Carl Friedrich Goerdeler

Early life and career

Goerdeler was born into a family of Prussian civil servants in Schneidemühl in the Prussian Province of Posen of the German Empire (now Piła in present-day Poland). Goerdeler's parents supported the Free Conservative Party, and after 1899 Goerdeler's father served in the Prussian Landtag as a member of that party. Goerdeler's biographer and friend Gerhard Ritter described his upbringing as one of a large, loving middle-class family that was cultured, devoutly Lutheran, nationalist and conservative. As a young man, the deeply religious Goerdeler chose as his motto to live by omnia restaurare in Christo (to restore everything in Christ). From 1902 to 1905 Goerdeler studied economics and law at the University of Tübingen. From 1911 he worked as a civil servant for the municipal government of Solingen in the Prussian Rhine Province. The same year, Goerdeler married Anneliese Ulrich, by whom he would have five children.Goerdeler's own career had been both impressive and idiosyncratic. He came of conservative Prussian stock with a strong sense of duty and service to the State; his father had been a district judge. His upbringing had been happy, but sternly intellectual and moral; his legal training had pointed to a career in local administration and economics ... He was a born organiser, an able, voluble speaker and writer, tough and highly individual; in politics, he became a right-wing liberal. Although at heart a very humane man, Goerderler's frigid, spartan belief in hard work and his austere, puritanical morality—he would not tolerate a divorced man or woman in his house—lacked warmth and comradeship. He was, in fact, an autocrat by nature and his commanding personality, combined with his utter belief in the rightness of his point of view, enabled him to persuade weak or uncertain men over-easily to accept his own particular point of view while he was with them

During the First World War, Goerdeler served as a junior officer on the Eastern Front, rising to the rank of captain. From February 1918 he worked as part of the German military government in Minsk. After the war ended, Goerdeler served on the headquarters of the XVII Army Corps based in Danzig (now Gdańsk in Poland). In June 1919, Goerdeler submitted a memorandum to his superior, General Otto von Below, calling for the destruction of Poland as the only way to prevent territorial losses on Germany's eastern borders.

After his discharge from the German Army, Goerdeler joined the ultraconservative German National People's Party (DNVP). Like most other Germans, Goerdeler strongly opposed the Versailles Treaty of 1919, which forced Germany to cede territories to the restored Polish state. In 1919, before the exact boundaries of the Polish-German border were determined, he suggested restoring West Prussia to Germany. Despite his strong hostile feelings towards Poland, Goerdeler played a key role during the 1920 Polish–Soviet War in breaking a strike by Danzig dockers, who wished to shut down Poland's economy by closing its principal port. He thought that Poland was a less undesirable neighbour than Bolshevik Russia.

Role in the Nazi government

Mayor in the Third Reich

As late as 1935, Goerdeler considered Adolf Hitler an "enlightened dictator", who, with the proper advice, would be a force for good. Goerdeler later called the period in which he supported the Nazis the only chapter of his life that he found embarrassing. On 1 April 1933, the day of the national boycott declared against all Jewish businesses in the Reich, Goerdeler appeared in full uniform of the Oberbürgermeister of Leipzig to order the SA not to enforce the boycott and ordered the Leipzig police to free several Jews taken hostage by the SA. Several times, he attempted to help Leipzig Jewish businessmen threatened with the "Aryanisation" economic policies of the Nazi regime. A few days after the boycott, Goerdeler found himself as mayor of Leipzig enforcing the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, which, unlike the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, did not give him cause for complaint.

As part of his efforts to influence the Nazi regime, Goerdeler had sent Hitler long memoranda containing his advice on economic policy, and in the second half of 1935, he wrote up a new draft law on the powers and responsibilities of municipal governments. He served as a member of Hans Frank's Academy for German Law. Despite his early sympathy for the regime and considerable pressure from the National Socialists, Goerdeler always refused to join the NSDAP. By the mid-1930s, Goerdeler grew increasingly disillusioned with the Nazis as it became more and more apparent that Hitler had no interest in reading any of Goerdeler's memoranda but was instead carrying out economic and financial policies that Goerdeler regarded as highly irresponsible.

