The plot of July 20th, 1944 against Adolf Hitler is the most outstanding event of the German Résistance to the Nazism with the mode of Adolf Hitler. This plot was to start with an attack against Hitler, but the bomb that Stauffenberg had posed in the general headquarter of Führer did not kill the dictator. Then, the hesitations in the release of the operation “Valkyrie” ( Operation Walküre ), i.e. the launching of the coup d'etat, definitively ruined the plot.

Those which took share with the conspiracy came from various layers of the population and had contacts varied with the Cercle of Kreisau of von Moltke. Among the 200 people who will be carried out following the failure of the plot find a Generalfeldmarschall (Witzleben), 19 generals, 26 colonels, two ambassadors, seven diplomats, a minister, three Secretaries of State as well as the chief of the criminal police force; it is necessary to add to these men several leaders of high ranking ( Oberpräsidenten , Polizeipräsidenten , and Regierungpräsidenten ).

The origin

Since 1938, the first resistance appeared in the circle of the officers against the preparations of war of the Nazi regime. The cause was the dismissal of the general Werner von Blomberg, Minister for the war and the business around Werner von Fritsch with the beginning of the year. Hitler needed some to weaken the command of the Wehrmacht and to carry out the preparations of war which it had decided to undertake. In spring, the chief of staff of Wehrmacht, the general-in-chief Ludwig Beck, resigned because of the announced crisis of the Sudètes. Beck had required explanations of Hitler on the goals of its foreign policy. It had been firmly meant to him by this one that “the responsibility of direct the sword, where and when, it would be always him, Hitler, which would have it”. The way was free for the nomination at the most important stations of the admirals and the completely acquired generals with Hitler.

Erwin von Witzleben, ordering military zone of Berlin ( Wehrkreis III ), and Walter von Brockdorff-Ahlefeldt, ordering garrison of Potsdam, wanted to organize the inversion of Hitler in September 1938. A division of Panzer under the command of the Generaloberst Erich Hoepner was held lends for the fall. It had been envisaged a military action and the arrest of Hitler with the assistance of the chief of staff of the armies Franz Halder. For all the remainder, major Hans Oster of the Abwehr decided to cooperate with Ernst von Weizsäcker, Secretary of State at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. The brother of its confidant, Dr. Theo Kordt, was ambassador with London. This one had the role of contacting the Foreign Minister, Lord Halifax. However, British the Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain made the voyage to Munich in September 1938. Over there, him and its French and Italian counterparts yielded the Sudètes for price of the Accords of Munich. Resistance to Hitler had lost its support abroad. And Hitler received by the peaceful way that of which he wanted to seize himself by the force. The German population, until there hesitant because of the war risk, yielded mainly to an euphoric enthusiasm for Hitler.

A new attempt at resistance appeared before the Polish crisis of the summer 1939. Gerhard Graf von Schwerin, directing group England/America with the general staff, was sent to London. It gave for message: “Send a fleet to Danzig. Push the Soviet Union to conclude a military pact. The only thing which can stop Hitler for another adventure is the threat of a second face. ” It failed as will fail the politician Friedrich Goerdeler little time after him.

In June 1942, Adam von Trott communicated to Solz with the danger of its life a report coming from London. The British Minister for the Foreign affairs Anthony Eden however declined all the proposals of those which it holds for traitors with their country. He qualified a collaboration of impossible as a long time “as they will not be discovered and a clear sign their intentions will not give while collaborating in the weakening of the Nazi regime”.

Several other attempts to get rid of Hitler did not succeed. The March 21st 1943, Rudolf Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff tries to be made jump with Hitler and the fine Berliner flower present at the Berliner Zeughaus (a famous historical building on the avenue Unter den Linden). Little time before, the officer Henning von Tresckow tried to kill Führer with an explosive charge placed on its aircraft, but the detonator was defective.

To in no case Stauffenberg was as of the beginning an opponent with the mode. In 1938 still, it took part in the annexation of the Sudètes. But towards the beginning of the year 1939, it started to test a certain skepticism for the mode and, in 1942, it was even decided to fight actively against this one. Stauffenberg was torn between the tradition of the soldier faithful to his fatherland, the oath which it had lent to Führer and its convictions - it did not want to attend longer with the massacres and the crimes of mass without anything to make. This conflict is clearly returned by the following words of Stauffenberg:

It is time to do something. Of course, that which will dare to act must be conscious that it will return in the German history as a traitor. But that it gives up its act, and then he will be a traitor with respect to his convictions. I could not look in the eyes the women and the children of those which fell if I did not try very to prevent this human sacrifice absurde.

In July 1944, there were several attempts by Stauffenberg to assemble an attack. It was however deferred on several occasions, because or Göring, or Himmler was not present.

The day of July 20th, 1944

In the small hour, the colonel von Stauffenberg flies away in company of his aide-de-camp the Oberleutnant Werner von Haeften of Berlin for the general headquarter of Führer Wolfsschanze with Rastenburg, in Eastern Prussia. Haeften took along with him two explosive charges of the type “Plastit W” (the German name of an English explosive) which had been manufactured by von Gersdorff.

Stauffenberg learns, little of time after its arrival with the Wolfsschanze , that the meeting to take stock had been advanced half an hour because Hitler had envisaged in the afternoon a meeting with Benito Mussolini. The attack envisaged threatened to fail, since then it still remained to activate on the explosive loads the timers of the detonators. Stauffenberg then claimed with the ordinance of Hitler that he wanted to put on a new shirt. Since it needs assistance (it was penguin), it can prepare the explosive loads with Haeften. At once that the capsules of acid on the loads were broken, it does not remain any more but from 10 to 15 minutes before the explosion. Disturbed by a sergeant who makes irruption in the room, it can only set up that only one kilogram of explosive instead of both envisaged. At this point in time it makes a heavy fault of consequence, him which has only rudimentary knowledge in explosive. Instead of placing the second package without detonator in the bag with the package called to explode, it deposits one kilogram in this one. The explosion of the operational package would of course inevitably have exploded also the package without detonator, which would have resulted in an unquestionable way death of all the people in the part.

Stauffenberg left the conference under the pretext of a telephone call. Little time before the explosion, the bag is moved under the solid counts of oak because it obstructed one of the people present. With approximately 12:42, the explosion resounds. Four people are severely wounded and die their wounds little time after at the hospital. However, Hitler is only slightly wounded (he suffers only from scratches and contusions). As the future general of Bundeswehr Heusinger tells it, it was returning account in Führer of the situation all to the north of the Soviet Union; this is why the two men were held far on the immense chart deployed on a thick table when the detonation resounds. It is the main reason of little effect of the bomb on Hitler.

Protagonists

Conclusion

Carried out mainly by officers of the Wehrmacht, the plot aimed at killing Adolf Hitler using a bomb whereas it was at its general headquarter, known as Wolfsschanze (“the den of the wolf”). The attack was carried out by Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg.

The others entreated were the general Ludwig Beck, the general Friedrich Olbricht, the major general Henning von Tresckow, Paul von Hase, the general Carl Heinrich von Stülpnagel, the general Hemuth Stieff, the prefect of police of Berlin Count Wolf Heinrich von Helldorf, Carl Goerdeler, Alfred Delp, the lieutenant-colonel Robert Bernardis, Carl Szokoll, the count Hans-Jürgen von Blumenthal, Adam von Trott zu Solz, Gottfried von Bismark, the princess Marie Vassiltchikov. Erwin von Witzleben, the Field-marshal Erwin Rommel and Günther von Kluge, was with the current of the attack and was constrained with the suicide.

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