On July 20, 1944, the most famous attempt on the life of the Fuhrer took place at Hitler's headquarters in the Görlitz forest near Rastenburg in East Prussia (headquarters "Lair of the Wolf"). From "Wolfsschanze" (German Wolfsschanze) Hitler directed military operations on the Eastern Front from June 1941 to November 1944. The headquarters were well guarded, it was impossible for an outsider to penetrate it. In addition, the entire adjacent territory was in a special position: only a kilometer away was the headquarters of the High Command of the Ground Forces. For an invitation to the Headquarters, a recommendation from a person close to the top leadership of the Reich was needed. The call to the meeting of the chief of staff of the ground forces of the reserve, Klaus Schenk von Stauffenberg, was approved by the head of the High Command of the Wehrmacht, the chief adviser to the Fuhrer on military issues, Wilhelm Keitel.
This assassination attempt was the culmination of a conspiracy by the military opposition to assassinate Adolf Hitler and seize power in Germany. The conspiracy that existed in the armed forces and the Abwehr since 1938 involved the military, who believed that Germany was not ready for a big war. In addition, the military was angered by the increasing role of the SS troops.
Ludwig August Theodor Beck.
From the history of the assassination attempt on Hitler
The assassination attempt on July 20 was 42 in a row, and they all failed, often Hitler survived by some miracle. Although Hitler's popularity among the people was high, he also had enough enemies. Threats to physically eliminate the Fuhrer appeared immediately after the transfer of power to the Nazi party. The police regularly received information about the impending assassination attempt on Hitler. So, only from March to December 1933, at least ten cases, in the opinion of the secret police, were a danger to the new head of government. In particular, Kurt Lutter, the ship's carpenter from Konigsberg, was preparing an explosion with his associates in March 1933 at one of the pre-election rallies at which the head of the Nazis was supposed to speak.
On the part of Hitler's left, they mainly tried to eliminate loners. In the 1930s, four attempts were made to eliminate Adolf Hitler. So, on November 9, 1939, in the famous Munich beer hall, Hitler performed on the occasion of the anniversary of the "beer coup" that failed in 1923. Former communist Georg Elser prepared and detonated an improvised explosive device. The explosion killed eight people, more than sixty people were injured. However, Hitler was not hurt. The Fuhrer finished his speech earlier than usual and left a few minutes before the bomb exploded.
In addition to the left, supporters of Otto Strasser's "Black Front" tried to eliminate Hitler. This organization was created in August 1931 and united extreme nationalists. They were unhappy with the economic policies of Hitler, who, in their opinion, was too liberal. Therefore, in February 1933, the Black Front was banned, and Otto Strasser fled to Czechoslovakia. In 1936, Strasser persuaded a Jewish student, Helmut Hirsch (who emigrated to Prague from Stuttgart), to return to Germany and kill one of the Nazi leaders. The explosion was planned to be carried out in Nuremberg, during the next congress of the Nazis. But the attempt failed, Hirsha was handed over to the Gestapo by one of the participants in the conspiracy. In July 1937, Helmut Hirsch was executed in the Berlin Ploetzensee prison. The Black Front tried to plan another assassination attempt, but it did not go beyond theory.
Then theological student from Lausanne, Maurice Bavo, wanted to kill Hitler. He failed to penetrate the Fuehrer's speech on the fifteenth anniversary of the "beer putsch" (November 9, 1938). Then the next day he tried to get into the residence of Hitler in Obersalzburg and there to shoot the leader of the Nazis. At the entrance, he said that he had to give Hitler a letter. However, the guards suspected something was wrong and arrested Bavo. In May 1941 he was executed.
Erwin von Witzleben.
Military conspiracy
Part of the German military elite believed that Germany was still weak and not ready for a big war. The war, in their opinion, would lead the country to a new catastrophe. Around the former chief burgomaster of Leipzig Karl Goerdeler (he was a well-known lawyer and politician) formed a small circle of senior officers of the armed forces and the Abwehr, who dreamed of changing the state course.