In addition, the massive increase in spending by the Leipzig municipal government caused the city's debts to be a major source of worry for Goerdeler. By 1934 he clashed with Hitler over his foreign policy, as Germany signed a nonaggression treaty with Poland to which Goerdeler was opposed and demanded annexation of Polish territories. He wrote to Hitler that continued Polish possession of territories in Gdańsk Pomerania and Greater Poland was a "thorn in country's economic flesh and honour" and that "the German people must fight for security of their existence".

In 1933, a Reich law forbade doctors who were members of the Communist Party of Germany or were "non-Aryans" from participating in public health insurance, exempting only those who were First World War veterans or children or parents of veterans. A second decree of 1934 banned all physicians from participating in public health insurance who had one or more Jewish grandparents regardless of their religion or if they were married to a "non-Aryan". However, the laws did not affect those physicians who received their approbation under the Weimar Republic.

Price Commissioner: making economic policy

In November 1934, Goerdeler was again appointed Reich Price Commissioner, and ordered to combat the increasingly unpopular inflation caused by rearmament. Gestapo reports from 1934 record that the German public greeted the news of Goerdeler's reappointment as Price Commissioner as a positive development. Despite the great fanfare that greeted Goerdeler's appointment, he was given little real power.

In 1934, Goerdeler was vehemently opposed to the idea of devaluing the Reichsmark and had supported Hitler and Schacht against the advocates of devaluation. During his second term as Price Commissioner in 1934–35, Goerdeler often came into conflict with the Economics Minister and Reichsbank President Hjalmar Schacht over his inflationary policies. In Goerdeler's opinion, they posed a grave danger to the German economy, and finally prompted his resignation in 1935 as Price Commissioner. As Price Commissioner, Goerdeler became increasingly troubled by Nazi economic policies and disgusted by rampant corruption within the Nazi Party. In September 1935, as mayor of Leipzig, Goerdeler found himself enforcing the Nuremberg Laws, which he found deeply distasteful.

In October 1935, Goerdeler sent Hitler a memorandum in which he urged that the priorities for the use of German foreign exchange should be shifted from buying raw materials that Germany lacked for rearmament and instead should be used to buy food that Germany lacked such as fats. In his report, Goerdeler wrote that the foremost goal of German economic policy should be "the satisfactory provisioning of the population with fats, even in relation to armaments, as having political priority". In the same report, Goerdeler argued that the root of German economic problems was rearmament, and he advocated as the solution reducing military spending, increasing German exports and returning to a free-market economy.

Goerdeler warned that to continue the present course of increasing statism in the economy and the current levels of high military spending would result in the total collapse of the economy with an extremely drastic drop in living standards. After Hitler ignored Goerdeler's report, Goerdeler asked Hitler to dissolve the Reich Commissariat for Price Surveillance since there was nothing for that office to do. In the spring of 1936, Goerdeler came into increasing conflict with Haake over the question of demolition of a monument to the German-Jewish composer Felix Mendelssohn.

Resignation

In the autumn of 1936, Goerdeler's ongoing dispute with Haake over the Mendelssohn statue came to a head. After much argument, Goerdeler agreed to have the statue moved from its location in front of the Gewandhaus concert hall to a lower-profile position. In the autumn of 1936, Goerdeler left for a trip to Finland promoted by the German Chamber of Commerce. Before leaving, Goerdeler met with Adolf Hitler and the propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and received their promise that nothing would happen to the statue during his trip.

During his trip, the statue was demolished on Haake's orders. Upon his return, Haake stated that the matter of the statue was "only the outward occasion of the conflict" and declared that "Dr. Goerdeler's attitude in the Jewish Question had been revealed particularly clearly in the matter of the Mendelssohn-Bartholdy statue". Goerdeler tried to have the statue rebuilt. After failing that, he declined to accept his reelection as mayor of Leipzig and resigned from office on 31 March 1937.

Opposition to Nazi regime

Into opposition

After his resignation as Oberbürgermeister of Leipzig, Goerdeler was offered the position of heading the finance department at the firm of Krupp AG, then Germany's largest corporation. However, Hitler forbade Goerdeler to take up this appointment and ordered Krupp to withdraw the offer. Goerdeler instead became the director of the overseas sales department at the firm of Robert Bosch GmbH.

