This was not, however, immediately known to the conspirators. Interrupted by a guard knocking on the door advising him that the meeting was about to begin, he was not able to prime the second bomb, which he gave to his aide-de-camp, Werner von Haeften. Groups of military plotters exchanged ideas with civilian, political, and intellectual resistance groups in the Kreisauer Kreis (which met at the von Moltke estate in Kreisau) and in other secret circles. Arthur Nebe had commanded Einsatzgruppe B in the Soviet Union, responsible for the murder of over 45,000 Jews. The very day after his plot failed was the Kristallnacht—the day Jewish businesses and synagogues across Germany were burnt to the crowd; the day, some would say, the Holocaust began. "[26][27], Many members of the plot had helped the Nazis gain power and shared revisionist foreign policy goals pursued by Hitler, and even at the time of the plot were anti-democratic, hoping to replace Hitler with a conservative-authoritarian government involving aristocratic rule. Their most important recruit was General Friedrich Olbricht, head of the General Army Office headquarters at the Bendlerblock in central Berlin, who controlled an independent system of communications to reserve units throughout Germany. 134–135, 2008, Christianity and Resistance in the 20th Century: From Kaj Munk and Dietrich Bonhoeffer to Desmond Tutu (International Studies in Religion and Society Series) page 135, 2008, Germany: 1933–1990 – p. 96 Heinrich August Winkler – 2007. The discovery of letters and diaries in the homes and offices of those arrested revealed the plots of 1938, 1939, and 1943, and this led to further rounds of arrests, including that of colonel general Franz Halder, who finished the war in a concentration camp. [1], At 12:42[44] the bomb detonated, demolishing the conference room and killing a stenographer. As a result, the plot to mobilise Operation Valkyrie would have no chance of succeeding once the officers of the Reserve Army knew that Hitler was alive. None of us can bewail his own death; those who consented to join our circle put on the robe of Nessus. This told Fromm that the plot had been traced to his headquarters, and that he was in mortal danger. Olbricht suggested that this plan could be used to mobilise the Reserve Army for the purpose of the coup. [58] Not all of them were connected with the plot, since the Gestapo used the occasion to settle scores with many other people suspected of opposition sympathies. [1], Stauffenberg placed the single primed bomb inside his briefcase and, with the unwitting assistance of Major Ernst John von Freyend, entered the conference room containing Hitler and 20 officers, positioning the briefcase under the table near Hitler. In 1939, Elser planted a bomb behind his lecturn to kill Hitler during a speech. The bomb failed to detonate, and a second attempt a week later with Hitler at an exhibition of captured Soviet weaponry in Berlin also failed. [81] Speidel had previously been connected to Carl Goerdeler, the civilian leader of the resistance, but not to the plotters led by Stauffenberg, and only came to the attention of Stauffenberg due to his appointment to Rommel's headquarters. Another major plotter, General Ludwig von Beck, was allowed to commit suicide. This can be found in. Germans against Hitler: the Stauffenberg plot and resistance under the Third Reich. The vacillating General Fromm, however, phoned Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel at the Wolf's Lair and was assured that Hitler was alive. Fromm, presumably to protect himself, changed sides and attempted to have Stauffenberg arrested. Pictured are Dr. Franz Reisert, Dr. Theodor Haubach, Graf von Moltke, Theodor Steltzer, and Dr. Eugen Gerstenmeier. The "first official memorial service for the resistance fighters of July 20" was held on the tenth anniversary in 1954. The plot to kill Hitler needed to use this plan to take control from the SS because only the death of the Fuhrer would release their oath of loyalty till death, sworn by every SS member. On 20 July 1944, Claus von Stauffenberg and other conspirators attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Führer of Nazi Germany, inside his Wolf's Lair field headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia. He also knew that if he chose to stand trial, his family would have been severely punished even before the all-but-certain conviction and execution. The file, number 65-53615, details a plot involving one man. With this in mind, he committed suicide on 14 October 1944. In the confusion of Hitler’s death, Göring, Himmler, and other major Nazi leaders would be arrested, and a new government