As the reactions to the bomb-plot revealed, the bonds of the German people to Hitler, if greatly loosened, were far from broken in mid-1944. The failure of Stauffenberg’s attempt had prompted an outpouring of support for Hitler which unquestionably strengthened the regime for a time. The feeling that to attempt to kill the head of state, and at a time when the nation was fighting for its very existence, was a heinous crime was far from confined to Nazi fanatics. The Catholic sector of the population, for instance, recognized for its lukewarm backing for a regime which since its inception had conducted its attritional campaign against the Church, was also prominently represented in the huge demonstrations of loyalty to Hitler in late July.86 Both major denominations — important formative influences on opinion — condemned the attempt to kill Hitler even after the war.87 And as late as the early 1950s, a third of those questioned in opinion surveys still criticized the attack on Hitler’s life on 20 July 1944.88 But above all, the voices captured by the SD in the first days after the assassination attempt were those of the dwindling masses of continued loyal believers in the Führer. They had spoken loudly for the last time. What proportion of the population (or even of a Nazi Party with a nominal membership by this time of over 8 million Germans)89 they represented can only be guessed at; but they constituted by now almost certainly a minority — if still a controlling minority with massive repressive capacity.
Even some of the SD’s own provincial stations were providing, within weeks of the explosion in the Wolf’s Lair, blunt indicators of the collapse in Hitler’s popularity. A devastating report on 8 August from the SD office in Stuttgart, for instance, began by stating that for the overwhelming majority of the population in that area it was not a question of whether Germany would win the war, but only whether they would be ruled by the Anglo-Americans or Russians. Beyond a small number of Party activists and a tiny section of the population, no one thought there would be a miracle. People read into Hitler’s speech on the night after Stauffenberg’s bomb-attack the exact opposite of what was intended. It was now plain, they said, that Göring, Goebbels, and other leading men in the regime had lied to them in claiming that time was on Germany’s side, armaments production was rising, and the day of a return to the offensive backed by new, decisive weapons was close at hand. They had now heard in the Führer’s own words that his work had been sabotaged for years. In other words, people were saying: ‘The Führer is admitting that time has previously not been on our side, but running against us. If such a man as the Führer has been so thoroughly deceived,’ the summary of prevailing opinion continued, ‘then he is either not the genius that he has been depicted as, or, knowing that saboteurs were at work, he intentionally lied to the German people, which would be just as bad, for, with such enemies within, war-production could never have been raised, and we could never gain victory.’ The consequence of such thoughts was made explicit: ‘The most worrying aspect of the whole thing is probably that most comrades of the people, even those who up to now have believed unshakeably, have lost all faith in the Führer.’90
As the autumn wore on and Hitler, after his brief return for a final time to the centre of people’s attention, again faded from most people’s daily consciousness, attitudes against him in the same region hardened still further. On
Sometimes, irrational belief was all that was left. A teenage girl, writing in her diary at the end of August and in early September 1944, saw blow following blow in Germany’s war effort: the attack on the Führer’s life, advances of the western Allies, constant German retreat on the eastern front, the incessant bombing, and the collapse of the Reich’s alliance-partners. ‘On one side there is victory, which is becoming ever more doubtful, and on the other Bolshevism,’ she wrote. ‘But then: rather sacrifice everything, absolutely everything, for victory, than for Bolshevism. If that should come, then you shouldn’t think further. What would I still go to school for if I’m going to end up in Siberia? What for? What for? A whole number of questions line up like this. But if we all wanted to think in this way, there would be no hope left. So, head high. Trust in our will and our leadership!!!’92