Shortly after his resignation, Goerdeler became involved in anti-Nazi plots. Bosch, a friend, agreed to turn a blind eye to his anti-Nazi work. As a conservative and self-proclaimed follower of the Bismarckian tradition, Goerdeler was opposed to what he considered the extreme radicalism of the Nazis and was fearful of what the results of Hitler's foreign policy might be. From 1936, Goerdeler worked to build an opposition faction out of his circle, comprising mostly civil servants and businessmen.

Despite his anti-Nazi plotting, Goerdeler continued to submit memoranda to Hitler and the other Nazi leaders in the hope that he might somehow convince them to change course. The case of Goerdeler has been used by the historian Hans Mommsen to support his view of "resistance as a process", with Goerdeler going from an ally of the regime to increasing disillusionment by Nazi economic policies in the mid-1930s and finally becoming committed to the regime's overthrow by 1937.

By early 1938, Goerdeler was convinced that "something must be done" about the Nazi regime. Describing Goerdeler during this period, the American journalist William L. Shirer wrote that Goerdeler was "A conservative and a monarchist at heart, a devout Protestant, able, energetic and intelligent, but also indiscreet and headstrong" who "went to work with heart and soul in opposition to Hitler".

Using the "cover" of his job as chief of overseas sales at Bosch, between 1937 and 1938, Goerdeler often travelled abroad, mostly to France, the United Kingdom, the United States, the Balkans, the Middle East and Canada, to warn anyone who would listen about what he considered to be the aggressive and dangerous foreign policy of Nazi Germany. Though opposed to what he considered to be a reckless foreign policy, Goerdeler often demanded in his meetings with his foreign friends for the Great Powers to back the cession of the Sudetenland, the Polish Corridor, the Memelland (modern Klaipėda, Lithuania), and the Free City of Danzig and the return of the former German colonies in Africa, to Germany. At the same time, Goerdeler became a member of General Ludwig Beck's private intelligence network.

1938: first attempt at a putsch

During the Blomberg–Fritsch Affair and the attendant crisis caused by the court-martial of General Werner von Fritsch, Goerdeler became closely associated with several loose groupings of German rightists in the Civil Service and the military who, for various reasons, were unhappy with aspects of the Third Reich. Goerdeler attempted to use the Fritsch crisis to try to turn the Army leadership against the Nazi regime, but his efforts were in vain.

In April 1938, Goerdeler visited London, where he advised the British government both to resist the Nazi claim to the Sudetenland area of Czechoslovakia and to declare that he wanted to see the area transferred to Germany as soon as possible. As Gerhard Weinberg observed, Goerdeler's contradictory statements left the British somewhat confused. In the spring of 1938, Goerdeler, in association with Hans von Dohnanyi, Colonel Hans Oster and Johannes Popitz, became involved in planning a putsch against the Nazi regime should the regime launch Fall Grün, the codename for the invasion of Czechoslovakia. In June 1938, Beck often consulted with Goerdeler over the question of whether or not he should resign as Chief of the General Staff as a way of stopping Fall Grün.

Vansittart introduced Goerdeler to one of his spies, the British industrialist A.P. Young, who was a close business partner to several German corporations and so often visited Germany. Because Young did frequent business with Bosch and because of Goerdeler's position there, the two could meet often without raising suspicion. In August 1938, Goerdeler started to leak information to London and informed the British that Hitler intended to launch Fall Grün in September 1938. In August 1938, Goerdeler met with Young in the village of Rauschen Dune in East Prussia. During his meeting with Young, Goerdeler asked for Young to convey a message to the British government to the effect that London should apply diplomatic and economic pressure on Germany to cease the persecution of the Jews. To have more frequent meetings with his British contacts, Goerdeler stayed in Switzerland in August–October 1938.

