Franz Halder Franz Halder ( 30 June 1884 – 2 April 1972 ) was a German General and the chief of the OKH General Staff from 1938 until September 1942 , when he was dismissed after frequent disagreements with Adolf Hitler . His diary during his time as chief of OKH General Staff has been a very good source for authors that have written about such subjects as Adolf Hitler , the Second World War and the NSDAP ( The Nazi party ) . In William Shirer ' s " The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich " , Halder ' s diary is cited hundreds of times . Early life . Halder was born in Würzburg , the son of General Max Halder . In 1902 , he joined the 3rd Royal Bavarian Field Artillery Regiment in Munich . He was promoted to lieutenant in 1904 , upon graduation from War School in Munich , then he attended Artillery School ( 1906 – 07 ) and the Bavarian Staff College ( War Academy ) ( 1911 – 1914 ) , both in Munich . World War I . In 1914 , Halder became an Ordnance Officer , serving in the Headquarters of the Bavarian 3rd Army Corps . In August , 1915 he was promoted to Hauptmann ( Captain ) on the General Staff of the 6th Army ( at that time commanded by Rupprecht , Crown Prince of Bavaria ) . During 1917 he served as a General Staff officer in the Headquarters of the 2nd Army , before being transferred to the 4th Army . Interwar era . Between 1919 and 1920 Halder served with the Reichswehr War Ministry Training Branch . Between 1921 and 1923 he was a Tactics Instructor with the Wehrkreis VII in Munich . In March 1924 Halder was promoted to major and by 1926 he served as the Director of Operations ( Oberquartiermeister of Operations : O . Qu . I . ) on the General Staff of the Wehrkreis VII in Munich . In February 1929 he was promoted to Oberstleutnant ( lieutenant colonel ) , and from October 1929 through late 1931 he served on the Training staff in the Reichswehr Ministry . After being promoted to Oberst ( colonel ) in December 1931 , Halder served as the Chief of Staff , Wehrkreis Kdo VI , in Münster ( Westphalia ) through early 1934 . During the 1930s the German military staff thought that Poland might attack the detached German province of East Prussia . As such , they reviewed plans as to how to defend East Prussia . After being promoted to Generalmajor , equal to a U . S . / British Brigadier general , in October 1934 , Halder served as the Commander of the 7th Infantry Division in Munich . Recognized as a fine staff officer and planner , in August 1936 Halder was promoted to Generalleutnant ( rank of a division commander , hence equivalent to a US Army Major General ) . He then became the director of the Manoeuvres Staff . Shortly thereafter , he became director of the Training Branch ( Oberquartiermeister of Training , O . Qu . II ) , on the General Staff of the Army , in Berlin between October 1937 and February 1938 . During this period he directed important training maneuvers , the largest held since the reintroduction of conscription in 1935 . On 1 February 1938 Halder was promoted to General der Artillerie ( rank of a corps commander , equivalent to a US Army three - star General ) . Around this date General Wilhelm Keitel was attempting to reorganize the entire upper leadership of the German Army . Keitel had asked Halder to become Chief of the General Staff ( Oberquartiermeister of operations , training & supply ; O . Qu . I ) and report to General Walther von Reichenau . However , Halder declined as he felt he could not work with Reichenau very well , due to a personality dispute . As Keitel recognized Halder ' s superior military planning skills , Keitel met with Hitler and enticed him to appoint General Walther von Brauchitsch as commander - in - chief of the German Army . Halder then accepted becoming Chief of the General Staff of the Army ( Oberkommando des Heeres ) on 1 September 1938 , and succeeded General Ludwig Beck . A week later , Halder presented plans to Hitler on how to invade Czechoslovakia with a pincer movement by General Gerd von Rundstedt and General Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb . Instead , Hitler directed that Reichenau should make the main thrust into Prague . Neither invasion plan was necessary once Mussolini persuaded Hitler and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain back to the bargaining table in Munich . In the run up to the war , Halder — in an attempt to avoid what they were certain would be a catastrophic war for Germany — was the main actor in a plot with several other generals in the Wehrmacht and Abwehr to remove Hitler from power . A plot was put in place , ready to