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The Silences of Hammerstein (SB-The German List)

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THE SILENCES OF HAMMERSTEIN tells the story of General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord (a double-barreled last name often shortened to Hammerstein) and his remarkable family.

Who was Kurt von Hammerstein and why should anyone care about him? A short answer is that he was probably Adolf Hitler's most formidable enemy within Germany between 1930 and 1943. Hammerstein was Commander-in-Chief of the Reichswehr when Hitler assumed power as Chancellor on January 30, 1933. A few days before that, Hammerstein, strongly opposed to the Nazis and Hitler, had set aside his scruples against military interference in the affairs of government and gone to Paul van Hindenberg to warn him against appointing Hitler to the Chancellorship. (Hindenberg assured him he was considering no such thing.) Later, Hammerstein acknowledged that he and the Army, rather than trusting Hindenberg, probably should have taken steps to preempt and prevent, by force, the appointment of Hitler during those days of crisis leading up to January 30th. Hammerstein was eased out of his position as the head of the German Army via retirement in January 1934. Somehow he was spared from Hitler's orgy of retribution during the Night of the Long Knives, a few months later. In retirement and until his death to cancer in 1943, Hammerstein remained an implacable opponent of Hitler and was familiar with much of the plotting against Hitler from within. When, in 1939, Hammerstein was briefly restored to active duty, he (many historians believe) invited Hitler to visit the front with the secret intention of either killing or kidnapping him - but Hitler demurred.

Hammerstein also undertook many small acts of rebellion. He would use his access to inside information to protect people from the Gestapo, sending out warnings (sometimes through his own children) to those about to be arrested. He resigned from the Club of the Nobility when it expelled its last non-Aryan members in 1933 or 1934. He was the only general to attend the funeral of Kurt von Schleicher, after Schleicher (Hammerstein's long-time friend and the last Chancellor of the Weimar Republic) was one of the victims of the Night of the Long Knives.

Hammerstein was remarkably prescient: in 1929, he predicted that in a second world war, Germany would be partitioned; in 1939, he said that there was no way Germany could defeat the Soviet Union and he predicted that Germany would be crushed in the War. He also was remarkably perspicacious: for example, he understood, immediately upon its occurrence, that the Nazis were behind the Reichstag Fire.

Hammerstein famously made the observation that all army officers fit one of four profiles: clever and diligent (their place is the General Staff); stupid and lazy (suitable to routine duties); clever and lazy (qualified for the highest leadership duties because they possess "the intellectual clarity and composure necessary for difficult decisions"); or stupid and diligent (a type of officer that "must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always cause only mischief").

Nearly as remarkable was Hammerstein's family. Three of his daughters risked their freedom and even their lives in political activities against both the Weimar Republic and then the Third Reich; two of them were at one time Communists and spies for Stalinist Russia, and thus traitors to Germany. (Hammerstein himself, though opposed to communism as a political system, maintained ambiguously close relationships with some Russians as a matter of "realpolitik".) One of Hammerstein's sons was a conspirator and participant in the failed assassination and coup of July 20, 1944 and another son was a sympathizer; both had to go underground until the end of the War. His youngest son and youngest daughter, along with his widow, were imprisoned by the Nazis during the last days of the War, first at Buchenwald, then Dachau, and then in the South Tyrol.

It is a man, a family, and a story that deserve to be known, and for that we should be grateful to THE SILENCES OF HAMMERSTEIN. My reservations with the book have to do with the telling. Enzensberger clearly did a lot of research - in secondary sources, in archives, and through personal interviews - but it seems that he was either lazy or rushed for time when it came to pulling everything together. He gives us not an organized, coherent narrative, but rather about seventy-five vignettes or episodes, many of which are anecdotal in nature, some of which consist almost entirely of extended quotations from historical sources, and ten of which consist of imaginary "posthumous conversations" between Enzensberger and one of the now-deceased central figures (including Hammerstein himself). The author expressly states that the book is not a novel, and it appears that he deems it to be history. It is, however, unconventional and somewhat disorienting. Three plusses are the generous number of photographs, the relatively informal and frank writing style, and a quite readable translation.