Though the British politicians and civil servants who met with Goerdeler were impressed with his honesty and earnestness, it was judged too risky by the Chamberlain government in 1938 to stake all upon the Goerdeler's projected putsch, especially since success was uncertain at best, and discovery of British backing for an unsuccessful putsch was likely to cause the war the Chamberlain government was seeking to avert in 1938.

As agent "X"

In November 1938, Goerdeler met with Young in Switzerland and asked if the British government could intercede on the behalf of 10,000 Polish Jews the Germans had expelled from Germany, whom the Poles refused to accept. Goerdeler declared that the treatment of the Polish Jews, stranded on the German-Polish border, was "barbaric". In December 1938–January 1939, Goerdeler had a further series of meetings with Young in Switzerland, where he informed Young that the Kristallnacht pogrom of November 1938 had been ordered by Hitler personally and was not a "spontaneous" demonstration as the Nazis had claimed.

Goerdeler recommended that Young inform London that as soon as "the new persecution of the Jews is started, it is absolutely essential to break diplomatic relations". Goerdeler also informed Young of his belief that Hitler was seeking world conquest, and that the Führer had "decided to destroy the Jews-Christianity-Capitalism". Speaking to Young about the economic situation in Germany, Goerdeler stated: Economic and financial situation gravely critical. Inner situation desperate. Economic conditions getting worse.

Goerdeler's reports to Young were later published by the latter in 1974 as The "X" Documents.

In December 1938, Goerdeler again visited Britain, where he alienated the British civil servants he met by his extreme German nationalist language and demands for British support for the return of Danzig, the Polish Corridor and the former German colonies in Africa, and for making a huge loan to a post-Nazi Germany. Goerdeler asked Frank Ashton-Gwatkin of the Foreign Office to ensure that Britain gave a post-Nazi government an interest-free loan of £500 million in exchange for which Goerdeler would end protectionism, end the efforts to place the Balkans into the German sphere of influence and support Britain in the Mediterranean against Italy and in the Far East against Japan. In addition, both Goerdeler's exaggeration of extent of anti-Nazi feeling in Germany and his inability to organise a putsch were increasingly clear to the British. Sir Alexander Cadogan wrote about Goerdeler's offer, "We are to deliver the goods and Germany gives I.O.Us". Chamberlain was more hostile and wrote, "These people must do their own job".

In the same month, Goerdeler wrote his "World Peace Programme" calling an international conference of all the world's leading powers to consider disarmament, a "moral code" for relations between the states and the stabilisation of the various currencies. The end of Goerdeler's "World Peace Programme" read "Whoever abstains from co-operating wants war and is a breaker of the peace."

German Resistance

Prelude to Second World War

Despite what Goerdeler perceived as a major setback after Munich, he continued with his efforts to bring about the downfall of the Nazi regime. Goerdeler, an unyielding optimist, believed that if only he could convince enough people, he could overthrow the Nazi regime. Goerdeler believed that through sheer force of will and the goodness of his cause that he could bring down the Nazi regime. Goerdeler spent much of the winter of 1938–39 holding discussions with General Beck, the diplomat Ulrich von Hassell and Erwin Planck about how best to overthrow the Nazi regime. At the same time, Hitler grew increasingly annoyed with Goerdeler's memoranda urging him to exercise caution. Goerdeler, together with Dr. Schacht, General Beck, Hassell and the economist Rudolf Brinkmann, were described by Hitler as "the overbred intellectual circles" who were trying to block him from fulfilling his mission by their appeals to caution, and but for the fact that he needed their skills "otherwise, perhaps we could someday exterminate them or do something of this kind to them".

During the winter of 1938–39, Goerdeler sent reports to the British that stated that Hitler was pressuring Italy into attacking France, planning to launch a surprise air offensive against Britain to achieve a "knock-out blow" by razing British cities to the ground sometime in the second half of February 1939, and considering an invasion of Switzerland and the Low Countries before an attack on France and Britain. Unknown to Goerdeler, he was transmitting false information provided by the Abwehr chief Admiral Wilhelm Canaris and General Hans Oster, who was hoping that the reports might lead to a change in British foreign policy. Canaris and Oster achieved their purpose as Goerdeler's disinformation resulted in first the "Dutch War Scare", which gripped the British government in late January 1939 and led to the public declarations by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in February that any German attack upon France, Switzerland and the Low Countries would be automatically considered the casus belli for an Anglo-German war and would lead to the British "continental commitment" to defend France with a large ground force.

