. The train’s engineer occasionally gave me a little something to drink. That was how I spent my Christmas 1941. Finally, after eighteen days’ travel, I was taken off the train in Silesia and moved, half dead, to the hospital in Breslau. I had survived about three weeks of transportation and privations—a miracle. Once I had recovered, I drew from all of this very pessimistic conclusions regarding the ability of the military command to conduct the war.

For his part, Georg had not been seriously wounded. He was exhausted, but his morale was intact. He had, I think, lost none of his bravery, his energy, or his presence of mind. He had never considered the situation hopeless, despite the cold, despite the adversary’s firepower. With the same gaiety, he continued to give his entourage that impression of invulnerability that made him seem almost a mythical hero. Georg was perfectly well aware of the danger. But he was motivated by a sense of duty that obliged him to show a tranquil optimism. The Russian offensive had lost some of its vigor, and Georg was prepared to fight for every inch of terrain.

But something inexplicable happened. On January 10,
1942, he received, by way of the division, the news that he had been transferred to the Führer’s reserve, effective immediately. He was to return to Germany without delay. Georg had not requested this assignment. He was furious to be separated from his men, who owed him everything and to whom he was linked by a set of obligations and loyalties that were as strong as those between a father and his children. Georg tried not to show his bitterness; on January 12, he named his successor and left for Potsdam-Krampnitz, where he was to teach military tactics to elite troops. It is true that from an operational point of view, the cavalry had become less useful. The defensive positions the German army had taken up around Rzhev could be held by the infantry.

At the end of January, Georg and five of his comrades were decorated by the Führer in person. Georg was the fifty-third soldier in the Wehrmacht to receive the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves. At that time he had only disdain for Hitler—not yet hatred. A photo shows the scornful way my brother looked at the Führer. Hitler asked him if he had a special request. Far from thinking of himself, Georg took advantage of the opportunity: “I have heard that my brother Philipp has been seriously wounded. I don’t know where he is. Could inquiries be made at the various hospitals?”

The message was immediately sent out in all directions. When the hospital in Breslau realized that I was the wounded man being sought, the doctor came to ask me—as in a fairy tale—if I wanted anything. I was by then capable of understanding the situation, and seizing my chance, I asked to be transferred to Bonn. The Führer’s wishes were commands, and my request was immediately granted. So I was taken home in a luxurious railway car, in the almost maternal care of two nurses reserved for me. I spent several months in the hospital. When I got out, in spring 1942, I was still convalescent.

January 1942, Hitler’s headquarters at Rastenburg, East Prussia: decoration of (from left to right) Hans Jordan, Karl Eibl, Günter Hoffmann-Schönbron, Georg von Boeselager, and Karl-Heinz Noak. This allowed Philipp, who was seriously injured in December 1941, to be taken back to a hospital in eastern Germany
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(photo credit 7.1)

A few months later, in July 1942, after the training session was over, Georg was sent to Romania as part of the German military mission. He was supposed to help toughen up the Romanians, whom the Wehrmacht was then using as auxiliaries on the Russian front.

I had not become an officer in order to shoot the head of state like a dog. Desiring the end of the regime and the death of its leader was, in the eyes of our compatriots, not only a state offense but also a stab in the back of the people as a whole, united in fighting a merciless war. The decision to join the resistance could result only from a long deliberation, which was certainly made easier by the events, scenes, and situations I had observed or experienced. Without generalizing from my own case, there were few examples in Germany, at least among military men, of a spontaneous and impulsive commitment to the struggle against the regime. In my case, it was a combination of different experiences that led to the decision to rebel, to the point that this idea, at first difficult to accept, by 1942 seemed obvious and even obligatory. I was also
lucky enough to meet people who were further along in this process, and who embodied my commitment. The education Georg and I had received was certainly not alien to the evolution of our views, which advanced in tandem even though we had been separated in 1941–42, and our communications on this subject were necessarily fleeting.

What was our state of mind before we became aware of the need to act? Here is an example taken from June 1941, in the middle of the offensive. My unit was stationed somewhere on the west bank of the Dnieper. Late one evening, I began talking with an artillery lieutenant who was passing through and to whom I had offered hospitality. It was one of those long conversations, frequent among officers, that take place over a last cup of coffee or a glass of liqueur, in which one speaks about his feelings, hopes, and also fears. Our conversation turned to the Nazis, and more precisely to Hitler. Sensing that we were in agreement on the subject, and emboldened by some feeling of mutual trust, by fatigue, and perhaps by a little alcohol, we began to criticize the Führer. We talked about this and that, while the fire burned down. The embers were glowing, and it grew colder. One of us yawned, putting an end to the discussion as spontaneously as we had begun it.

We wished each other good night and went back to our tents. I suddenly broke out in a cold sweat. Who was this fellow with whom I had spoken a bit too frankly? I
didn’t know him; he belonged to another division, and an artillery division to boot. How could I be sure of his discretion? On the contrary, he had given me every reason to think that he liked to talk. How could I assure myself of his loyalty? Impossible. The army, like all of German society after eight years of dictatorship, was full of informers, swarms of zealous agents loyal to the system. This fellow with a friendly face could very easily betray the feelings of confidence he inspired. Thinking, expressing doubts, mocking the Führer, questioning the meaning of this ideological war was already a crime. My doubt became anguish, and fear yielded to panic. I didn’t sleep a wink that night. The following day, I did not attempt to see this dangerous fellow again.

I ran across him, however, a few months later. In the meantime I had learned that he was Achim Oster—the son of Hans Oster, the number two man in the Abwehr, the German counterespionage service, and the keystone of the resistance movements.
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“If you only knew how scared I was!” I told him when we had recognized each other.

“And what about me? I didn’t sleep all night!”

We laughed a great deal about it, showing how much officers were tempted to express their bitterness in private, despite the danger of doing so, even outside the Nazi apparatus.

At the same time, Georg found himself, according to his comrades, in a similar state of mind. By the end
of August 1941, the effects of the disastrous hygienic conditions that had been endured for ten weeks were beginning to make themselves felt among his troops. Exhausted by lack of sleep, confronted by extreme weather conditions, harassed by marches and battles, attacked by lice and mosquitoes, prevented from doing laundry regularly, dozens of men in the Sixth Reconnaissance Battalion were beginning to show the symptoms of dysentery. Despite the strict instructions given by the physicians to drink boiled water and nothing else, the men’s bodies, of which too much had been demanded, became vulnerable. Repeated vaccinations carried out in early August against all sorts of epidemics proved insufficient. The weather, which had been so good in early July, had deteriorated. The coolness and humidity at the end of the summer led to cramps and rheumatism among even the toughest. These joint pains, soon accompanied by gastric problems and weight loss, were the early signs of dreadful diarrhea. In short, by August 26, in Georg’s cavalry squadron alone, thirty-two men had already fallen sick and were incapable of fighting. Dr. Haape, the physician for the neighboring Eighteenth Infantry Regiment, tried to treat every new case. Georg was ill, even though he refused to be put on the sick list. He did, however, consent to being treated for a week by Dr. Haape, to take laxatives, and even—the greatest shame—to stay in bed for days with a hot-water bottle on his stomach. To thank the doctor, who was indefatigably performing his
duties, Georg, who had recovered after eight days under his care, invited him to dinner along with Franz Joseph von Kageneck. They began to talk about this and that. The conversation then turned to more serious subjects. Georg felt at ease talking with Dr. Haape, whose humanity appeared on his round and jovial face (and who related the following conversation to me), and with Kageneck, who was a military man par excellence, a Catholic—he came from a family in Baden that included Metternich’s mother—and irreproachably upright.