Ludwig Beck - Pre-war Conflict With Hitler

Pre-war Conflict With Hitler

Beck resented Adolf Hitler for his efforts to curb the army's position of influence. Beck tried very early—as Chief of the General Staff—to deter Hitler from using the grievances of the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia, the population of which was mostly ethnic-German, as an excuse for war against the latter state in 1938.

Beck had no moral objection to the idea of war of aggression to eliminate Czechoslovakia as a state. In 1935, he had a series of meetings with Prince Bernard von Bülow, the State Secretary of the German Foreign Office and the Chief of the Hungarian General Staff to discuss plans "for the division of Czechoslovakia". On 12 November 1937, Beck submitted a memorandum stating that "various facts" show the requirement "for an imminent solution by force" of the problem of Czechoslovakia and that it was desirable to start preparing "the political ground among those powers which stood on our side or who were not against us", and that the "military discussion in either the one case or the other should begin at once".

However, Beck felt that Germany needed more time to rearm before starting such a war. In Beck's assessment, the earliest date Germany could risk a war was 1940, and any war started in 1938 would be a "premature war" that Germany would lose. In the Hossbach Memorandum of 1937, Hitler had expressed his belief that Britain and France would not intervene in the event of German aggression against Austria and Czechoslovakia, a conviction strengthened by the Anschluss earlier in the year, and they would not stand in his way if he should try again to enlarge the Reich. Beck, however, believed that the French would honor the terms of the Franco-Czechoslovak alliance of 1924, and that, should France go to war with Germany, Britain would then almost certainly enter the war on the Allied side. He also felt that Germany did not have the raw materials to fight a European war.

While most of the generals felt the idea of starting a war in 1938 was highly risky, none of them would confront Hitler with a refusal to carry out orders, since the majority opinion was that Beck's arguments against war in 1938 were flawed. From May 1938, Beck had bombarded Hitler, Wilhelm Keitel and Walther von Brauchitsch with memoranda opposing Fall Grün (Case Green), the plan for a war with Czechoslovakia. In the first of his memos, on 5 May 1938, Beck argued that the Sino-Japanese War meant Japan would be unable to come to Germany's aid, that the French Army was the best fighting force in Europe, and that Britain was certain to intervene on the side of France should Germany attack Czechoslovakia. In his May memo, Beck argued that Hitler's assumptions about France, made in the Hossbach Memorandum of 1937, were mistaken, and stated his belief that France "wishes for peace or, perhaps more accurately, abhors a new war", but that "in case of a real threat, or what is perceived by the people to be foreign policy pressure, the French nation comes together as if one". Beck stated in the same memo that Hitler was wrong about France being on the verge of civil war and that, in the event of a German threat to Czechoslovakia, the French would see such a threat as "a question of honour...for which a strong government will have no difficulty pulling itself together". Beck stated his belief that "The French army is and remains intact and is at the moment the strongest in Europe". Beck ended his memo with the comments that: "The military-economic situation of Germany is bad, worse than in 1917–1918. In its current military, military-political and military-economic condition, Germany cannot expose itself to the risk of a long war". The May Crisis of May 21–22, 1938 further convinced Beck of the dangers of going to war in 1938, and led him to increase his efforts to stop a war that he felt Germany could not win. In November 1938, Beck informed a friend that, from the time of the May Crisis, the only consideration in his mind was "How can I prevent a war?".

On 22 May 1938, Hitler stated that, though he had deep respect for Beck for his pro-Nazi testimony at the Ulm trial of 1930, his views were too much that of a Reichswehr general, and not enough of a Wehrmacht general. Hitler commented that Beck was "one of the officers still imprisoned in the idea of the hundred-thousand-man army". On 28 May 1938, Beck had a meeting with Hitler, the Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, Admiral Erich Raeder, Hermann Göring, Wilhelm Keitel, and Walther von Brauchitsch, during which Hitler restated the views he had first expressed in the Hossbach Memorandum. In response, Beck drafted another memo on May 29, in which he presented a case that the Czechoslovak Army was not, as Hitler argued, a weak force, and that a limited regional war in Central Europe was not a realistic possibility. In the same memo of 29 May, Beck proclaimed his agreement with Hitler's views about the necessity of acquiring Lebensraum in Eastern Europe, called the existence of Czechoslovakia "intolerable", and concluded that "a way must be found to eliminate it (Czechoslovakia) as a threat to Germany, even, if necessary, by war". However, Beck argued that Germany was not strong enough to fight the general war that would result from an attack on Czechoslovakia in 1938, and urged Hitler to avoid a "premature war". In particular, Beck argued that "It is not accurate to judge Germany today as stronger than in 1914", and he presented a detailed military case that more time was needed before the Wehrmacht would be as strong as the Army of 1914. Furthermore, Beck contended that he could not "accept these estimates of the military power of France and England...Germany, whether alone or in alliance with Italy, is not in a position militarily to match England or France".