established with Goerdeler as Chancellor and Beck as president. [79], According to a post-war account by Karl Strölin, the Oberbürgermeister of Stuttgart at that time, he and two other conspirators, Alexander von Falkenhausen and Carl Heinrich von Stülpnagel began efforts to bring Rommel into the anti-Hitler conspiracy in early 1944. Others, like Goerdeler, objected to Nazi anti-Jewish policy as well as the general mismanagement of the war leading Germany to ruin. The badges themselves bore a facsimile of his signature, making them among the rarest decorations to have been awarded by Nazi Germany. He writes: "Especially with reference to the murder of the Jews, [it is said that] 'the SS' had deceived the officers by killing in secret, filing incomplete reports or none at all; if general staff offices protested, the SS threatened them." That opinion was shared by many Germans, Germans who did not adore Hitler, who did not belong to the [Nazi] Party. Even if it fails, we must take action in Berlin ⁠,⁠ ⁠for the practical purpose no longer matters; what matters now is that the German resistance movement must take the plunge before the eyes of the world and of history. They believed that Europe should be controlled under German hegemony. Washington, DC 20024-2126 [50] At 16:40 Stauffenberg and Haeften arrived at the Bendlerblock. [91], Hitler knew it would cause a major scandal on the home front to have the popular Rommel publicly branded as a traitor. In 1944, a group of German officers made plans to finish off Hitler at his Prussian command center. [15], In late 1942, Tresckow and Olbricht formulated a plan to assassinate Hitler and stage an overthrow during Hitler's visit to the headquarters of Army Group Centre at Smolensk in March 1943, by placing a bomb on his plane (Operation Spark). July Plot, abortive attempt on July 20, 1944, by German military leaders to assassinate Adolf Hitler, seize control of the government, and seek more favourable peace terms from the Allies. "[100] After this speech, public opinion in Germany began to shift. [30], In August and September 1943, Tresckow drafted the "revised" Valkyrie plan and new supplementary orders. [94], Gerlach pointed out that the plotters had "selective moral criteria" and while they were concerned about Jews being exterminated in the Holocaust, they were far less disturbed about mass murder of civilians in the East. Ludwig Beck, another important civilian, was a former general who had resigned in opposition to Hitler’s aggressive war plans in 1938. Linking this asset to Tresckow's resistance group in Army Group Centre created a viable coup apparatus. [101] As of 2014, the resistance fighters are generally considered heroes in Germany, according to Deutsche Welle. Hitler would not have survived another 24 hours if Maurice Bavaud had been a better shot. Indeed, a number of the conspirators were themselves implicated in both war crimes and the Holocaust. The motivations of the conspirators were likely varied and remain contested to this day. This attempt was not the first plot to kill Hitler. [60] The officers involved in the plot were "tried" before the Court of Military Honour, a drumhead court-martial that merely considered the evidence furnished to it by the Gestapo before expelling the accused from the Army in disgrace and handing them over to the People's Court. ... in any situation that I can think of where I want to be involved in an assassination plot. In the end more than 7,000 people were arrested, and 4,980 were executed, often on the barest evidence. The Plot to Kill Hitler is an awe-inspiring novel focused on a pastor and philosopher named Dietrich Bonhoeffer. [99], A 1951 survey by the Allensbach Institute revealed that "Only a third of respondents had a positive opinion about the men and women who had tried unsuccessfully to overthrow the Nazi regime."[100]. [29] Stauffenberg brought a new tone of decisiveness to the ranks of the resistance movement. An ally at Hitler’s headquarters cut off all communication as Stauffenberg returned to Berlin to coordinate the implementation of Valkyrie. Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini after the July Plot failed The details of the conspirators' peace initiatives remain unknown,[3][4][5] but they would have included unrealistic demands for the confirmation of Germany's extensive annexations of European territory. Witzleben left shortly afterwards. Der 20. Many of the conspirators appeared before the notorious People’s Courts for show trials, but this practice was ended as it gave conspirators a platform to condemn the regime. In both places he was heavily guarded and rarely saw people he did not know or trust. Olbricht and Stauffenberg restrained him at gunpoint and Olbricht then appointed General Erich Hoepner to take over his duties. [84] Three days before the assassination attempt, on 17 July, Rommel's staff car was strafed by an Allied aircraft in France; he was hospitalised with major injuries and incapacitated on 20 July. Stauffenberg now decided to do both: to assassinate Hitler, wherever he was, and to manage the plot in Berlin. [98] In 2011, Danny Orbach, a Harvard-based historian, wrote that Gerlach's reading of the sources is highly skewed, and, at times, diametrically opposed to what they actually say. "[86] Historian Richard J. Evans concluded that he knew of a plot, but was not involved. On Saturday, 1 July 1944 Stauffenberg was appointed Chief of Staff to General Fromm at the Reserve Army headquarters on Bendlerstraße in central Berlin. Both women wore gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints. According to Peter Hoffmann, he had turned into Hitler's resolute opponent and in the end supported the coup (though not the assassination itself). Wilhelm, Crown Prince of Germany was also under suspicion as he was touted to be head of state after Hitler. Olbricht now put forward a new strategy for staging a coup against Hitler. He called Goebbels at the Propaganda Ministry. [89][90] Hofacker confessed that Rommel had agreed to demand for Hitler to step down, and if he refused, Rommel would join the other conspirators in deposing Hitler. Fromm was freed from his room and fighting broke out in the Bendlerblock between officers supporting and opposing the coup; during the shooting, Stauffenberg was wounded. In many places the coup was going ahead, led by officers who believed that Hitler was dead. [35], Operation Valkyrie could only be put into effect by General Friedrich Fromm, commander of the Reserve Army, so he must either be won over to the conspiracy or in some way neutralised if the plan was to succeed.[30]. He was killed by a coup de grace after he succeeded only in wounding himself. Danny Orbach, "Criticism Reconsidered: The German Resistance to Hitler in Critical German Scholarship", Learn how and when to remove this template message, List of assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler, Axel Freiherr von dem Bussche-Streithorst, List of people killed or wounded in the 20 July plot, alleged plot to kidnap or murder Pope Pius XII, decorations to have been awarded by Nazi Germany, President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Conspiracy theories about Adolf Hitler's death, Operation Valkyrie: The Stauffenberg Plot to Kill Hitler, "A Group of German Leaders tried to Kill Hitler in 1944. And the only man who could possibly stave off disaster ... was Adolf Hitler. The plot was now fully prepared. A disillusioned Wehrmacht officer named Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler on 20 July 1944. The July 20th Plot to assassinate Hitler in his Eastern Prussian Headquarters, called the Wolf’s Lair, was probably the closest anyone got to really killing the dictator. The worst execution was reserved for the brother of one of the conspirators. Neurath and Strölin suggested opening immediate surrender negotiations in the West, and, according to Speidel, Rommel agreed to further discussions and preparations. On 20 July 1944, Claus von Stauffenberg and other conspirators attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Führer of Nazi Germany, inside his Wolf's Lair field headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia. Beck would be appointed provisional head of state, Goerdeler would be chancellor, and Witzleben would be commander-in-chief of the armed forces. General von Bock advised Tresckow to seek his support, but there is no evidence that he did so. [41] The detonator consisted of a thin copper tube containing cupric chloride that would take about ten minutes to silently eat through wire holding back the firing pin from the percussion cap. [87], What is not debated are the results of the failed bomb plot of 20 July. By 15 July, when Stauffenberg again flew to the Wolfsschanze, this condition had been dropped. It detonated, but failed to kill Hitler. Main telephone: 202.488.0400 He died on 8 March 2013, aged 90. View the list of all donors. It is presumed that Colonel Heinz Brandt, who was standing next to Hitler, used his foot to move the briefcase aside by pushing it behind the leg of the conference table,[44] thus unwittingly deflecting the blast from Hitler but causing the loss of one of his legs and his own demise when the bomb detonated. In fact, it was unusual for Himmler to attend military conferences.