On 16 March 1939, Goerdeler suggested to Young that Britain call an international conference to discuss "legitimate" German demands for changes in the international order. Goerdeler claimed that Hitler would refuse to attend the conference, which would so discredit him as to bring about his downfall. Young passed on Goerdeler's conference idea to Cordell Hull, who was so impressed that he offered to bring about the proposed conference to be chaired by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. That was the origin of Roosevelt's famous appeal to Hitler and Mussolini on 15 April 1939 for both leaders to publicly promise not to disturb the peace for the next ten years. In exchange, Roosevelt promised a new economic international order.

Phoney War, the Zossen putsch attempt of November 1939 and attack on the West

In 1939–40, Goerdeler assembled conservative politicians, diplomats and generals, most notably Ulrich von Hassell, General Ludwig Beck and Johannes Popitz, in opposition to Adolf Hitler. On 11 October 1939 speaking to Hassel of German war crimes in Poland, Goerdeler commented that both General Halder and Admiral Canaris were afflicted with nervous complaints as a result of "our brutal conduct of the war" in Poland. In October 1939, Goerdeler drafted peace terms that a post-Nazi government would seek with Great Britain and France. Under Goerdeler's terms, Germany would retain all the areas of Poland that had been part of Germany prior to 1918, Austria and the Sudetenland with independence being restored to Poland and Czechoslovakia with general disarmament, the restoration of global free trade and the ending of protectionism as the other major goals for the new regime. On 3 November 1939, Goerdeler paid another visit to Sweden, where he met Marcus Wallenberg, Gustav Cassell, and Dr. Sven Hedin. Hedin wrote in his diary that "he [Goerdeler] believed in Göring and thought that a speedy peace was the only thing to save Germany, but that peace was unthinkable so long as Hitler remained at the head of affairs". At the same time, Goerdeler was deeply involved in the planning of an abortive putsch intended to be launched on 5 November 1939, and as such was in very high spirits prior to that day. Hassell wrote in his diary that with worry that "He [Goerdeler] often reminds me of Kapp." (Wolfgang Kapp, the nominal leader of the Kapp Putsch was notorious for his irresponsibility). The proposed putsch became stillborn when Field Marshal Walter von Brauchitsch and General Franz Halder, the leaders of the planned putsch got cold feet, and dropped their support. 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 fail. 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, a statement that enraged Hitler who harshly berated Brauchitsch for incompetence. After that meeting, both Halder and Brauchitsch told Goerdeler that overthrowing Hitler was simply something that they could not do, and he should find other officers if that was what he really wanted to do. Equally important, on 7 November 1939 following heavy snowstorms, Hitler put off "X-Day" until further notice, which removed 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 re-consider his attitude. Halder gave Goerdeler the following reasons why he wanted nothing to do with any plot to overthrow Hitler:

Leader of the national conservative opposition

During the winter of 1940–1941, Goerdeler spent much of his time discussing with Popitz, Beck and Hassell which of the Hohenzollerns would occupy the throne of Germany after the overthrow of the Nazis. Goerdeler supported the claim of Prince Oskar of Prussia. The idea of restoring the former Emperor Wilhelm II to his throne was rejected by Goerdeler under the grounds that the personality of the former Kaiser and the way he had behaved during his thirty-year reign made him a completely unsuitable candidate. The Crown Prince Wilhelm was rejected by Goerdeler partly because his well deserved reputation as a womaniser, a heavy drinker and an irresponsible playboy made him offensive to the austere, God-fearing Lutheran Goerdeler and partly because of his outspoken support for the Nazi regime. Popitz by contrast, while agreeing with Goerdeler that the unstable former Kaiser was unsuitable, insisted on dynastic grounds that the Crown Prince Wilhelm be the next emperor, and was to spend much time arguing with Goerdeler over which of the sons of the former emperor was to sit on the throne. They developed a future constitution for Germany and even a list of potential ministers. Popitz favored a return to the pre-1918 authoritarian political system. However, Goerdeler argued with his fellow conspirators in favor of a British-style constitutional monarchy with an emperor who was "not meant to govern, but to watch over the Constitution and to represent the State".

