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When Neville Chamberlain flew to Berchtesgaden to placate Adolf Hitler in September 1938, he upset the plans of top-ranking German officers. They were getting ready to arrest Hitler.

This astounding statement was made in London last week during the interrogation of stocky, taciturn Colonel General Franz Halder. Chief of the German General Staff from 1938 to 1942, Halder planned the campaigns against Poland, Norway, the Lowlands, France, the opening attack on Russia.

He told his interrogators that in 1938 the Wehrmacht had only 21 divisions, including two Panzer divisions. The Czechs had 45 well-trained divisions behind a fortified belt newer and better than the Maginot Line. Said Halder, he and his colleagues concluded that if war came, the German prospect was "nothing less than catastrophic."

Accordingly, the conspirators determined to overthrow Hitler and expose his reckless gambling to the German people. "The leaders . . . were myself, General Erwin von Witzleben, commander of the Berlin garrison; Colonel General Ludwig Beck, my predecessor; Count von Helldorf, police president of Berlin; General von Brockdorf, head of the Potsdam garrison, and General Edwin von Stuelpnagel. The commander in chief, von Brauchitsch, had been informed of the conspiracy."

The Nick of Time. Halder decided to strike on the night of Sept. 14. He sent a Panzer division to General von Witzleben at Berlin without arousing suspicion. Just when the coup seemed completely assured of success, London announced the umbrella-toting Prime Minister's impending visit to Hitler's mountain. Halder, shaken by this dramatic evidence of the Fuehrer's political sagacity, called off the plot, thereafter toed the Hitler line. Later, Chamberlain's policy was defended as giving Britain time to prepare. Halder's statement indicated that it was Germany that got the time.

Not all the mistakes, Halder said, were made on the Allied side. Hitler allowed the British Army to escape at Dunkirk by personally ordering the attack on Paris. It was Hitler who failed to take Moscow in August 1942, by ordering all eastern reserves into the Ukraine. He had a mystical fear of Moscow because of Napoleon's fate. The Fuehrer, according to Halder, thought he could crush the Russians by taking Stalingrad and Leningrad, because they were named for the two most venerated Bolshevist leaders.

Halder's thumbnail sketch of Hitler: "The man was a thorough liar, absolutely untrustworthy and completely allergic to reasoning when it was a question of criticizing his pet ideas. His military capabilities were those of a mediocre corporal."

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