[14]. As the members of the coup were rounded up, Hitler ordered some of the conspirators shot and others killed by hanging with piano wire. City Commandant, and conspirator, General Paul von Hase ordered the Wachbataillon Großdeutschland, under the command of Major Otto Ernst Remer, to secure the Wilhelmstraße and arrest Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. As Remer regained control of the city and word spread that Hitler was still alive, the less resolute members of the conspiracy in Berlin began to change sides. He was unable to arm the second bomb in time. For many of the conspirators, the attempted assassination had a more pragmatic objective: to rescue Germany from catastrophic defeat brought about by Hitler’s increasingly irrational management of the war. It is a question that every generation must answer again and again. A secret declaration began with these words: "The Führer Adolf Hitler is dead! The leaders were frustrated military officers Claus von Stauffenberg, Henning von Tresckow, Ludwig Beck, and Friedrich Olbricht. Tresckow, too, appeared to be deeply dismayed by the Nazi’s antisemitic policies and privately described Kristallnacht as an act of barbarism. Falk Harnack directed and co-wrote the film's script with Günther Weisenborn. [93] Gerlach proved that plotters like Tresckow or Gersdorff were aware of mass murder happening in the East from at least 1941. Encyclopedia of Contemporary German Culture, "The heroes of West German accounts at this time were the men involved in the largely conservative, nationalist resistance of the July Plot of 1944. Stülpnagel had closely cooperated with the Einsatzgruppen in their mass murder of Jews when he commanded the 17th Army in the German-occupied Soviet Union. But Hitler unexpectedly left the building 13 minutes early. [79] Rommel's name also came up in confessions made under torture by Stülpnagel and Hofacker, and was included in Goerdeler's papers on a list of potential supporters. Because of the plot's failure, such a government never rose to power and most of its members were executed. More than 20 people were injured with three officers later perishing. Fromm replied that he thought Stauffenberg was with Hitler.[51]. Himmler's contacts with the opposition and his possible motives are discussed by Padfield, The Gestapo claimed 7,000 arrests. During 1943 and early 1944 von Tresckow and von Stauffenberg organised at least five attempts to get one of the military conspirators near enough to Hitler, for long enough to kill him with hand grenades, bombs, or a revolver: As the war situation deteriorated, Hitler no longer appeared in public and rarely visited Berlin. At around this time the planned seizure of power in Paris was aborted when Field Marshal Günther von Kluge, who had recently been appointed commander-in-chief in the west, learned that Hitler was alive. There was more confusion when Stauffenberg's aircraft landed and he phoned from the airport to say that Hitler was in fact dead. The name Operation Valkyrie —originally referring to part of … The plotters were stripped of their uniforms and given old, shabby clothing to humiliate them for the cameras. The Replacement Army (Ersatzheer) had an operational plan called Operation Valkyrie, which was to be used in the event that the disruption caused by the Allied bombing of German cities would cause a breakdown in law and order, or an uprising by the millions of forced labourers from occupied countries now being used in German factories. [95] Gerlach's arguments were later supported by historian Hans Mommsen, who stated that the plotters were interested above all in military victory. TTY: 202.488.0406, Holocaust Survivors and Victims Resource Center. The Plot to Assassinate Hitler (German: Der 20. The result was the Wound Badge of 20 July 1944. Others under suspicion like Wilhelm Canaris and Hans Oster were dismissed from office in January, 1944. ... including the generals’ plot to kill him in July 1944. Hitler had ordered that those found guilty should be "hanged like cattle". [61][page needed]. He then climbed into a staff car with his aide Werner von Haeften and managed to bluff his way past three checkpoints to exit the Wolfsschanze complex. Many conspirators were arrested and the dragnet expanded to thousands. [42][page needed][43][page needed] After a few minutes, Stauffenberg received a planned telephone call and left the room. He then saw a "massive" cloud of smoke, wood splinters and paper and men being hurled through a window and door. Participants in the July 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler and members of the "Kreisau Circle" resistance group on trial before the People's Court. For his involvement in the conspiracy, he was later arrested, convicted of treason and executed.