On 10 September 1943, a loose group of well-connected friends met in a small apartment in the Charlottenberg area of Berlin. The host was Elisabeth von Thadden and the nominal reason for the get-together was her younger sister’s 50th birthday. Really, though, this was a cover story for nine influential people meeting to discuss what should happen now that it was clear that Hitler was losing the war.
Otto Kiep, a former diplomat, talked hopefully about how Mussolini’s recent toppling meant that Italy was ready to make peace with the allies, while political hostess Hanna Solf gleefully anticipated the moment when Hitler fell: “We’ll put him against a wall.” Meanwhile, Von Thadden herself, a devout Protestant and former headteacher of an elite girls’ school, warned of the humanitarian crisis that would follow the end of hostilities. For those who gathered on that late summer’s day for tea, sandwiches and a particularly unappetising food item called “war cake”, Germany’s rebirth as a democratic nation state felt so near that they could almost touch it.