A notable figure among the conspirators was Chief of the General Staff Ludwig August Theodor Beck. In 1938, Beck prepared a series of documents in which he criticized the aggressive designs of Adolf Hitler. He believed that they were too risky, adventurous in nature (given the weakness of the armed forces, which were in the process of formation). In May 1938, the chief of the General Staff opposed the plan for the Czechoslovak campaign. In July 1938, Beck sent a memorandum to the Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces, Colonel-General Walter von Brauchitsch, in which he called for the resignation of the top military leadership of Germany in order to prevent the outbreak of war with Czechoslovakia. According to him, there was a question about the existence of the nation. In August 1938, Beck submitted his resignation letter and ceased to serve as chief of the General Staff. However, the German generals did not follow his example.
Beck even tried to find support from the UK. He sent his emissaries to England, at his request Karl Goerdeler traveled to the British capital. However, the British government did not make contact with the conspirators. London followed the path of "appeasing" the aggressor in order to send Germany to the USSR.
Beck and a number of other officers planned to remove Hitler from power and prevent Germany from being drawn into the war. An assault group of officers was being prepared for the coup. Beck was supported by the Prussian aristocrat and staunch monarchist, commander of the 1st Army Erwin von Witzleben. The strike group consisted of Abwehr officers (military intelligence and counterintelligence), led by the chief of staff of the intelligence directorate abroad, Colonel Hans Oster and Major Friedrich Wilhelm Heinz. In addition, the new chief of the General Staff, Franz Halder, Walter von Brauchitsch, Erich Göpner, Walter von Brockdorf-Alefeld, and the head of the Abwehr Wilhelm Franz Canaris, supported the ideas of the conspirators and were dissatisfied with Hitler's policy. Beck and Witzleben were not going to kill Hitler, they initially only wanted to arrest him and remove him from power. At the same time, the Abwehr officers were ready to shoot the Fuhrer during the coup.
The signal for the start of the coup was to follow after the start of the operation to capture the Czechoslovak Sudetenland. However, there was no order: Paris, London and Rome gave the Sudetenland to Berlin, the war did not take place. Hitler became even more popular in society. The Munich agreement solved the main task of the coup - it prevented Germany from war with a coalition of countries.
Hans Oster.
The Second World War
Members of the Hölderer circle saw the outbreak of World War II as a disaster for Germany. Therefore, there was a plan to blow up the Fuhrer. The organization of the detonation was to be taken up by the adviser to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Erich Kordt. But after the assassination attempt on November 9, 1939, carried out by Georg Elser, the security services were on the alert and the conspirators failed to get the explosives. The plan failed.
The Abwehr leadership tried to thwart the invasion of Denmark and Norway (Operation Weserubung). Six days before the start of Operation Exercise on the Weser, on April 3, 1940, Colonel Oster met with the Dutch military attaché in Berlin, Jacobus Gijsbertus Sasz, and informed him of the exact date of the attack. The military attaché had to warn the governments of Great Britain, Denmark and Norway. However, he informed only the Danes. The Danish government and army were unable to organize resistance. Later, Hitler's supporters would "clean up" the Abwehr: Hans Oster and Admiral Canaris were executed on April 9, 1945 in the Flossenburg concentration camp. In April 1945, another head of the military intelligence department, Hans von Donanyi, who was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943, was executed.
