In their post-war memoirs, numerous Hitlerite generals and marshals wrote about "General Frost", sometimes he was also called "General Zima". In fact, they created and cultivated the image of a mythical general who incorporated all the main features of the Russian climate in winter. By the actions of General Frost, they tried to explain their own failures, blaming him for their troubles and defeats. At the same time, the Russian winter at least once played on the side of Hitler, who, by a lucky chance, survived on March 13, 1943 due to the fact that the bomb planted in his plane did not work, it is believed that the detonator did not work due to the low temperature. Needless to say, if Hitler had been killed on a cold March 1943, the events of World War II and the course of world history might have changed.
A fairly large number of attempts were being prepared on Hitler (it is believed that there were about 20 of them). Some of them were implemented, some remained at the stage of ideas. Many conspirators were exposed and executed. In any case, the most famous assassination attempt on Hitler was the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944, known today as the July 20 Conspiracy or the Conspiracy of Generals. Then, in the course of an unsuccessful assassination attempt, Hitler survived, and the consequence of the conspiracy was the execution of most of its participants and repression against their family members. However, the German military was planning an assassination attempt on Hitler even before 1944. One such attempt was made by Major General Hening von Treskow, who did not share the Nazi ideology and established contacts with secret opposition groups that were about to remove Hitler from power back in 1938.
Henning von Treskov - full name Henning Hermann Robert Karl von Treskov was born on January 10, 1901 and came from a noble family of a Prussian officer. During the First World War in 1917, at the age of 16, he volunteered for the army, took part in the battles on the Western Front. In June 1918 he was promoted to lieutenant, and in July of the same year he was awarded the Iron Cross. Later he left military service for a short time, but returned to the army in 1926. He took part in the Polish and French campaigns of the Wehrmacht. From 1941 he served as the first officer of the General Staff at the headquarters of Army Group Center on the Eastern Front.
While in the service, he never really concealed his anti-Nazi and anti-Hitler views. It is known that he was extremely negative about the repressions against Jews and political workers of the Red Army, trying to protest such orders. He said to his colleague Colonel Baron Rudolph-Christoph von Herdorf, if the orders to shoot commissars and “suspicious” civilians are not canceled, then: “Germany will finally lose its honor, and this will make itself felt for hundreds of years. The blame for this will not be placed on Hitler alone, but on you and me, on your wife and on mine, on your children and on mine. History has shown that Treskov was right. Germany and the Germans still bear this cross on themselves, recognizing the crimes of Nazism, Hitler and his henchmen against humanity.
Treskov and his accomplices hoped to remove Hitler, presenting his death as a plane crash. The planned assassination attempt was preceded by months of secret discussions, agreements and preparations. The conspirators' determination grew along with the defeats of the German army on the Eastern Front and received an impetus after Hitler, contrary to the advice of the generals, wanted to conquer Stalingrad and the Caucasus at the same time. The defeat of German troops at Stalingrad and the destruction of an entire German army played a decisive role. Hitler had to disappear. And when, in March 1943, the Wehrmacht officers managed to lure him to Smolensk, it seemed that the fate of the dictator was decided, but in reality everything turned out differently.
In January-February 1943, German generals Friedrich Olbricht, chief of the general directorate of the ground forces, and Henning von Treskov, chief of staff of Army Group Center in Russia, developed a plan to assassinate the Fuhrer, the plan was code-named Flash. The essence of the plan was to lure Hitler to the headquarters of the army group in Smolensk in March 1943, where he would end it. This event was to be the starting point for the coup in Berlin. The assassination attempt could have been carried out on the ground, but the conspirators planned to plant a bomb on Hitler's plane, sending it with him in the form of a parcel. In this case, the bomb should have detonated already in the air during the return of the Fuhrer from Smolensk to Berlin.
Hening von Treskov
In early March 1943, the conspirators gathered for a final meeting in Smolensk at the headquarters of Army Group Center. Although Admiral Canaris, chief of the Abwehr, did not take part in this operation, he was aware of the planned events and contributed to the organization of this meeting, taking with him to Smolensk officers of the headquarters of Hans von Donanyi and General Erwin Lahusen. The latter, previously an officer in the Austrian army, became the only one of the Abwehr conspirators who managed to survive the war; he brought several bombs with him to Smolensk. Fabian Schlabrendorf, a junior officer in Treskov's headquarters, who was his adjutant, and the Major General himself, after conducting numerous tests, concluded that German time bombs were unusable - their fuses emitted a low hissing sound before detonating, which opened them.
As it turned out, the British managed to develop more successful bombs of this type. Before the explosion, they did not unmask themselves in any way and did not make a noise. The Abwehr had several such bombs at its disposal, and it was they that were handed over to the conspirators. Trapping Hitler, who was suspicious of most of his own generals, was not an easy task. However, Treskov managed to persuade his old friend General Schmundt, the then adjutant of the Fuehrer, to "process" his superior. After hesitation, Hitler nevertheless agreed to visit Russia, while Schmundt himself did not know anything about the impending conspiracy.
