THE PUTSCH THAT FAILED TOLD IN 'BITTER END'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80M01009A000700970034-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 1, 2013
• Sequence Number: 34
• Publication Date: January 11, 1948
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/11/04: CIA-RDP80M01009A000700970034-0
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DAILY WORKER - January 11, 1948
The Putsch Tint Failed
Told in Bitter End'
By FRANK MEWEY
HANS GISEVIUS, a member of
the Beck-Goerdeler clique, has
written a fat tome purporting to
tell the "inside gory" of their
TO TOT IIITTETt END. by Hans Iltrnr1
01seclus. Houghton Mahn Co.. 632 pp.
?
conspiracy to assassinate Hitler.
It has been translated Into Eng-
lish with an introduction by Allen
Dupes ,now on the board of the
%1St Troider bank. Despite the tor-
tuous length of the book, Gise-
vius, who started with the Ges-
tapo and later joined the Ab-
wehr, the counter-intelligence di-
vision, says not a word in his
To The Bitter End, about the
anti-Soviet considerations which
motivated the conspirators.
Instead, he tries to give the
impression that the "movement"
extended over a long period of
p years and embraced a wide corps
of anti-Nag supporters, bound
together solely by their hatred. for
Hitler's dictatorship.
When Gisevius discusses the
Reichstag fire, the Boehm mas-
sacre, or Hitler's method of break-
ing top generals, his evidence is
concrete and of tea convincing.
But when he tries to give plau-
tibility to the claim that over a
long period of ycnrs the anti-
Hitler conspirators carried on an
underground struggle (at top
levels) the evidence becomes airy
and unreal.
Yet it was "proof" such as this
which Gisevius and his sponsors
introduced at the Nurmeberg trial
to exculpate Hjalmar Schacht,
whose financial services had won
'him a gold medal from the
fueh-
rer.
Not until after the Red Army
had smashed the Wehrmacht and
was heading for Berlin did the
Beck Goerdeler 3)up begin to
consider any action. Then, they
asked Dulles to arrange a deal?
but, of course, neither? Dulles nor
Gisevius mention any conversa-
tions about industries in the Ruhr ,
or the fate of bigwig monopolists.'I
As told by Gisevius, they were
thinking only of saving the Ger-
man people from further blood-
shed, and, as told by Dulles, they
sought to restore Christianity and
keep out the Bolsheviks.
In any case, the conspirators
fixed July 15, 1944, as the date
to explode # bomb at Hitler's feet,
but at the last minute Col. Stauf-
Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/11/04 : CIA-RDP80M01009A000700970034-0
fenberg got cold feet. He left the
meeting of the general stall and
telephoned his cohorts to ask
whether he should really go
through with the plot. By the
time he got their reassurances
and returned to the meeting, Hit-
ler had gone.
Five days later, Stauffenberg
finally got up courage enough to
kick his brief case and start the
ticking mechanism, but Hitler es-
caped serious injury owing to a
last-minute shift in plans by
which the meeting was moved
from an underground vault to n
flimsy barrackroom.
So hurriedly did Stauffenbarg
flee from the scene that he did
not even wait to find out whether
or not Hitler had been killed. The
incidents that followed during the
next few hours were indeed ludi-
crous and make it plain that, as
Gisevtus admits at one point, the
plotters sought to accomplish
their purposes merely by changing
around a few top officials.
After locking a few generals in
their offices and serving refresh-
ments to their captives, they sat
around and waited to be shot?
not even attempting to capture
Goering and Goebbels. Gisevius
escaped because he did not sit
Around to wait for the outcome
of the half-hearted putsch.
Though Dulles Is careful to
HANS GiEritS
claim that, while in Ssitzerland,
he acted in strict accordance with
the Big Three policy of "uncon-
ditional surrender," It is apparent
that he did not relish this policy.
In his book, he even goes out
of his way to avoid any direct ,
mention of President Roosevelt
and, hi his introduction to Glee-
vius' book, he bewails the fact
that the conspirators received so
little "encouragement."
If they had been successful,
Dulles rays that Germany would
have been spared the loss of "men
who are sorely needed now in the
task of German reconstruction."
_