The successes of "the greatest military leader of all time" Hitler and the Wehrmacht in Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland and France were also a defeat for the German Resistance. Many were discouraged, others believed in the "star" of the Fuhrer, the population supported Hitler almost completely. Only the most implacable conspirators, like the Prussian nobleman, General Staff officer Henning Hermann Robert Karl von Treskov, did not reconcile and tried to organize the assassination of Hitler. Treskov, like Canaris, had a sharply negative attitude towards terror against Jews, the command and political staff of the Red Army, and tried to challenge such orders. He told Colonel Rudolf von Gersdorff that if the instructions on the execution of commissars and "suspicious" civilians (almost any person could be included in this category) are not canceled, then "Germany will finally lose its honor, and this will make itself felt throughout hundreds of years. The blame for this will not be blamed on Hitler alone, but on you and me, on your wife and on mine, on your children and on mine. " Even before the start of the war, Treskov said that only the death of the Fuhrer could save Germany. Treskov believed that the conspirators were obliged to make an active attempt to assassinate Hitler and a coup d'état. Even if it fails, they will prove to the whole world that not everyone in Germany was supporters of the Fuehrer. On the Eastern Front, Treskov prepared several plans to assassinate Adolf Hitler, but each time something got in the way. So, on March 13, 1943, Hitler visited the troops of the "Center" group. On the plane, which was returning from Smolensk to Berlin, a bomb disguised as a gift was planted, but the detonator did not work.
A few days later, Colonel Rudolf von Gersdorff, a colleague of von Treskov's at the headquarters of the Center group, tried to blow himself up with Adolf Hitler at an exhibition of captured weapons in Berlin. The Fuhrer had to stay at the exhibition for an hour. When the German leader appeared in the arsenal, the colonel set the fuse for 20 minutes, but after 15 minutes Hitler unexpectedly left. With great difficulty, Gersdorf managed to stop the explosion. There were other officers who were willing to sacrifice themselves to kill Hitler. Captain Axel von dem Boucher and Lieutenant Edward von Kleist, independently of each other, wanted to eliminate the Fuhrer during the display of the new army uniform in early 1944. But Hitler, for some unknown reason, did not appear at this demonstration. Field Marshal Busch's orderly Eberhard von Breitenbuch plans to shoot Hitler on March 11, 1944 at the Berghof residence. However, on that day, the orderly was not allowed to talk to the German leader with the Field Marshal.
Henning Hermann Robert Karl von Treskov
Plan "Valkyrie"
From the winter of 1941-1942. the deputy commander of the reserve army, General Friedrich Olbricht, developed the Valkyrie plan, which was to be implemented during an emergency or internal unrest. According to the "Valkyrie" plan during an emergency (for example, due to massive acts of sabotage and a prisoner of war uprising), the reserve army was subject to mobilization. Olbricht modernized the plan in the interests of the conspirators: the reserve army during the coup (assassination of Hitler) was supposed to become an instrument in the hands of the rebels and occupy key facilities and communications in Berlin, suppress possible resistance of SS units, arrest supporters of the Fuhrer, the top Nazi leadership. Erich Fellgiebel, the head of the Wehrmacht communications service, who was part of the conspiratorial group, was to ensure the blocking of a number of government lines of communication with some trusted employees and at the same time support those that the rebels would use. It was believed that the commander of the reserve army, Colonel-General Friedrich Fromm, would join the conspiracy or be temporarily arrested, in which case Göpner would take over. Fromm knew about the conspiracy, but took a wait and see attitude. He was ready to join the rebels in the event of the news of the death of the Fuhrer.
After the assassination of the Fuhrer and the seizure of power, the conspirators planned to establish an interim government. Ludwig Beck was to become the head of Germany (president or monarch), Karl Goerdeler was to head the government, and Erwin Witzleben was to be the military. The provisional government was to first of all conclude a separate peace with the Western powers and continue the war against the Soviet Union (possibly as part of the Western coalition). In Germany, they were going to restore the monarchy, to hold democratic elections to the lower house of parliament (its power to limit).