Twice - in the afternoon and evening of March 13, 1943 - after Hitler arrived in Smolensk, two conspiratorial officers were ready to succumb to temptation, change the plan and detonate a bomb: first in the office in which the Fuhrer talked with the generals of the army group, and later in the officers' mess. where supper was arranged for all of them. However, they considered that this would lead to the death of those very generals who, having freed themselves from the oath of allegiance to Hitler, would have to assist the conspirators in seizing power in the country.
Fabian Schlabrendorf
At the same time, there was one more problem - how exactly to carry the bomb into Hitler's plane. In the end, Schlabrendorf assembled two explosive devices, wrapping them in such a way that they looked like two bottles of cognac. During lunch, Treskov asked Colonel Heinz Brandt, who was among the persons accompanying the Fuhrer, to take with him a couple of bottles of cognac as a gift for Treskov's old friend General Helmut Stif, who was the head of the organizational directorate of the main command of the ground forces. Brandt, who knew nothing about the conspiracy, said he would be glad to comply with the general's request. Already at the airfield, Schlabrendorf activated a delayed-action mechanism, after which he handed a deadly gift to Brandt, who was entering Hitler's plane.
The explosive device prepared by the conspirators had a clockwork mechanism. After Schlabrendorf pressed the button, she crushed a small ampoule with a chemical solution, which was supposed to corrode the wire holding the spring. After the wire broke off, the spring straightened and hit the striker, which in turn hit the bomb detonator. According to calculations, the explosion in the plane should have occurred at the moment when Hitler flew over Minsk, about half an hour after takeoff from the airfield near Smolensk. Trembling with impatience, Schlabrendorf called Berlin, warning the other conspiracy participants that the Outbreak had begun. Holding their breath, he and Treskov waited for the appearance of loud (in all senses of the word) news.
They believed that the first news could be received by radio from one of the fighters that accompanied Hitler's plane, and kept counting the minutes. It took 20, 30, 40 minutes, an hour, but no news came. After more than two hours of waiting, they received a message that the Fuehrer's plane had successfully landed at Rastenburg. Having received this news, Schlabrendorf immediately called the capital of Germany, conveying a conventional phrase that the attempt to assassinate Hitler had failed.
The conspirators were in a serious position. If a bomb was found on the plane, the investigation would be able to contact the organizers of the assassination attempt, General Treskov, which would have resulted in the death of a wide range of people - direct participants in the conspiracy. Fortunately, the bomb was never found. That same evening, Treskov called Colonel Brandt and, among other things, asked if he had the time to hand over the package to General Stif. Brandt said he didn't have time for this yet. After that, Treskov asked him not to worry, since the bottles are not the right brandy. He assured the colonel that Schlabrendorf would come to him tomorrow on business, who at the same time would take with him a truly excellent cognac, which he was going to actually pass on to his friend.
Schlabrendorf, who went to Hitler's headquarters, exchanged a couple of bottles of real cognac for a bomb. Having then boarded the night train to Berlin, he locked himself in a compartment, where he took apart a bundle disguised as cognac bottles. He found out that the mechanism worked: a small ampoule was crushed, the liquid really corroded the wire, the firing pin pierced the primer, but for some reason the detonator did not ignite. There is a version that the bomb did not go off because the air temperature in the aircraft's luggage compartment was too low. Thus, Hitler was saved by the prolonged Russian winter or by General Moroz, who was so unloved by the German senior officers.
After a failed assassination attempt with a bomb planted in Hitler's plane, Treskov did not abandon the idea of an attempt on the Fuhrer. The conspirators were preparing the next attempt on March 21, 1943, when Hitler, accompanied by Goering, Himmler and Keitel, was to be present at the Zeighaus in Berlin to commemorate the fallen heroes. The program of the event included a visit to an exhibition with captured Soviet military equipment. The perpetrator of the assassination attempt was an aristocrat from Silesia, Colonel Rudolf-Christoph von Gersdorff, who was one of Treskov's closest associates. He was ready to sacrifice himself, blowing himself up along with the Fuhrer. But even here Hitler was lucky, he practically ran through the exhibition in a few minutes, instead of the 30 minutes allotted according to the program. At the same time, chemical bomb detonators carried by Gersdorf could go off at least 10 minutes after their activation. Gersdorf himself barely managed to extract the fuses already activated by him, hiding in the toilet.
Treskov was also directly related to the July 20 Conspiracy. His connection with the conspirators was extensive - he communicated directly with Colonel Count Klaus Schenck von Stauffenberg, one of the main plotters of the conspiracy and the direct executor of the attempt on Hitler's life at his headquarters "Wolfsschanze". Treskov met with him during his service on the Eastern Front. Therefore, upon learning of the failure of the anti-Hitler demonstrations on July 20, 1944, and realizing the inevitability of his arrest, von Treskov decided to commit suicide. Moreover, he tried to disguise him, imitating death in battle, in order to save his family members from persecution.
On July 21, 1944, he went to the front line, went to no-man's land, where he imitated a battle with pistol shots, and then blew himself up with a hand grenade. Initially, the remains of the general were buried at home, however, when his role in the conspiracy was revealed, they were exhumed and burned in the furnaces of the crematorium of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, and Treskov's relatives were repressed. In modern Germany, Major General Hening von Treskov is considered one of the heroes of the anti-Nazi resistance.