Goerdeler's proposed constitution called for a strong executive, a high degree of decentralisation, a Reichstag elected partially by the people on a British-style "first-past-the-post" basis (instead of by party lists) and partially by members of local councils, and a Reichsrat composed of representatives nominated by Christian churches, trade unions, universities, and business groups. To assist with the drafting of the future constitution, Goerdeler enlisted the help, through his friend Dietrich Bonhoeffer, of the so-called Freiburger Kreis (Freiburg Circle), an anti-Nazi discussion group of professors at Freiburg University founded in 1938 that included Adolf Lampe, Erik Wolf, Walter Eucken, Constantin von Dietze, and Gerhard Ritter. Had the 20 July Plot succeeded, Goerdeler would have served as Chancellor in the new government that would have been formed after Hitler's assassination and the overthrow of the Nazi regime. In August 1941, Goerdeler was most disappointed with the Atlantic Charter. He felt that the demands contained in Clause 8, calling for the disarmament of Germany, would make both the task of recruiting the German Army to overthrowing the regime more difficult and were unacceptable since Goerdeler believed in maintaining a strong military". Starting in 1941, Goerdeler expanded his network of anti-Nazi contacts to include Social Democrats like Wilhelm Leuschner and Hermann Maas.

Views on the "Jewish Question"

A latter-day controversy about Goerdeler concerns his attitude towards anti-Semitism. Some historians such as Christof Dipper and Martin Broszat have argued that Goerdeler agreed with the antisemitic policy of the regime until 1938, though afterwards he did resist the Holocaust and other forms of mass murder. The German historian Christof Dipper in his 1983 essay "Der Deutsche Widerstand und die Juden" (translated into English as "The German Resistance and the Jews") argued that the majority of the anti-Nazi national-conservatives such as Goerdeler were anti-Semitic. Dipper wrote that for Goerdeler and his social circle "the bureaucratic, pseudo-legal deprivation of the Jews practised until 1938 was still considered acceptable". Though Dipper noted that no one in the Widerstand movement supported the Holocaust, he claimed also that the national-conservatives like Goerdeler did not intend to restore civil rights to the Jews after the overthrow of Hitler.

By contrast, the Canadian historian Peter Hoffmann in his 2004 essay "The German Resistance and the Holocaust" has contended that Goerdeler was opposed to anti-Semitism in all forms, and that this opposition played a major role in motivating his efforts to overthrow the Nazi regime. Most recently in his 2011 book Carl Goerdeler and the Jewish Question, 1933–1942 and in his 2013 book Carl Goerdeler gegen die Verfolgung der Juden, Hoffmann has defended Goerdeler against the charge that he was an anti-Semite. Hoffmann quotes memoranda for Hitler from the years 1934–1939 in which Goerdeler urged the government to change its "Jewish policy" as a matter of justice and national interests; Goerdeler argued that Germany could enjoy good relations with Britain, France and the United States only if the policies concerning "the Jewish Question, the Free-Masons’ Question, legal security [and] the Church Question" were changed.

Before the war, Goerdeler had implored the British government to pressure Hitler to alleviate his "Jewish policy". In 1941, he proposed for the League of Nations to found a Jewish state that would extend Jewish citizenship to all Jews in the world. Since Germans according to the German citizenship law of 1913 lost their German citizenship by acquiring another citizenship, Goerdeler declared that for German Jews there must be four categories of "exceptions" to this rule. Analysis of population, emigration, immigration and naturalization statistics shows that Goerdeler's proposal guaranteed German citizenship to at least 94% of German Jews and sustain the legal fiction of "exceptions". Goerdeler thus intended to protect, if possible, all German Jews against the loss of their German citizenship; the few who did not fall into one of Goerdeler's categories of "exceptions" could have applied, under the 1913 German citizenship law, for re-instatement. As a leading civilian anti-Hitler conspiracy leader, Goerdeler worked tirelessly to bring about the pre-condition for his proposals' implementation: the overthrow of the Nazi government.