The hero of this book, General Kurt von Hammerstein, did nothing outstandingly heroic, nor did he `make history'. He was famously `lazy'. He would say things like: lazy people have time to think. Diligence distracts. He was the one who said that clever lazy people are the true leaders (while stupid diligent ones are causing trouble.)
He had his own mind (Eigensinn, the subtitle of the German original of this book.) He tried to stop history when it was going the wrong way, but he failed.

What he did: he tried to talk Hindenburg, the German President in 1933, out of appointing Hitler as new Chancellor, i.e. head of government. At that time, Hammerstein was chief of the German army, reporting to the Minister for Military Affairs of the time. This boss was Kurt von Schleicher, his personal friend. Schleicher was also head of government at the time, the last chancellor of Weimar before Hitler.
Hindenburg is rumored to have said, in that meeting, that he would not appoint the `Austrian corporal' to the office of chancellor, but alas, he changed his mind. Within a short time, Germany was turned into a violent dictatorship. Schleicher would become a victim of murder during the `night of the long knives', when Hitler did away with internal rivals in 1934.

Hammerstein survived his negativism. He resigned from his position in December 1933 and was left more or less alone, despite unruly behavior of his 3 daughters, 2 of which were involved with Communist/ Russian espionage, while the 3rd sympathized with Zionism and had a part -Jewish husband.
Why was he left alone by the thugs? Maybe because he was considered harmless, had no political ambitions, and did not try to follow up on his negative stance to the new ruler. He was, after all, a member of the military aristocracy. Schleicher had more enemies in military circles and was more actively conspiring, including with Röhm.

Where did the Russian angle come from? In the case of the daughters, they moved in Bohemian and leftist circles. They were all lucky and survived. Many of their friends and boyfriends and operators did not.
The general himself had a Russian connection: during Weimar times, when Germany was not allowed by the Versailles contract to build up military capacity, the German military developed a secret cooperation with the Russian Red Army, and was building secret training facilities inside Russia.
Hammerstein was involved in that, but he was no sympathizer. He saw the cooperation with the Soviet Union as a pact with the devil. On the other hand, he was a convinced defender of the Weimar Republic, against the opinion of many of his military peers. His opposition to Hitler came from the republican angle.
He died in 1943, of cancer. Several of his pals would be killed in 44 after the Stauffenberg attack on Hitler. The Nazis now also lost patience with the whole Hammerstein clan and dragged in wife and kids for interrogations and arrest periods. When the war ended, wife and one daughter had been in concentration camps (first Buchenwald, then Dachau, then somewhere in South Tyrole). All survived. That period was called 'Sippenhaft'.

The book is fascinating and worth reading, even if it can be argued that it might have been a better book as a straightforward biography. It works with different style elements, like `conversations with the dead', which can appear a little silly at times.
Also, one can say that it has two story elements: the general's career, and the espionage offshoot. The latter takes more space than I like it to take. I know enough about the Moscow purges and was more interested in the story of survival under Hitler.

Enzensberger is among leading literati in Germany since over half a century, mainly as a poet and essayist. He says in the epilogue to this 2008 book that he had heard of Hammerstein's story as far back as in the 1950s and had always been keen to investigate it. Good thing that he did.

This is a well-written history on a complicated character and his family. Kurt Hammerstein (Chief of the German Army prior to the war) preferred to let history run its course, believing killing Hitler would raise the nagging specter among the German people that, "They've killed the genius, fascism could have worked." He believed less life would be lost in letting Germany be destroyed. Two of his sons tho, participated in the "Valkyrie" attempt on Hitler and his daughters were heroic in resistance. The author pretty much ignores the heroic females, especially Marie who rescued Jews with a motorcycle and probably warned Stalin of Hitler's invasion plans.