go at Halder ' s command , which would be given if Hitler gave the order to proceed with the planned invasion . The plot included a plan to kill Hitler and say " he died trying to escape " ( they all agreed he would be too dangerous to keep alive ) . However , on 29 September Chamberlain capitulated to Hitler ’ s demands , and the British and French surrendered the largely German populated Czech region of Sudetenland to Germany , with Hitler promising to stop there . ( Which promise Hitler broke the following spring . ) Halder put an immediate stop to the coup attempt , only hours away from reality , as peace had been preserved – for the moment . Chamberlain ' s appeasement at Munich meant the end of the plot , which shook Halder took the core and left him weeping according to Halder ' s former adjutant , Burkhard Mueler - Hildebrand . There would be no war with France and England over the Sudetenland . Hitler ' s popularity reached an all - time high . A coup then was not possible , nor desirable . The catastrophe Halder and the other generals feared was averted . On 1 October German troops entered the Sudetenland . World War II . Halder participated in the strategic planning for all operations in the first part of the war . For his role in the planning and preparing of the invasion of Poland he received the Knight ' s Cross of the Iron Cross on 27 October 1939 . On 1 September 1939 , Germany invaded Poland , the generally accepted start of World War II . On 19 September , Halder noted in his diary that he had received information from then SS - Gruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich that the SS ( Einsatzgruppen ) was beginning its campaign to " clean house " in Poland of Jews , intelligentsia , Catholic Clergy , and the aristocracy . This led to future criticism by historians that Halder knew about the killings of Jews much earlier than he later acknowledged during post - World War II interviews , and that he failed to object to such killings . Halder noted in his diary his doubts " about the measures intended by Himmler " . During November 1939 , Halder conspired with General Brauchitsch . Halder declared that he would support Brauchitsch if he were to try to curtail Hitler ’ s plans for further expansion of the war , but Brauchitsch declined ( the so - called Zossen Conspiracy ) . Brauchitsch and Halder had decided to overthrow Hitler after the latter had fixed " X - day " for the invasion of France for 12 November 1939 , an invasion that both officers believed to be doomed to failure . During a meeting with Hitler on 5 November , Brauchitsch had attempted to talk Hitler into putting off " X - day " by saying that morale in the German Army was worse than what it was in 1918 . This statement enraged Hitler , who then harshly berated Brauchitsch for incompetence . After that meeting , both Halder and Brauchitsch told Carl Friedrich Goerdeler that overthrowing Hitler was simply something that they could not do , and that he should find other officers if that was what he really wanted to do . Equally important , following heavy snowstorms , on 7 November 1939 Hitler put off " X - Day " until further notice , removing the reason that had most motivated Brauchitsch and Halder to consider overthrowing Hitler . On 23 November 1939 , Goerdeler met with Halder to ask him to reconsider his attitude . Halder gave Goerdeler the following reasons why he wanted nothing to do with any plot to overthrow Hitler : Despite all of Goerdeler ' s best efforts , Halder would not change his mind . While Halder opposed Hitler ’ s expanded war plans , like all officers he had taken a personal loyalty oath to Hitler . Thus , he felt unable to take direct action against the Führer . At one point , Halder thought the situation to be so desperate that he considered shooting Hitler himself . A colonel close to Halder noted in his diary that " Amid tears , Halder had said for weeks that he had a pistol in his pocket every time he went to Emil [ cover name for Hitler ] in order to possibly gun him down . " At the end of 1939 , Halder oversaw development of the invasion plans of France , the Low Countries , and the Balkans . In late 1939 - early 1940 , Halder was an opponent of Operation Weserübung , which he believed was doomed to failure , and made certain that the OKH had nothing to do with the planning for Weserübung , which was entirely the work of OKW and the OKM . Halder initially doubted that Germany could successfully invade France . General Erich von Manstein ' s bold plan for invading France through the Ardennes Forest proved successful , and ultimately led to