When Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich Agreement, and secured "peace in our time", he unknowingly thwarted the efforts of a group of disgruntled army officers to overthrow Hitler. In fact, when the news of Munich broke, it's entirely possible that the coup attempt was actually in its first stages of execution.

Througout his time in power, the relationship between Hitler and the army was not a healthy one. While Hitler had served in the First World War and been decorated for bravery, he never rose beyond the rank of corporal. The heavily aristocratic officer corps viewed him with distate. While many in the army and beyond sympathised with Hitler's desire to tear up the Treaty of Versailles, dismantle the Weimar democracy and regain lost territory, it was a source of signicant displeasure that it was an Austrian peasant in the Reich Chancellery and not one of their own number. During the Night of the Long Knives, the Nazis killed senior officer and former Chancellor General Schleicher as well as General Bredow.

By the time of the Night of the Long Knives, the army remained the only power bloc in Germany capable of challenging Nazi rule. Trade Unions and other political parties had been banned, and the power of the Church limited. As mentioned above, the army viewed Hitler with suspicion, although some of the tension had been released when the SA was brutally dissolved. The army were also very hesistant about Hitler's plans to go to war over the Sudetenland or Austria and wary of ending up at war with Britain and France again. As such, the Nazis took steps to bring the army further under their control, in what is called the Blomberg-Fritsch affair. In January 1938, it was discovered that the new wife of the Minister for War, General Werner von Blomberg, had previously been a sex worker. This violated the Officer's code of honour, and Blomberg was forced to resign from his post.

Sensing an opportunity, Himmler and Goering used fabricated charges of Homosexuality to try and force out the Commander-in-Chief of the army, General Werner von Fritsch. The actual man on whom the evidence was held was a Captain Frisch. Fritsch was so offended by these accusations that he attempted to challenge Himmler to a duel, and at the height of the crisis the Nazis were seriously worried that the army would launch a coup. However, Fritsch eventually backed down and resigned his position. Hitler abolished the post of War Minister, and placed Walter von Brauchitsch as Commander-in-Chief. A number of other senior Generals and Ambassadors of suspect loyalty were also removed from their positions.

In addition to undermining the army leadership, Hitler also changed the oath of loyalty, so army officers swore their loyalty personally to Hitler, rather than to the people and fatherland as before. For the officer corps, who were obsessed with their own personal honour, breaking this oath to betray Hitler would be a far more serious step than before.

The Blomberg-Fritsch affair saw the first stirrings of resistance by German officers. Chief among them was an intelligence Colonel called Hans Oster. During the height of the Fritsch crisis, Oster had urged commanders to mobilise their troops to force Hitler to back down. After the crisis, he went about building ties with other officers who were critical of the regime. Among these was General Ludwig Beck, Chief of the General Staff. Beck was concerned that Hitler's plans for war would lead to the further destruction of Germany. Army exercises had demonstrated that the army could not hope to conquer Czechoslovakia while simultaneously holding off a French and British attack. To try and force Hitler's hand, Beck tried to orchestrate a mass resignation of Generals in protest, but his plans fell through. Instead, Beck resigned in protest in August 1938.

Fortunately for the conspirators against Hitler, Beck's replacement, General Franz Halder, was similarly opposed to Hitler's plans for war. Crucially, he was also more willing to take decisive action. The first time Halder met Hans Oster, he openly asked Oster how the plans for a coup were progressing. By this time, the conspirators included many senior Generals, the Chief of Military Intelligence (Admiral Wilhelm Canaris) and the commander of the Berlin Military District, General Witzleben. Witzleben also brought into the fold the commander of the Potsdam Division, the strongest force of fighting soldiers present in the capital.

A great many conspirators also journeyed to London, for quiet meetings with various foreign office and intelligence officials, where they made known the existence of a plot and asked for assurances from the British that they would go to war if Hitler attacked Czechoslovakia. The British, who did not want to depart from their policy of reconciliation and appeasement, refused to issue stronger public warnings to Hitler. The Brits also viewed the German opposition with some distruct, and were worried that an overthrow of Hitler might lead to a resurgence of the German Empire.

The conspirators drew up plans to seize key roads, radio stations and other focal points within Berlin, but there was significant disagreement about what should be done with Hitler. The older, more senior officers, favoured putting him on trial for various crimes. A sub-group planned to have him taken before a panel of doctors and declared insane.

At a meeting on September the 20th, final plans were drawn up. If it came to war, a snatch squad of about 30 soldiers, lead by Captain Friedrich Wilhelm Heinz and Lieutenant Commander Franz Maria Liedig would overpower the guards at the Reich Chancellery, kill anyone who stood in their way and kidnap Hitler. When only a core group of younger officers remained in the room, Heinz argued that Hitler should not survive the night. It was agreed in principle that a scuffle should be engineered, during which Hitler would be shot while 'resisting arrest'.

This brings us to Munich. On the 13th of September, Chamberlain said that he was willing to conduct personal negotiations with Hitler over the issue of the Sudetenland. This took the wind out of the sails of the coup plotters, as there was now a very real possibility that the crisis would be resolved without resorting to war, and the justification for a coup would be gone. Hitler, who was also expecting to go to war, was somewhat taken aback by this as well. On the 22nd of September, Chamberlain flew to Germany for final discussions. There, he was presented with new demands by Hitler, and an ultimatum that Hitler would go to war unless the demands were accepted by 2pm on the 28th of September.

Across Europe, soldiers were mobilised and war preparations were made. On the 27th of September, Hitler mobilised the divisions on the French and Czech borders. France called up their reserves. The Royal Navy prepared to put to sea. In Berlin, the plotters made their final preparations. The snatch squad were distributed across private residences in Berlin, and guns and grenades handed out in preparation for the order to attack. The plotters were further emboldened when the 2nd Motorised Division was diverted through Berlin on its way west. Hitler expected the streets to be filled with cheering civilians, but instead the mood was sombre. Berlin did not want a war.

At 11am on the 28th, one of the conspirators was informed by his brother who worked in the Germany embassy in London that Britain would declare war if Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia. The conspirator and a junior staff officer took their station at the Reich Chancellery, ready to open the doors to allow the snatch squad in.

Then, at quite literally the last minute, Hitler agreed to attend a conference in Munich to solve the issue. The coup was called off. On the 30th of September, Chamberlain returned home to declare "peace in our time". Hitler declared victory, unaware of just how close he had come to losing everything.

Bibiliography:

Joachim Fest, Plotting Hitler's Death: The German Resistance to Hitler 1933-1945 (1996)

Peter Hoffmann, History of the German Resistance, 1933-1945 (1996)

For a discussion of Beck's attempts to orchestrate a mass-resignation, see Peter Hoffmann, ‘Ludwig Beck: Loyalty and Resistance’, Central European History, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Dec 1981), 332-350, p. 337.