[68]. General Karl Freiherr von Thüngen was appointed in his place, but proved to be of little help. Historians' opinions on this matter vary greatly. The Routledge Companion to Nazi Germany Roderick Stackelberg p. 250, Christianity and Resistance in the 20th Century: From Kaj Munk and Dietrich Bonhoeffer to Desmond Tutu (International Studies in Religion and Society Series) pp. [88] Consequently, it did not take long for Rommel to come under suspicion. We would like to thank Crown Family Philanthropies and the Abe and Ida Cooper Foundation for supporting the ongoing work to create content and resources for the Holocaust Encyclopedia. The July Bomb Plot of 1944 was an attempt by senior German Army officers to kill Hitler and end World War Two. In 2013, the last surviving member of the plot, Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist-Schmenzin, died in Munich. In one case, according to Orbach, Gerlach had falsely paraphrased the memoir of the resistance fighter Colonel Rudolf Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff, and in another case, quoted misleadingly from an SS document. [71], Philipp von Boeselager, the German officer who provided the plastic explosives used in the bomb, escaped detection and survived the war. 9 Maurice Bavaud Tried to Kill Hitler the next Day. Gerlach concludes: "This is, of course, nonsense. After the Battle of Stalingrad in December 1942, despite his religious scruples, he concluded that the Führer's assassination was a lesser moral evil than Hitler's remaining in power. Almost all of the conspirators shared a conservative, nationalist perspective and an aristocratic background. No fewer than 42 plots have been uncovered by historians. A treacherous group of party leaders has attempted to exploit the situation by attacking our embattled soldiers from the rear in order to seize power for themselves. General Olricht, Colonel von Stauffenberg, and two other conspirators were captured at the Benderblock, site of many offices of the Supreme High Command of the German Army, tried by an impromptu court martial, and executed by firing squad in the courtyard. In the days that followed, Hitler ordered a massive hunt for conspirators which continued for months. [72] The last survivor of the 20 July Plot was Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist-Schmenzin, the thwarted plotter of just a few months before. Von Witzleben was the former commander of the German 1st Army and the former Commander-in-Chief of the German Army Command in the West. Find topics of interest and explore encyclopedia content related to those topics, Find articles, photos, maps, films, and more listed alphabetically, Recommended resources and topics if you have limited time to teach about the Holocaust, Explore the ID Cards to learn more about personal experiences during the Holocaust. From early 1942, he had come to share two basic convictions with many military officers: that Germany was being led to disaster and that Hitler's removal from power was necessary. Meanwhile, Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel, military governor of occupied France, managed to disarm the SD and SS, and captured most of their leadership. Moltke also believed killing Hitler would be hypocritical: Hitler and National Socialism had turned wrongdoing into a system, something which the resistance should avoid. At the end of 1943 the Schutz Staffeinel (SS) and the Gestapo managed to arrest several Germans involved in plotting to overthrow Adolf Hitler. Hitler had to be assassinated. All attempts involved citizens of the German Reich, except where noted. [1], At around 12:30 pm as the conference began, Stauffenberg made an excuse to use a washroom in Wilhelm Keitel's office where he used pliers to crush the end of a pencil detonator inserted into a 1 kilogram (2.2 lb) block of plastic explosive wrapped in brown paper, that was prepared by Wessel von Freytag-Loringhoven. Popitz was not alone in seeing Himmler as a potential ally. ", Tresckow also "signed orders for the deportation of thousands of orphaned children for forced labor in the Reich"—the so-called Heu-Aktion. The Quartermaster of the Army, Eduard Wagner, who supplied the escape aircraft, had coordinated Einsatzgruppen cooperation with the army and created the plans to starve Soviet prisoners of war (POWs), resulting in millions of deaths. This included Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Klaus Bonhoeffer, Josef Mueller and Hans Dohnanyi. Executions continued to the last days of the war. In August 1943, Tresckow met, for the first time, a young staff officer named