the fall of France . In early April 1940 , Halder had a secret meeting with Carl Friedrich Goerdeler , who asked him to consider a " putsch " while the Phoney War was still on , hoping that the British and French were still open to a negotiated peace . Halder refused Goerdeler ' s request . Goerdeler told Halder that too many people had already died in the war , and his refusal to remove Hitler at this point would ensure that the blood of millions would be on his hands . Halder told Goerdeler that his oath to Hitler and his belief in Germany ` s inevitable victory in the war precluded his acting against the Nazi regime . Halder told Goerdeler that " The military situation of Germany , particularly on account of the pact of non - aggression with Russia is such that a breach of my oath to the " Führer " could not possibly be justified " , that only if Germany was faced with total defeat would he consider breaking his oath , and that Goerdeler was a fool to believe that World War II could be ended with a compromise peace . On 19 July 1940 , Halder was promoted to Generaloberst . In August , he began working on Operation Barbarossa , the invasion plan for the Soviet Union . Shortly thereafter , to curtail Halder ’ s military - command power , Hitler limited his involvement in the war by restricting him to developing battle plans for only the Eastern Front . On 17 March 1941 , in a secret meeting with Halder and the rest of the most senior generals , Hitler stated that Germany was to disregard all of the rules of war in the East , and the war against the Soviet Union was to be a war of extermination . Halder , who was so vocal in arguing with Hitler about military matters , made no protest . On 30 March 1941 , in another secret speech to his leading generals , Hitler described the sort of war he wanted Operation Barbarossa to be ( according to the notes taken by Halder ) , a : " Struggle between two ideologies . Scathing evaluation of Bolshevism , equals antisocial criminality . Communism immense future danger . . . This a fight to the finish . If we do not accept this , we shall beat the enemy , but in thirty years we shall again confront the Communist foe . We don ' t make war to preserve the enemy . . . Struggle against Russia : Extermination of Bolshevik Commissars and of the Communist intelligentsia . . . Commissars and GPU personnel are criminals and must be treated as such . The struggle will differ from that in the west . In the east harshness now means mildness for the future . " Though General Halder ' s notes did not record any mention of Jews , the German historian Andreas Hillgruber argued that , because of Hitler ' s frequent statements at the same time about the coming war of annihilation against " Judeo - Bolshevism " , his generals could not have misunderstood that Hitler ' s call for the total destruction of the Soviet Union also comprised a call for the total destruction of the Jewish population of the Soviet Union . In 1941 , contrary to his post - war claims , Halder did not oppose the Commissar Order . Rather , he welcomed it , writing that : " Troops must participate in the ideological battle in the Eastern campaign to the end " . As part of the planning for Barbarossa , Halder declared in a directive that , in the event of guerrilla attacks , German troops were to impose " collective measures of force " by massacring entire villages . Halder ' s order was in direct contravention of international agreements banning collective reprisals . In December 1941 , Hitler fired von Brauchitsch and assumed the command of OKH himself . Halder was not happy about this , but chose to stay on as the best way of ensuring that Germany won the war . Halder appeared on the 29 June 1942 cover of " Time magazine " magazine . During the summer of 1942 , Halder told Hitler that he was underestimating the number of Soviet military units . Hitler argued that the Red Army was nearly broken . However , Halder had recently read a book about Stalin ' s defeat of Anton Denikin between the Don bend and what was then Tsaritsyn during the Russian Civil War . That battle resulted in Tsaritsyn being renamed Stalingrad . Halder was convinced the German Sixth Army was in the same position that Denikin was back then . Furthermore , Hitler did not like Halder ’ s objections to sending General Manstein ’ s 11th Army ( then finishing the siege of Sevastopol , at the other end of the front ) to assist in the attack against Leningrad . Halder also thought that an attack into the Caucasus was ill - advised . Finally , because of Halder ’ s disagreement with Hitler ’ s conduct of the war , Hitler concluded that the general no longer possessed an aggressive war mentality . The final straw came after Halder learned of an intelligence report showing Stalin could muster as many as 1 . 