A Lawyer's Voice from Nazi Germany: April to May 1940

This is another installment from the letters of Helmuth James von Moltke as taken from Letters to Freya (Knopf 1990). In these excerpts from April to May 1940, he becomes increasingly concerned about avoiding war in the West. These are some of the most important entries I have read so far.

Berlin 13 April 1940

The process by which Denmark is gradually to be made like Poland begins today. I did what I could to prevent it, but when I first heard about it the people who should have done something had already given their consent. Otherwise the situation is unchanged.

Berlin 14 April 1940

I'd intended to go to the Instiutute today. But I'll stay here. First I went to the Office in the morning to see how things were going. I got into conversation with Burkner on the strategic aspects of this present operation. It took an hour; unfortunately it was more use to him than to me. I started by complaining that we are continually being informed only of the How of operations, while the really interesting Why is withheld from us, so that we are reduced to guess work. I found this to be so time and again. It seems to be a trait of the German character to evade the Whether in important matters and to push the How into the foreground and to rejoice in doing that so well and never to ask whether it should be done at all. The Germans seem to have a pronounced gift for tactics and seem to be hopeless at strategy.

Translated into military terms this flaw means that these men, rejoicing in operations and victories, quite lose sight of the goal of winning the war. Instead of pondering whether a solution will bring the winning of the war nearer, they think only of the best solution for each question. I've seen someone start as from a dream when I asked naively whether he thought his suggestion was calculated to promote the winning of the war. It's really only Schuster and Weichold I haven't found making this mistake.

It's the same with this operation in the North. I've already asked quite a number of people why we occupied Norway. Not one has been able to give a satisfactory answer. But not only did the answer leave me unsatisfied, no, I noticed every time at the end of the conversation that my interlocutor wasn't satisfied by the answer either, or, rather, was no longer satisfied. For the time being I actually have a better solution than the others; only this possible solution doesn't seem to have dawned on anyone; it would demand certain preparations which have not been made.

This is a remarkable entry. It shows a bureaucrat asking difficult questions about his country's actions. His analysis of Why, How and Whether shows a philosophical bent. Of course, he does come off as a bit impressed with himself. Nevertheless, his questioning is almost patriotic in the sense of asking whether strategic decisions are actually in the national interest. At this point in time, Von Moltke still holds hope that reasoned discourse can avert tragedy for Germany. His description of the mindset of the German policymakers aeems eerily similiar to the American mindset in the runup to the Iraq war.

Berlin 18 April 1940

Last night I had an exciting dream. I was sent to Holland on duty and had a weekend there. So I decided to go to London with an American passport, the passport of a friend who did not appear in the dream. I arrived in London Saturday morning and went from Liverpool street to 5 Duke of York Street, where I surprised Michael (Balfour) at his morning toilet. He had to get to the office and I went to the Temple and sat down in John Foster's room, where I did some telephoning and was visited by various acquaintances. Lionel Curtis, unfortunately, was not in London. For some military reason or other I was not able to go to Oxford and he said he'd come up. On Sunday we walked through London, through the parks, which were already very springlike. Curtis had become a bit fatter but was well and chipper--For some inexexplicable reason I missed the night train, which was to have brought me back to my work at the Hague on Monday morning. That was the diagreeable end of an otherwise very nice dream: I felt compelled to choose between two alternatives: being shot as a spy in England or as a traitor in Germany. And so I woke up.

His dream was prescient, since he was eventually hung as a traitor in Germany.

Berlin 22 April 1940

Today was ghastly again because we are now beginning to behave in Norway as in Poland. It is ghastly. The SS have been sent in and you'll soon see the organizational changes in the papers. And the military go along. I am terribly depressed.

Berlin 29 April 1940

I didn't write yesterday because at 6 o'clock I discovered a mistake in a memorandum that was to give the reasons for a decision that had already been formulated as an order, and it undermined the whole thing. I then sat over it till 12. Today all hell has broken loose. I must finish this memorandum before I leave and the order is already wrong.

This short entry speaks to the lawyer in me. I can empathize with von Moltke because I have faced many five o'clock emergencies in my own practice.

Breslau 19 May 1940

Heaven knows what I am in Berlin for. The main purpose of my work is gone. Well, I must wait and see. But you are my love and that at least is a firm point.

I hope that the question of workers can be setteld so that the awful pressure is relieved.

When von Moltke speaks of "the main purpose of his work" being gone, he is referring to his attempts to prevent the western invasion. Germany attacked neutral Belgium, Holland and Luxemburg on May 10, 1940.

Berlin 20 May 1940

The picture tonight is of a complete collapse of the French front in the North-West resulting from an outright military failure of the French, especially of their leadership. Gamelin has failed his exam. The superiority of the Luftwaffe admittedly played a big part, but a big real mistake was made. Incomprehensible! And it will have enormous consequences. But we will have to wait a few days.

Berlin 21 May 1940

You ask how I am? What do you expect? I am threshing empty straw on a side track, for everything I might have been able to do has been overtaken by events. That is, naturally unpleasant. But what am I to do? I am in the machine now and must wait to see how I get out again. . . .

And yet I have heaps of work. That's the annoying thing. I have a very hard week ahead of me and late evenings will be the rule. When all that is taken into account, I am really quite well. Your husband is well and dissatisfied, nailed to the spot and in need of departure for Kreisau. This is a time that has to be endured.

The entries of 19 May and 21 May are very poignant for me. This principled man has failed in his efforts to prevent the Western invasion. The weapons of bureacratic infighting were no match for the German war machine. It is hard to know whether he even had a chance or merely overestimated his own importance. This series of excerpts ends with him "in the machine" and "well and dissatisfied." He has found the conduct of the occupying German forces "ghastly." I suspect that these entries mark the beginning of his transition from working within the regime to working against it. However, I have a lot more reading to do. It is interesting to me that he is so candid with his wife and apparently unconcerned with his letters being discovered by the authorities.