However he was offered a job in Göring’s so-called ‘Research Department’ (a kind of proto-secret police organisation), where he stayed for a short time, listening in to telephone conversations. He was approached by the SS, but turned them down, as he was becoming increasingly suspicious of Nazi ideology. In October 1933, he accepted a job in the Abwehr, then under the command of Conrad Patzig. This brought him into contact with the Gestapo (which Göring had founded in April 1933 and which Himmler would take over almost exactly a year later), the regular police and the SS. Hans Bernd Gisevius, the enormously tall lawyer who was one of the few survivors of the Resistance, met Oster at about this time and was able, as an employee of the Gestapo who was already working against the regime, to provide him with documentation on Nazi Security Service crimes as Oster began his own work against Hitler.
The Resistance, of course, was still barely an idea — a few pockets of like-minded individuals collecting information here and there, doing what they could without an overall plan, perhaps trying to build up files on the Nazis to be used in trials against them after the collapse of the regime. At this stage Oster could have had no idea how long his crusade was going to be. Like everyone else involved in the Resistance, he would spend long years under the terrible pressure of playing a double game, having to fulfil his official duties and at the same time — or rather, in what would otherwise have been his leisure hours — work in the interests of the enemy for the sake of long-term stability and the rehabilitation of Germany. ‘My father was fully aware of what he was doing,’ his daughter says. ‘His decisions were based on logic and ultimately on humane considerations. Few people were in a better position to alter the course of events, and my father was a man of action. Once he had decided on a course of action he would stay on it. The risk of drawing the odium of treachery upon himself didn’t seem too high a price to pay.’ She also remembers how the years of stress took their toll, that he became grimmer and moodier. An additional pressure on the conspirators was secrecy. They could share their feelings and confidence with virtually no one else. In the case of their families, it was for their own protection. Few Germans were unaware of the methods of the Gestapo.
Despite the need for discretion, Oster could be very careless. He had to involve his wife because she could speak English and he needed her to translate the BBC broadcasts for him, but he often voiced his opinion of the regime very clearly and in untested company. He would argue the state of things so loudly with Gisevius when the latter visited the Osters’ Berlin flat that Gertrud had to beg them to lower their voices lest the neighbours hear. On another occasion, travelling by car with Gisevius to visit a senior Army officer involved in the conspiracy, Oster casually took a file of secret coup plans with him. When the Field Marshal learned of this, he was outraged: what did Oster imagine would have happened if he had had a car crash, for example? And yet the same man was able to build up his own anti-Nazi intelligence unit within the Abwehr and run it successfully for ten years. It was a quirk of fate that finally brought him down.
It was Oster’s single-minded dedication to the Resistance that finally converted General Ludwig Beck to their cause. Given the contrast in Beck’s and Oster’s temperaments it is not surprising that Beck’s conversion was effected as late as 1938. Oster had seen early how valuable an addition Beck would be to the Resistance group: his long experience and the high regard in which he was held would give the opposition movement great kudos. The Chief of the Abwehr Admiral Canaris had already tried to sway the hesitant Beck in January and February 1938, but it was Oster and his bravery that made a strong personal
The Resistance, of course, was still barely an idea — a few pockets of like-minded individuals collecting information here and there, doing what they could without an overall plan, perhaps trying to build up files on the Nazis to be used in trials against them after the collapse of the regime. At this stage Oster could have had no idea how long his crusade was going to be. Like everyone else involved in the Resistance, he would spend long years under the terrible pressure of playing a double game, having to fulfil his official duties and at the same time — or rather, in what would otherwise have been his leisure hours — work in the interests of the enemy for the sake of long-term stability and the rehabilitation of Germany. ‘My father was fully aware of what he was doing,’ his daughter says. ‘His decisions were based on logic and ultimately on humane considerations. Few people were in a better position to alter the course of events, and my father was a man of action. Once he had decided on a course of action he would stay on it. The risk of drawing the odium of treachery upon himself didn’t seem too high a price to pay.’ She also remembers how the years of stress took their toll, that he became grimmer and moodier. An additional pressure on the conspirators was secrecy. They could share their feelings and confidence with virtually no one else. In the case of their families, it was for their own protection. Few Germans were unaware of the methods of the Gestapo.
Despite the need for discretion, Oster could be very careless. He had to involve his wife because she could speak English and he needed her to translate the BBC broadcasts for him, but he often voiced his opinion of the regime very clearly and in untested company. He would argue the state of things so loudly with Gisevius when the latter visited the Osters’ Berlin flat that Gertrud had to beg them to lower their voices lest the neighbours hear. On another occasion, travelling by car with Gisevius to visit a senior Army officer involved in the conspiracy, Oster casually took a file of secret coup plans with him. When the Field Marshal learned of this, he was outraged: what did Oster imagine would have happened if he had had a car crash, for example? And yet the same man was able to build up his own anti-Nazi intelligence unit within the Abwehr and run it successfully for ten years. It was a quirk of fate that finally brought him down.
It was Oster’s single-minded dedication to the Resistance that finally converted General Ludwig Beck to their cause. Given the contrast in Beck’s and Oster’s temperaments it is not surprising that Beck’s conversion was effected as late as 1938. Oster had seen early how valuable an addition Beck would be to the Resistance group: his long experience and the high regard in which he was held would give the opposition movement great kudos. The Chief of the Abwehr Admiral Canaris had already tried to sway the hesitant Beck in January and February 1938, but it was Oster and his bravery that made a strong personal
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