5 million men north of Stalingrad and west of the Volga . He told Hitler that the situation along the Don was a disaster waiting to happen if Stalin turned that force loose on Stalingrad . In response , Hitler gave a speech announcing that he intended to find a replacement for Halder . Halder walked out stating " I am leaving " , and was retired into the " Fuhrer Reserve " on 24 September 1942 . On 23 July 1944 , following the failed July 20 assassination attempt on Hitler ' s life by German Army officers , Halder was arrested by the Gestapo . Although he was not involved in the July 20 plot , intense interrogations of the conspirators revealed that Halder had been involved in earlier conspiracies against Hitler . Halder was imprisoned at both the Flossenbürg and Dachau concentration camp s . Halder ' s wife Gertrud chose to , and was allowed to , accompany her husband into imprisonment . On 31 January 1945 , Halder was officially dismissed from the army . His service to Germany during Hitler ' s reign was plagued by complexity and personal misgivings but his professed role in possible intrigue during his tenure as the Chief of Staff make his survival for a remarkable story , especially when one considers the plight of others who fell into disfavor or mistrust with Hitler . As one historian remarked when comparing his fate to that of many of his comrades among the General Staff , Halder was indeed " fortunate . " In the last days of April 1945 , together with some members of the families of those involved with the July 20 plot and other ' special ' prisoners , he was transferred to the South Tyrol , where the entire group of nearly 140 prisoners was liberated from their SS guards by members of the Wehrmacht , and then turned over to US troops on May 4 after the SS guards fled . Halder spent the next two years in an Allied prisoner of war camp . After World War II . During the 1950s , Halder worked as a war historian advisor to the U . S . Army Historical Division , for which he was awarded the Meritorious Civilian Service Award in 1961 . During the early 1950s Halder advised on the redevelopment of the post - World War II German army ( see : Searle ' s " Wehrmacht Generals " ) . He died in 1972 in Aschau im Chiemgau , Bavaria . Publications . Halder wrote " Hitler als Feldherr " in German ( 1949 ) which was translated into English as " Hitler as War Lord " ( 1950 ) ; and " The Halder Diaries " ( 1976 ) . The latter diaries were used , before being published , by American historian William Shirer , as a major primary source for his monumental work " The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich " , along with other confidential documents and manuscripts . In reviewing Halder ' s personality , the British author Hugh Trevor - Roper wrote : " Halder is a military snob , believing that no amateur can ever understand the mysteries of war . " Author Kenneth Macksey wrote : " Quick , shrewd and witty , he was a brilliant specialist in operational and training matters and the son of a distinguished general . He supported Beck ' s resistance to Hitler , but when it came to a crunch was no real help . Flirt as he did , in September , with those opposed to Hitler , he toed the party line when extreme pressure was exerted for the return of the Sudetenland and its German nationals by the Czechs to Germany . " Many see Halder as a soldier of the older Prussian school variety . Like General Field Marshal von Manstein , an officer " bound to duty and oath . " For other insights regarding Halder ' s capabilities , see : Christian Hartmann and Sergei Slutsch , " Franz Halder und die Kriegsvorbereitungen im Frühjahr 1939 . Eine Ansprache des Generalstabschefs des Heeres " in the journal " Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte " ( July 1997 ) ; Christian Hartmann , " Halder : Generalstabschef Hitlers : 1939 – 1942 , " ( 1991 ) , and " Hitler ' s Generals " , edited by Correlli Barnett . The historians Ronald Smelser and Edward J . Davies II in " The Myth of the Eastern Front " ( Cambridge University Press , 2008 ) argue that , after 1945 , Halder played a key role in creating a false and mythic view of the Nazi - Soviet war in which the Wehrmacht was largely blameless for both Germany ' s military defeat and its war crimes . Searle , Alaric . " Wehrmacht Generals , West German Society , and the Debate on Rearmament , 1949 – 1959 , " Praeger Pub . , 2003 .