The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

settlement that the army Chief had not been able to afford himself. He was
thus literally in Hitler’s debt.
Von Brauchitsch, like Keitel, offered his resignation, and as with the
Chief of OKW, it was refused; Hitler, who mistrusted the OKH and had as
much contempt for his generals as they did for many leading Nazis, had noone
obvious to replace him with. Instead, he recognized that the
Commander-in-Chief of the army would not dare to stand up to him again.
Like all bullies, Hitler had an innate ability to sniff out other men’s
weaknesses.
It was after von Brauchitsch’s dressing down on 5 November that
Halder had cut his ties with the resisters. On the return trip to OKH
headquarters from the Reich Chancellery, von Brauchitsch, pale as a ghost,
had told Halder that Hitler had raged against the ‘spirit of Zossen’.
Panicking, Halder mistakenly believed the Führer had somehow got wind of
the plot and immediately ordered von Stülpnagel to destroy all the relevant
documents.
It marked a significant turning point in Halder’s life. Recognizing his
total unsuitability as an assassin and revolutionary, he now decided to
embrace the coming offensive wholeheartedly. If he could not prevent it,
then at least he could do all in his powers to ensure it was as successful as
possible.
Nonetheless, Halder was initially extremely dubious that a main thrust
through the Ardennes had much chance of success. General von Manstein,
during his time as Chief of Staff of Army Group A, had produced seven
different drafts, which he submitted to OKH between October and January,
and each draft contained the same essential concept: that if they could take
the French by surprise and get across the Meuse, then a fast panzer thrust
could blaze a way through France before the French troops could react.
It was a bold and daring plan that was dependent on far too many
variables for comfort: that the extremely complicated logistic operation
through the Ardennes would go to plan; that Allied air forces would not
detect it; that the French would be surprised; that the French would not be
able to recover sufficiently; that untried and untested panzer units could cut
such a swathe. For the methodical, cautious Halder, this made it fatally
flawed, and so he put von Manstein’s memos to one side and did not pass
them on to the OKW, knowing that if he did so the Führer would instantly
latch on to such an adventurous idea purely because it was daring and