D-Day_ The Battle for Normandy - Antony Beevor [322]
46
The NKVD directorate under General Sudoplatov planned several attempts to kill Hitler, including one at Vinnitsa in the Ukraine, and another in Germany with an ex-boxer called Igor Miklashevsky and the composer Lev Knipper, the brother of the actress Olga Chekhova. None of these ever came close to being activated.
47
The two bombs, only one of which Stauffenberg had time to arm, used British fuses. These had been dropped by SOE to a Resistance group in France, and later captured by the Germans. They had then been passed on to the conspirators by a supporter within the Abwehr in September 1943. Stauffenberg had gone with his bomb to Rastenburg twice before, on 6 July and 15 July, but the right opportunity did not arise.
48
It is important to remember that a number of those who opposed Hitler on military grounds did not necessarily object to the ‘final solution’, except in certain details. Eberbach was recorded on tape to have said to his son in captivity in England that September, ‘In my opinion, one can even go as far as to say that the killing of those million Jews, or however many it was, was necessary in the interests of our people. But to kill the women and children wasn’t necessary. That is going too far.’ His son, a naval officer, replied, ‘Well, if you are going to kill off the Jews, then kill the women and children too, or the children at least. There is no need to do it publicly, but what good does it do me to kill off the old people?’
49
When Churchill met Roosevelt in Quebec for the Octagon conference that September, Field Marshal Brooke wrote a brief ‘Explanation of Continued German Resistance’: ‘Continued German Resistance is chiefly due to the fanatical determination of Nazi Party leaders to fight to the end and to their possession of the necessary political and psychological control in Germany. This determination is based on the doctrine held by the Nazis that Germany surrendered too quickly in 1918; their fear for their own safety; a fanatical belief in their own capabilities which prevents them from accurately appraising the situation; and the lack of any alternative to continued resistance which would seem to offer opportunities for a later revival of their power.’
50
Some Soviet Hiwi volunteers with the German forces proved fanatically loyal. A member of the 272nd Infantry Division wrote that they ‘had a really good relationship with them’. They also proved extremely effective at looting food for their German comrades. And ‘Panzer’ Meyer of the 12th SS Division had a cossack orderly who seems to have been devoted to him.
51
Altogether 130,000 men were drafted into the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS from Alsace, Lorraine and areas of southern Belgium. They were classified as ‘Volksdeutsche’, but reluctant Francophones described themselves as ‘malgré-nous’, or ‘despite ourselves’.
52
The US Army carried out a careful examination of their German prisoners. A report recorded that their average age was twenty-eight, their average height was 5 foot 5¾ inches, and that their average weight was just under 150 pounds. The shortest were those born between 1919 and 1921, the ‘starvation years’ in Germany.
53
A lateral bomb run would mean approaching the narrowest side of the target area. This required them to attack in a very restricted formation. It also exposed their aircraft to flak along the length of the German front.
54
Stalin’s government was extremely sensitive on this issue. The Soviet ambassador in Washington, DC, made an official complaint after stories about former Red Army soldiers fighting for the Germans were filed by Associated Press and United Press correspondents in Normandy.
55
Three days later, on 28 July, the Germans became aware from some