lose. This group was not committed to the overthrow of the regime but was loosely allied to another, more radical group, the "anti-Nazi" fraction centered on Colonel Hans Oster and Hans Bernd Gisevius, which wanted to use the crisis as an excuse for executing a putsch to overthrow the Nazi regime. The divergent aims between these two factions produced considerable tensions. The historian Eckart Conze in a 2010 interview stated about the "anti-war" group in 1938: "An overthrow of Hitler was out of the question. The group wanted to avoid a major war and the potential catastrophic consequences for Germany. Their goal wasn't to get rid of the dictator but, as they saw it, to bring him to his senses." In August, Beck spoke openly at a meeting of army generals in Berlin about his opposition to a war with the western powers over Czechoslovakia. When Hitler was informed of this, he demanded and received Beck's resignation. Beck was highly respected in the army and his removal shocked the officer corps. His successor as chief of staff, Franz Halder, remained in touch with him, and was also in touch with Oster. Privately, he said that he considered Hitler "the incarnation of evil". During September, plans for a move against Hitler were formulated, involving General Erwin von Witzleben, who was the army commander of the Berlin Military Region and thus well-placed to stage a coup. Oster, Gisevius, and Schacht urged Halder and Beck to stage an immediate coup against Hitler, but the army officers argued that they could only mobilize support among the officer corps for such a step if Hitler made overt moves towards war. Halder nevertheless asked Oster to draw up plans for a coup. Weizsäcker and Canaris were made aware of these plans. The conspirators disagreed on what to do about Hitler if there was a successful army coup—eventually most overcame their scruples and agreed that he must be killed so that army officers would be free from their oath of loyalty. They agreed Halder would instigate the coup when Hitler committed an overt step towards war. During the planning for the 1938 putsch, Carl Friedrich Goerdeler was in contact through the intermediary of General Alexander von Falkenhausen with Chinese intelligence Most German conservatives favoured Germany's traditional informal alliance with China, and were strongly opposed to the about-face in Germany's Far Eastern policies effected in early 1938 by