Lieutenant Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. [6][7], The plot was the culmination of efforts by several groups in the German resistance to overthrow the Nazi German government. Hitler took his survival to be a "divine moment in history", and commissioned a special decoration to be made for each person wounded or killed in the blast. It was not until much later that a new generation of left-liberal historians pointed out just how little many of those involved in the July Plot actually sympathized with or understood democratic ideas. [63][64], The Kaltenbrunner Report to Adolf Hitler dated 29 November 1944 on the background of the plot, states that the Pope was somehow a conspirator, specifically naming Eugenio Pacelli, Pope Pius XII, as being a party in the attempt. A human being's moral integrity begins when he is prepared to sacrifice his life for his convictions. Tresckow systematically recruited oppositionists into the Group's staff, making it the nerve centre of the army resistance. Was Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrong to plot against Hitler's life? When, in few hours' time, I go before God to account for what I have done and left undone, I know I will be able to justify what I did in the struggle against Hitler. By the summer of 1944, the Gestapo was closing in on the conspirators. Beck was a former Chief of Staff of the German Army High Command (OKH). Juli) is a 1955 German feature film produced by CCC Film on the failed 20 July 1944 attempt to kill Adolf Hitler. Nonetheless, a 1956 proposal to name a school after Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg was opposed by a majority of citizens, and, according to Deutsche Welle, East Germany's communist leadership had ignored the assassination attempt for decades, mainly because the conservative and aristocratic conspirators around Stauffenberg did not match the socialist ideal. They concluded that a time bomb was the only option. Some were already members of the “Kreisau Circle” of conservative opponents to Hitler. After the war, he co-founded the Socialist Reich Party and remained a prominent Neo-Nazi and advocate of Holocaust Denial until his death in 1997. Himmler had at least one conversation with a known oppositionist when, in August 1943, the Prussian Finance Minister Johannes Popitz, who was involved in Goerdeler's network, came to see him and offered him the support of the opposition if he would make a move to displace Hitler and secure a negotiated end to the war. By the time Stauffenberg's aircraft reached Berlin about 16:00,[49] General Erich Fellgiebel, an officer at the Wolfsschanze who was in on the plot, had phoned the Bendlerblock and told the plotters that Hitler had survived the explosion. The following were slated for these roles as of July 1944:[75], Albert Speer was listed in several notes of the conspirators as a possible Minister of Armaments; however, most of these notes stated Speer should not be approached until after Hitler was dead and one conjectural government chart had a question mark beside Speer's name. However, his actions on 20 July had little influence on the events. The plan was for Stauffenberg to plant the briefcase with the bomb in Hitler's conference room with a timer running, excuse himself from the meeting, wait for the explosion, then fly back to Berlin and join the other plotters at the Bendlerblock. The badges were struck in three values: gold, silver, and black (the colors denoted the severity of the wounds received by each recipient). According to post-war recollections of Fabian von Schlabrendorff, Tresckow said the following before his death: The whole world will vilify us now, but I am still totally convinced that we did the right thing. Keitel demanded to know Stauffenberg's whereabouts. Rommel opposed assassinating Hitler. With black-and-white photographs, fascinating sidebars, and thoroughly researched details, this book should be essential reading. Hitler is the archenemy not only of Germany but of the world. It involved a number of both civilian and military officials. [73], As a result of the failed coup, every member of the Wehrmacht was required to reswear his loyalty oath, by name, to Hitler and, on 24 July 1944, the military salute was replaced throughout the armed forces with the Hitler Salute in which the arm was outstretched and the salutation Heil Hitler was given.[74]. I was enraged. [70], For his role in stopping the coup, Major Remer was promoted to colonel and ended the war as a major general. Under Himmler's new Sippenhaft (blood guilt) laws, many relatives of the principal plotters were also arrested in the immediate aftermath of the failed plot.[56].