Hitler, Volume 2 by Volker Ullrich

Author:Volker Ullrich [Ullrich, Volker]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448190836
Publisher: Random House

How did the German people react to the assassination attempt? The first Security Service reports spoke of the attack on Hitler ‘unleashing, like a shock wave, the strongest dismay, disbelief, deep anger and rage among the entire population’. Women were described weeping in the streets, whereas the news of Hitler’s survival had allowed people to ‘catch their breath’ and exclaim ‘Thank God, the Führer is alive!’85 Indeed, the great majority of Germans seem to have disapproved of the assassination attempt. Even among those critical of National Socialism, the view appears to have been widespread that Hitler’s death would have only made the situation worse and possibly led to civil war. Images of the scene of the attack published in the newspapers made people realise the destructive force of the bomb and agree with the propagandistic assertion that the Führer was blessed by Providence and had only survived the assassination attempt thanks to a ‘great miracle’.86 Relief that Hitler had been saved was mixed with outrage at the ‘aristocratic clique of officers’ that was held responsible for the attack. Robert Ley, the head of the German Labour Front, sought to further incite such animosity by demanding in a radio speech on 22 July, and in a newspaper article the following day, that ‘this scum be exterminated and annihilated from the roots on up’.87 That went too far even for Hitler, and he got Bormann to instruct the Reichsleiter and Gauleiter that no one was allowed to get carried away and ‘attack or insult the officer corps, the military leadership, the aristocracy or parts of the Wehrmacht in corpore’. Instead, Hitler ordered, it was crucial to stress that the conspirators represented a ‘certain, relatively small clique of officers’.88

Meanwhile, on Hitler’s orders, Goebbels organised events throughout the Reich and they were well attended. Even if these were not, as Nazi propaganda claimed, spontaneous gatherings of the German people, the attack had undoubtedly boosted Hitler’s popularity. ‘Almost universally, people’s connection to the Führer has grown more profound and trust in the government has increased,’ the Security Service reported.89 Goebbels wrote that ‘loyalty to the Führer’ was being ‘expressed in previously unknown ways’ and that it felt as though ‘a great victory’ had been won.90 We must bear in mind, of course, that people were not at liberty to express all their opinions about the assassination attempt, especially as state repression was stepped up afterwards. In her diary, the journalist Ursula von Kardorff noted on 23 July that the editor-in-chief of her newspaper, the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, had warned reporters to exercise ‘the greatest caution’ in whatever they wrote: ‘There are going to be arrests in the thousands.’91 Regret that Hitler had survived the assassination attempt could only be expressed in small circles of like-minded people or in private journals, such as the diary of a sixteen-year-old Hamburg schoolboy, who wrote on 21 July: ‘A bomb attack was carried out … yesterday against Hitler. Unfortunately, the bastard miraculously survived uninjured.’92

Soldiers at the front would also

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