The last hope for success among the conspirators was Colonel Klaus Philip Maria Schenk Count von Stauffenberg. He came from one of the oldest aristocratic families in southern Germany, associated with the royal dynasty of Württemberg. He was brought up on the ideas of German patriotism, monarchist conservatism and Catholicism. Initially, he supported Adolf Hitler and his policies, but in 1942, due to mass terror and military mistakes of the high command, Stauffenberg joined the military opposition. In his opinion, Hitler was leading Germany to disaster. Since the spring of 1944, he, together with a small circle of associates, planned an assassination attempt on the Fuhrer. Of all the conspirators, only Colonel Stauffenberg had the opportunity to approach Adolf Hitler. In June 1944, he was appointed Chief of Staff of the Reserve Army, which was located at Bendlerstrasse in Berlin. As the chief of staff of the reserve army, Stauffenberg could participate in military meetings both at the headquarters of Adolf Hitler "Wolf's Lair" in East Prussia, and at the Berghof residence near Berchtesgaden.
Von Treskov and his subordinate Major Joachim Kuhn (a military engineer by training) prepared homemade bombs for the assassination attempt. At the same time, the conspirators established contacts with the commander of the occupation forces in France, General Karl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel. After the elimination of Hitler, he was supposed to take all power in France into his own hands and begin negotiations with the British and Americans.
Back on July 6, Colonel Stauffenberg delivered an explosive device to the Berghof, but the assassination attempt did not occur. On 11 July, the Chief of Staff of the Reserve Army attended a meeting at the Berghof with a British-made bomb, but did not activate it. Earlier, the rebels decided that, together with the Fuhrer, it was necessary to simultaneously destroy Hermann Goering, who was the official successor of Hitler, and the Reichsfuehrer SS Heinrich Himmler, and both of them were not present at this meeting. In the evening, Stauffenberg met with the leaders of the conspiracy, Olbricht and Beck, and convinced them that the next time the explosion should be arranged, regardless of whether Himmler and Goering were involved.
Another assassination attempt was planned for July 15th. Stauffenberg took part in the meeting at the Wolfsschantz. Two hours before the start of the meeting at headquarters, the deputy commander of the reserve army Olbricht gave the order to begin the implementation of the Valkyrie plan and to move troops towards the government quarter on Wilhelmstrasse. Stauffenberg made a report and went out to talk on the phone with Friedrich Olbricht. However, when he returned, the Fuhrer had already left the headquarters. The colonel had to notify Olbricht of the failure of the assassination attempt, and he managed to cancel the order and return the troops to their places of deployment.
Failure of the assassination attempt
On July 20, Count Stauffenberg and his orderly, Senior Lieutenant Werner von Geften, arrived at the Headquarters "Lair of the Wolf" with two explosive devices in their suitcases. Stauffenberg had to activate the charges just before the assassination attempt. The Chief of the Wehrmacht High Command Wilhelm Keitel summoned Stauffenberg to the Main Headquarters. The colonel was supposed to report on the formation of new units for the Eastern Front. Keitel told Stauffenberg the unpleasant news: because of the heat, the council of war was moved from a bunker on the surface to a light wooden house. An explosion in a closed underground room would be more effective. The meeting was to begin at half past twelve.
Stauffenberg asked permission to change his shirt after the road. Keitel's adjutant Ernst von Fryand took him to his sleeping quarters. There, the conspirator began to urgently prepare the fuses. It was difficult to do this with one left hand with three fingers (in April 1943 in North Africa, during a British air raid, he was seriously wounded, he was concussed, Stauffenberg lost an eye and his right hand). The colonel was able to prepare and put in the briefcase only one bomb. Fryand entered the room and said that he needed to hurry. The second explosive device was left without a detonator - instead of 2 kg of explosives, the officer had only one. He had 15 minutes before the explosion.
Keitel and Stauffenberg entered the cabin when the military conference had already begun. It was attended by 23 people, most of them sat at a massive oak table. The colonel sat down to the right of Hitler. While they were reporting on the situation on the Eastern Front, the conspirator put the briefcase with an explosive device on the table closer to Hitler and left the room 5 minutes before the explosion. He had to support the next steps of the rebels, so he did not stay indoors.
