In serving as Chief of Staff of the German Army between 1935 and 1938, Beck became increasingly disillusioned and stood in opposition to the rising totalitarianism of the Nazi regime and to Hitler's aggressive foreign policy.

[2] In September and October 1930, Beck was a leading defence witness at the trial in Leipzig of three junior Reichswehr officers: Lieutenant Richard Scheringer, Hans Friedrich Wendt and Hanns Ludin.

[5] In July 1934, Beck expressed some alarm at Nazi foreign policy involving Germany in a "premature war" after the failed Nazi putsch in Austria, which led Beck to warn that those in "leading positions" must understand that foreign adventures might then lead to Germany being forced to make a "humiliating retreat", which might bring about the end of the regime.

[10] As Chief of the General Staff, Beck lived in a modest home in the Lichterfelde suburb of Berlin, and worked normally from 09:00 to 19:00 every day.

[7] In that role, Beck was widely respected for his intelligence and work ethic but was often criticised by other officers for being too interested in administrative details.

His views led to conflicts with War Minister Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg, who resented Beck's efforts to diminish his powers.

[15] Besides military attachés, Beck also recruited civilians for his private intelligence network, the most notable volunteer being Carl Goerdeler.

Beck tried very early—as Chief of the General Staff—to deter Hitler from using the grievances of the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia, most of whose population was ethnically German, as an excuse for war in 1938.

In 1935, he had a series of meetings with Prince Bernard von Bülow, the State Secretary of the German Foreign Office and the Chief of the Hungarian General Staff to discuss plans "for the division of Czechoslovakia".

On 12 November 1937, Beck submitted a memorandum stating that "various facts" show the requirement "for an imminent solution by force" of the problem of Czechoslovakia and that it was desirable to start preparing "the political ground among those powers which stood on our side or who were not against us" and that the "military discussion in either the one case or the other should begin at once".

[21] From May 1938, Beck had bombarded Hitler, Wilhelm Keitel and Walther von Brauchitsch with memoranda opposing Fall Grün (Case Green), the plan for a war against Czechoslovakia.

[28] In response, Beck drafted another memo on 29 May in which he presented a case that the Czechoslovak Army was not, as Hitler argued, a weak force and that a limited regional war in Central Europe was not a realistic possibility.

[30] At first, Beck felt that Hitler's rush to war in 1938 was caused not by his personality but rather him receiving poor military advice, especially from Keitel.

As a result, Beck spent much of his time urging a reorganization of the command structure so that Hitler would receive his advice from the General Staff and presumably abandon his plans for aggression.

In a memorandum to Brauchitsch, Beck urged that all of the senior officers threaten a mass collective resignation to force Hitler to abandon his plans for Fall Grün in 1938.

[39] In late July 1938, Erich von Manstein, a leading protégé of Beck's, wrote to his mentor urging him to stay at his post and to place his faith in Hitler.

[40] On 29 July, Beck wrote a memorandum stating the German Army had the duty to prepare for possible wars with foreign enemies and "for an internal conflict which need only take place in Berlin".

[41] In August 1938, Beck suggested to Brauchitsch that a "house cleaning" of the Nazi regime was necessary, under which the influence of the SS would be reduced, but Hitler would continue as dictator.

[44] In the following years, Beck lived in retirement in his Berlin apartment and ceased to have any meaningful influence on German military affairs.

He increasingly came to rely on contacts with the British in the hope that London would successfully exert its influence on Hitler through threats and warnings, but he failed.

[18] In the autumn of 1939, Beck was in contact with German Army officers, politicians, and civil servants, including General Halder, Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, Carl Goerdeler, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris and Colonel Hans Oster about the possibility of staging a putsch to overthrow the Nazi regime.

[47] In the early stages of the war, after Poland had been overrun but before France and the Low Countries had been attacked, the German Resistance sought the assistance of Pope Pius XII in preparations for a coup to oust Hitler.

[52] In 1940 and 1941, Beck spent much time discussing with Goerdeler, Hassell and Erwin von Witzleben aspects of the proposed state after the successful overthrow of the regime.

In May 1944, a memorandum by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel made it clear that his participation in the proposed putsch was based on the condition of Beck serving as the head of state in the new government.

It was proposed that Beck would become Reichsverweser (regent) and head of the provisional government that would assume power in Germany after Hitler had been eliminated.

Beck requested permission to keep his private pistol with the intention to commit suicide to avoid torture by the Gestapo.

He shot himself in the head but succeeded only in severely wounding himself, and one of Fromm's men was brought in to administer the coup de grâce by shooting Beck in the back of the neck.

[59] Following the start of World War II, to avoid being conscripted into the labour service, she moved to a family friend's forestry estate in East Prussia.

[60] In 1944, considering the risk from Allied bombing to be high, Beck arranged for Gertrud and her daughter to stay with her Neubaur in-laws in Oberstdorf due to its remote location in the Bavarian Alps.