At first, Beck felt that Hitler's rush to war in 1938 was not caused by the Führer's personality, but was rather caused by Hitler receiving poor military advice, especially from Keitel. As a result, Beck spent much of his time urging a reorganization of the command structure, so that Hitler would receive his advice from the General Staff, and presumably abandon his plans for aggression. In one of his memos opposing war in 1938, Beck commented:

Once again, the comments of the Führer demonstrate the complete inadequacy of the current top military-advisory hierarchy. What is needed is continual, competent advising of the commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht on questions of war leadership and above all on weapons of war, with clear delineation of responsibilities. If steps are not taken soon to produce a change in conditions, which have grown intolerable; if the current anarchy becomes a permanent condition; then the future destiny of the Wehrmacht in peace and war, indeed the destiny of Germany in a future war, must be painted in the blackest of colors.

Only in June 1938 did Beck realize that it was Hitler who was behind the drive for war, and, in a memo to Brauchitsch, urge that all of the senior officers threaten a mass collective resignation to force Hitler to abandon his plans for Fall Grün in 1938. Beck ended his appeal to Brauchitsch:

Now at stake are final decisions regarding the fate of the nation. History will burden those leaders with blood guilt if they do not act according to their professional and statesmanly principles and knowledge. Their soldierly loyalty must end at the boundary where their knowledge, conscience, and sense of responsibility forbid the execution of an order. In case their advice and warnings fall on deaf ears in such circumstances, then they have the right and the duty, before the people and history, to resign their offices. If they all act together, then it will be impossible to carry out military action. They will thereby save the Fatherland from the worst, from total ruin. If a soldier in a position of highest authority in such times see his duties and tasks only within the limits of his military responsibilities, without consciousness of his higher responsibility to the whole people, then he shows a lack of greatness, a lack of comprehension of responsibility. Extraordinary times demand extraordinary actions!

On 16 July 1938, Beck wrote a memo stating that the Army might have to resolve unspecified "internal political" problems. Beck's campaign for a mass resignation was not aimed at the overthrow of Hitler, but was rather intended to persuade Hitler to abandon his plans for war in 1938, and to purge certain "radical" elements from the Nazi Party, who Beck believed to have a negative influence on Hitler. Together with the Abwehr chief, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, and the German Foreign Office's State Secretary, Baron Ernst von Weizsäcker, Beck was a leader of the "anti-war" group in the German government, which was determined to avoid a war in 1938 that it felt Germany would lose. This group was not necessarily committed to the overthrow of the regime, but was loosely allied to another, more radical group, the "anti-Nazi" fraction centered around Colonel Hans Oster and Hans Bernd Gisevius, which wanted to use the crisis as an excuse for executing a putsch to overthrow the Nazi regime. The divergent aims between these two factions produced considerable tensions.

In a June 1938 Generalstabsreise (General Staff study), Beck concluded that Germany could defeat Czechoslovakia, but that to do so would leave western Germany empty of troops, thus potentially allowing the French to seize the Rhineland with little difficulty. Beck maintained that Czechoslovak defences were very formidable, that Prague could mobilize at least 38 divisions, and that at least 30 German divisions would be needed to break through, requiring at a minimum a three week-long campaign. Beck concluded that Hitler's assumptions about a limited war in 1938 were mistaken, and that he felt "as fateful, the military action against Czechoslovakia, planned on the basis of these military premises, and must explicitly disavow any responsibility of the general staff of the Army for such action". In July 1938, upon being shown Beck's 5 May 1938 memo opposing Fall Grün by von Brauchitsch, Hitler called Beck's arguments "kindische Kräfteberechnungen" ("childish calculations"). In another memo of July 1938, Beck contended that a war with Czechoslovakia, France and Britain could only end in Germany's defeat, and urged Hitler to postpone his plans for aggression until such a time as Germany was strong enough for such a war. In late July 1938, Erich von Manstein, a leading protégé of Beck's, wrote to his mentor urging him to stay at his post, and place his faith in Hitler. On 29 July, Beck wrote a memo stating the German Army had the duty to prepare for possible wars with foreign enemies and "for an internal conflict which need only take place in Berlin". The July 29 memo is normally considered the start of Beck's efforts to overthrow the Nazi regime.

At the beginning of August 1938, Beck wrote a speech for Brauchitsch to read before Hitler stating the Army's opposition to the "premature war" likely to be triggered by Fall Grün, which, however, Brauchitsch chose not to deliver. In August 1938, Beck suggested to General Walther von Brauchitsch that a "house-cleaning" of the Nazi regime was necessary, under which the influence of the SS be reduced, but Hitler would continue as dictator. At an 10 August summit the leading generals of the Reich, Hitler spent much of the time attacking Beck's arguments against Fall Grün, and won the majority of the generals over.

Colonel General Beck resigned alone on 18 August, and left office on 27 August. He was replaced, as head of the General Staff, by General Franz Halder. At Hitler's request, Beck kept his resignation secret, and thus nullified the protest value of his resignation. Hitler promised Beck that if he kept his resignation secret, he would be rewarded with a major field command, and Beck was much disillusioned when he was instead put on the retired list.