The Oster Conspiracy Plan
In April, 1938, Adolf Hitler was firming up plans to create a new German Empire, one that would include Poland, the Ukraine, Baltic states, Scandinavia, Holland, Flemish Belgium, Luxembourg, Burgundy, Alsace-Lorraine, and Switzerland. But that meant war, pitting Germany against France and its ally Russia as well as Great Britain and the United States. A disastrous war instigated by an insular nation ill prepared militarily and economically to engage in what would trigger assaults on all of its sides—land, sea, and air.
Hitler magnanimously gave the military three to four years to prepare for the beginning of that war—an assault on the west. Meantime, he told leaders of the German armed forces what he expected as the first step: begin mobilizing troops to neutralize the nearby seat of manufacturing and arms production—Czechoslovakia—“to smash Czechoslovakia in the near future by military action.” (Herbert Molloy Mason: To Kill the Devil, p 39.)
Top-level members of the German army and military intelligence along with former government ministers immediately began preparing to act audaciously—to engineer and execute a coup that would remove Hitler from power, forestall retaliation from the Gestapo and SS, and impose military rule until a new civilian government could be formed. (James P. Duffy and Vincent L. Ricci: Target Hitler, John Grehan: The Hitler Assassination Attempts)
The Plan
What eventually became known as the Oster Conspiracy called for a squad from the Berlin Defense Distract III Military District and intelligence agents from Abwehr to march on and occupy the Reichs Chancellery in Berlin, take Hitler into custody and force him to resign on the spot or take him to a secret location until he did so.
https://ww2db.com/image.php?image_id=26284 (Photo of the Reich Chancellery in 1938 before reconstruction completed in 1939.)
The plan took shape after Hitler was rebuked by French and British diplomats in May, 1938. Czech intelligence first noticed German troop buildups near the border on May 19. Two days later, Czech armed forces were sent to the border, and the following day both France and Britain delivered messages of warning. British Foreign Minister Halifax noted that Germany should “not count on this country being able to stand aside…” (Terry Parssinen: The Oster Conspiracy of 1938, p 36) Infuriated that the world press believed he might appear to have backed down and yielded to the west, Hitler on May 28 told his military high command of his “unshakable will”—“that Czechoslovakia shall be wiped off the map”--and called for invasion no later than October 1. (The Oster Conspiracy, p 38)
The first step for the prime mover of the conspiracy, Lt. Col. Hans Oster, second in command of Abwehr military intelligence, was to get the German Army’s General Staff on board.
Col Ludwig Beck, chief of the General Staff, was already wary. He called the “theoretical” plan to attack Czechoslovakia he was asked by Hitler to prepare in 1935 “an act of desperation.”(Mason: To Kill the Devil, p 35) When Hitler reiterated his demands for invasion in 1938, Beck intensified efforts to dissuade the Führer and push military leaders to resist. He sent memos to Hitler detailing the international ramifications of a Czech invasion and showed the likelihood of German defeat to army leaders in a hypothetical war game exercise in June, only to be met with derision. Junior officers dismissed Beck’s concerns, believing he did not “understand the dynamism of the new regime.” Hitler himself accused Beck of cowardice: “What kind of generals are those that I have to drive to war!” (The Oster Conspiracy of 1938, p 47)
Beck nevertheless worked to convince his superior, Walter von Brauchitsch, arguing forcefully against invasion and pushing for generals to resign in protest. Brauchitsch eventually held a meeting of senior commanders and agreed to meet with Hitler directly to voice their objections when none of the men was “convinced of the Führer’s genius,” only to be slapped down by the chancellor in August. (To Kill the Devil, p 39)
Beck then began meeting with Oster regularly, putting the final pieces together for a coup d’ etát.
Lightning Strike
Members of a Strosstrupp or raiding party were recruited from the ranks of active military and the Abwehr, former members of the Stahlen WW I veterans group, student and labor leaders. By mid-September, 1938, 56 hardline anti-Nazis had signed on, were given arms and explosives, and installed in safe houses throughout Berlin. Their assignment: to lead a direct attack on the chancellery, blow off entry doors if need be, remove the 12 to 15 SS who guarded the main entrance to the building and the entrance to Hitler’s quarters and patrolled the corridors and grounds as directed by Gen. Erwin von Witzleben, the commander of the military district of Berlin, Wehrkreis III, and Maj. Friedrich Wilhelm Heinz.