20 July Plot

In May 1944, Goerdeler revived his idea of 1943 of talking Hitler into resigning as a way of achieving a peaceful end to Nazi Germany. Again, Goerdeler proposed to meet with Hitler, explain to him why his leadership was defective, and hope that Hitler would resign and appoint Goerdeler his successor. Again, it took considerable effort on the part of Goerdeler's friends to talk him out of this plan, which they considered to be as bizarre as it was impractical. The British historian Ian Kershaw commented that Goerdeler's plans to talk Hitler into resigning reflected a certain lack of realism on his part. In June 1944, Goerdeler finished his final Cabinet list. Had the putsch of 20 July 1944 succeeded, the Cabinet that would have taken power included the following:

President of Germany (Regent-Reichsverweser): Colonel General Ludwig Beck

State Secretary to the Regent: Ulrich Wilhelm Graf Schwerin von Schwanenfeld

Chancellor: Goerdeler (DNVP)

State Secretary to the Chancellor: Count Peter Yorck von Wartenburg

Vice-Chancellor: Wilhelm Leuschner (SPD)

Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Jakob Kaiser (Christian Trade Union leader)

Minister of War: General Friedrich Olbricht

State Secretary to the Minister of War: Colonel Count Claus von Stauffenberg

Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces: Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben

Commander in Chief of the Army: Colonel General Erich Hoepner

Minister of the Interior: Julius Leber (SPD)

Capture and execution

Goerdeler managed to escape from Berlin, but he was apprehended on 12 August 1944 after being denounced by a book-keeper named Helene Schwärzel in Marienwerder (modern Kwidzyn, Poland) while visiting the grave of his parents. After his arrest, eight members of Goerdeler's family were sent to the concentration camps under the Sippenhaft law. His brother, Fritz, was also sentenced to death and executed on 1 March 1945. Under Gestapo interrogation, Goerdeler claimed that the Holocaust was the major reason for his seeking to overthrow the Nazi regime. On 9 September 1944, after a trial at the People's Court, he was sentenced to death. Goerdeler was not physically tortured by the Gestapo, and freely co-operated with them in naming names, which made him the object of considerable hatred from the other prisoners, who saw him as a "spineless rat."

Goerdeler's friend, the historian Gerhard Ritter, who shared the same prison with him, reported that Goerdeler was never tortured but was instead subjected to "the overheating of cells, painfully tight shackling especially at night, bright light shining on one's face while one tried to sleep, completely insufficient food". One prisoner recalled that Goerdeler was often "groaning aloud from hunger". Goerdeler's hope in confessing all was to overload the Gestapo with information, and thereby buy time to save his life and the others imprisoned; in the process, he caused hundreds involved in the plot to be arrested. During his time in prison, Goerdeler was asked by the SS to assist with writing the constitution of a future SS-ruled Germany. Goerdeler agreed, and often met with Otto Ohlendorf and Dr. Mäding of the SD to provide his advice. Whether Goerdeler was sincere in wishing to help the SS or just trying to buy time to save his life remains unclear. When confronted with the loneliness of his imprisonment and the utter defeat of his cause, Goerdeler, who had always been a highly devout Lutheran, became increasingly preoccupied with spiritual matters. Goerdeler was overwhelmed with despair over what he considered to be the triumph of evil and the destruction of all that he loved. Ritter saw Goerdeler in prison in January 1945 and reported: I was ... astonished at his undiminished intellectual power, but at the same time I was shocked by his outward appearance. It was a man grown old who stood before me, shackled hand and foot, in the same light summer clothes as had on when captured, shabby and collarless, face thin and drawn, strangely different. But it was his eyes that shocked me the most. They were once bright grey eyes and had flashed beneath the heavy eyebrows; that had always been the most impressive thing about him. Now there was no light in them; they were like the eyes of a blind man, yet like nothing I had seen before. His intellectual power was as it had always been; his spiritual strength was not. His natural cheerfulness had gone; his look seemed turned inward. What I beheld was a man with the weariness of death in his soul.