Alongside the thirsting for brutal revenge, the failed bomb-plot gave a further mighty boost to Hitler’s sense of walking with destiny. With ‘Providence’ on his side, as he imagined, his survival was to him the guarantee that he would fulfil his historic mission. It intensified the descent into pure messianism. ‘These criminals who wanted to do away with me have no idea what would have happened to the German people,’ Hitler told his secretaries. ‘They don’t know the plans of our enemies, who want to annihilate Germany so that it can never arise again. If they think that the western powers are strong enough without Germany to hold Bolshevism in check, they are deceiving themselves. This war must be won by us. Otherwise Europe will be lost to Bolshevism. And I will see to it that no one else can hold me back or eliminate me. I am the only one who knows the danger, and the only one who can prevent it.’62 Such sentiments were redolent, through a distorting mirror, of the Wagnerian redeemer-figure, a hero who alone could save the holders of the Grail, indeed the world itself, from disaster — a latter-day Parsifal.
But, once more looking to his own place in history, and looking to the reasons why the path of destiny had led to mounting tragedy for Germany, instead of glorious victory, he found a further reason, beyond the treachery of his generals: the weakness of the people. If Speer can be believed, Hitler gave at this time an intimation that the German people might not deserve him, might have proved weak, have failed its test before history, and thus be condemned to destruction.63 It was one of the few hints, whether in public or in private, amid the continued outpourings of optimism about the outcome of the war, that Hitler indeed contemplated, even momentarily, the possibility of total defeat.
Whatever the positive gloss he instinctively and insistently placed upon news of the latest setbacks as he continued to play the role of Führer to perfection, he was not devoid of understanding for the significance of the successful landing of the western Allies in Normandy, the dramatic collapse of the eastern front which left the Red Army in striking distance of the borders of the Reich itself, the ceaseless bombing that the Luftwaffe was powerless to prevent, the overwhelming Allied superiority in weaponry and raw materials, and gloomy reports of a mounting, critical fuel shortage. Kluge and Rommel had both urged Hitler to end the war which he could not win.64 But he continued to dismiss out of hand all talk of suing for peace. The situation was ‘not yet ripe for a political solution’, he declared. ‘To hope for a favourable political moment to do something during a time of severe military defeats is naturally childish and naïve,’ he went on, during the military briefing session with his generals on 31 August 1944. ‘Such moments can present themselves when you have successes.’ But where were the successes likely to materialize? All he could point to was a feeling of certainty that at some point the Allied coalition would break down under the weight of its inner tensions. It was a matter of waiting for that moment, however tough the situation was.
‘My task has been,’ he continued, ‘especially since 1941 under no circumstances to lose my nerve.’ He lived, he said, just to carry out this struggle since he knew that it could only be won through a will of iron. Instead of spreading this iron will, the General Staff officers had undermined it, disseminating nothing but pessimism. But the fight would continue, if necessary even on the Rhine. He once more evoked one of his great heroes of history. ‘We will under all circumstances carry on the struggle until, as Frederick the Great said, one of our damned opponents is tired of fighting any longer, and until we get a peace which secures the existence of the German nation for the next fifty or a hundred years and’ — he was back at a central obsession — ‘which, above all, does not defile our honour a second time, as happened in 1918.’ This thought brought him directly to the bomb plot, and to his own survival. ‘Fate could have taken a different turn,’ he continued, adding with some pathos: ‘If my life had been ended, it would have been for me personally, I might say, only a liberation from worries, sleepless nights, and severe nervous strain. In a mere fraction of a second you’re freed from all that and have rest and your eternal peace. For the fact that I’m still alive, I nevertheless have to thank Providence.’65