More than men and materiel were needed. The coup plan also called for the coordinated movement of troops and police to tamp down the expected violent response from the Gestapo and SS by rounding up Nazi leaders ahead of or at the time of the attack and securing the city of Berlin.
Key locations were identified: The war ministry and other ministries, the main radio transmitter and radio stations, Gestapo headquarters, police and SS installations. As soon as the raiding party made its move, two senior military commanders would direct their divisions to target and occupy each location, arrest and detain all SS and Gestapo: Walter von Brockdorff-Ahlefeldt of the 23rd Infantry Division and Paul von Hase of the 50th Infantry Division.
A third, Erich Hoepner, would position the 1st Light Division across the road leading to Berlin from Munich to stop Hitler’s bodyguards in the SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte from entering the city.
Police units also had to be restrained from taking action against the army divisions once the coup became operational or, perhaps, encouraged to join the conspirators. The liaison to the police was Hans Gisevius, a former officer in the Gestapo and employee of the Ministry of the Interior. With the help of Arthur Nebe, a police officer who had access to some of the Gestapo’s secret files and reports, and Wolf von Helldorf, Berlin chief of police, Gisevius obtained the addresses of police stations in Berlin, some of which were housed in private homes. (To Kill the Devil)
More than Wishful Thinking
The conspirators gradually put meat on the bare bones of the coup plot. Gisevius and Brockdorff scoped out the targeted locations, careful not to catch the eyes or ears of the Gestapo. Posing as tourists, they rode up and down streets of Berlin driven by a woman whose husband was director of an insurance company and no friend of Hitler.
While Elizabeth Strünck circled individual sites, Brockdorff sketched entrances and exits and flagged possible escape routes into back gardens and over walls, prioritized particularly dangerous areas, such as the SS barracks at Lichterfelde, and flagged the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen, which could serve as a propaganda point, showing that the coup would be returning Germany to a country that valued human rights and dignity over the iron boot when the military regime released all 5000 inmates. (To Kill the Devil)
From a private office next to that of commander Witzleben in the Wehrkreis III military compound, Gisevius scanned intelligence reports without having to worry about wire taps or SS spies.
Plotters even came up with a cover story for the early days of the coup. Operatives would announce that they had to take drastic action because the SS was rising up against Hitler and the armed forces, thereby assuring that Wehrmacht units across the country would not interfere with their actions until they could tell the full story.
What To Do about Hitler
Plotters agreed initially that Abwehr chief Friedrich Heinz and his troops should breach the chancellery battlements and arrest Hitler. Opinions differed markedly after that. Some hoped for a trial that would conclude Hitler was unfit to continue serving as chancellor because of insanity. The trial would dredge up a report from the hospital where Hitler had recovered from a mustard gas attack in Flanders during WW I and cite the conclusion of medical experts at the time that he was psychopathic and exhibited symptoms of hysteria. (To Kill the Devil)
Others worried a trial and incarceration in a mental facility would feed Hitler’s myth and popularity but refrained from calling for an outright assassination or murder. But Beck and Heinz and others conceded that an altercation with Hitler could be arranged and lead to a gun battle that left Hitler dead from a gunshot would. (Roger Moorhouse: Killing Hitler)
Though all its elements were in place, the Oster plan never fully materialized. So what went wrong? See next month’s Historka post.
Sources:
John Grehan: The Hitler Assassination Attempts, Frontline Books, 2022.
James P. Duffy and Vincent L. Ricci: Target Hitler, Praeger Publishers, 1992.
Herbert Molloy Mason, Jr.: To Kill the Devil, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1978.
Roger Moorhouse: Killing Hitler, Bantam Books, 2006.
Terry Parssinen: The Oster Conspiracy of 1938, Harper Collins, 2003