A lucky chance and this time saved Hitler: one of the participants in the meeting put a briefcase under the table. At 12.42 an explosion thundered. Four people were killed and others were injured in various ways. Hitler was wounded, received several minor shrapnel wounds and burns, and his right arm was temporarily paralyzed. Stauffenberg saw the explosion and was sure that Hitler was dead. He was able to leave the cordon area before it was closed.
The location of the meeting participants at the time of the explosion.
At 13:15, Stauffenberg flew to Berlin. Two and a half hours later, the plane landed at Rangsdorf airport, where they were to be met. Stauffenberg learns that the conspirators, due to the contradictory information coming from the headquarters, do nothing. He informs Olbricht that the Fuhrer has been killed. Only then did Olbricht go to the commander of the reserve army F. Fromm, so that he agreed to the implementation of the Valkyrie plan. Fromm decided to ascertain the death of Hitler himself and called Headquarters (the conspirators could not block all communication lines). Keitel informed him that the assassination attempt had failed, Hitler was alive. Therefore, Fromm refused to participate in the mutiny. At this time, Klaus Stauffenberg and Werner Geften arrived at the building on Bandler Street. The clock was 16:30, almost four hours had passed since the assassination attempt, and the rebels had not yet begun to implement a plan to take over control in the Third Reich. All the conspirators were indecisive, and then Colonel Stauffenberg took the lead.
Stauffenberg, Geften, together with Beck, went to Fromm and demanded to sign the Valkyrie plan. Fromm again refused, he was arrested. Colonel General Göpner became the commander of the reserve army. Stauffenberg sat on the phone and convinced the commanders of the formations that Hitler had died and called for them to follow the instructions of the new command - Colonel General Beck and Field Marshal Witzleben. The Valkyrie plan was launched in Vienna, Prague and Paris. It was especially successful in France, where General Stülpnagel arrested all the top leadership of the SS, SD and Gestapo. However, this was the last success of the conspirators. The rebels lost a lot of time, acted uncertainly and chaotically. The conspirators did not take control of the Ministry of Propaganda, the Reich Chancellery, the Reich Security Headquarters, and the radio station. Hitler was alive, many knew about it. The Fuehrer's supporters acted more decisively, while the vacillating ones stayed away from the rebellion.
At about six in the evening, the Berlin military commandant of Gaze, received a telephone message from Stauffenberg and summoned the commander of the "Greater Germany" guard battalion, Major Otto-Ernst Roemer. The commandant informed him about Hitler's death and ordered to bring the unit to combat readiness, to cordon off the government quarter. A party functionary was present during the conversation, he persuaded Major Remer to contact the Minister of Propaganda Goebbels and coordinate the instructions received with him. Joseph Goebbels established contact with the Fuhrer and he gave the order to the major: to suppress the rebellion at any cost (Roemer was promoted to colonel). By eight in the evening, Roemer's soldiers were in control of the main government buildings in Berlin. At 22:40, the headquarters guards on Bandler Street were disarmed, and Remer's officers arrested von Stauffenberg, his brother Berthold, Geften, Beck, Göpner and other rebels. The conspirators were defeated.
Fromm was released and, in order to hide his participation in the conspiracy, organized a meeting of the military court, which immediately sentenced five people to death. An exception was made only for Beck, he was allowed to commit suicide. However, two bullets in the head did not kill him and the general was finished off. Four rebels - General Friedrich Olbricht, Lieutenant Werner Geften, Klaus von Stauffenberg and the chief of the general department of the army headquarters Merz von Quirnheim, were taken one by one into the headquarters yard and shot. Before the last volley, Colonel Stauffenberg managed to shout: "Long live Holy Germany!"
On July 21, H. Himmler established a special commission of four hundred senior SS officials to investigate the July 20 Plot, and arrests, torture, and executions began throughout the Third Reich. More than 7,000 people were arrested in the July 20 Conspiracy case, and about two hundred were executed. Even the corpses of the main conspirators were "avenged" by Hitler: the bodies were dug up and burned, the ashes were scattered.
