The attack on Adolf Hitler on July 20, 1944 was certainly not the only one. More than 40 attacks, plans and/or attempts preceded it. On July 16, 1944, Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenburg, Cāsar von Hofacker, Adam von Trott zu Solz, Albrecht Ritter Merz von Quirnheim and Georg Hansen met in the Wannsee district of Berlin. They all wanted to take action: the German army was in poor to hopeless shape everywhere. All those present saw the person in their house as Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg (see photo on the left), the designated leader of carrying out an attack on Hitler. Hitler was held responsible for the disastrous situation in which Germany was already in at that time. He had to be taken out of the way.
Claus Graf von Stauffenberg
Claus von Stauffenberg was born on November 15, 1907, the scion of a noble Swabian family. He was a patriot who served in the Wehrmacht and held high positions there from an early age. His regular trips to the front and his good relations within the General Staff made him realize, as in 1942, how bad the position of the German army actually was; enormous losses were suffered. For him, Hitler was primarily responsible for the disastrous situation that threatened Germany. This opinion was widely held in the army leadership, but no one dared to take action.
Serious injury
In November 1942 he was transferred to the front in North Africa as an officer of the General Staff. There he fell victim to an attack by Allied fighter-bombers. He was seriously injured: his left hand had to be amputated, his right hand was missing his ring finger and little finger and his left eye had to be removed and was covered by an eye patch. Despite those serious injuries, his will to get rid of Hitler remained unbroken.
Valkyrie
In August 1943 he returned to Berlin for the first time, where two companions, Treschkow and Olbricht, told him that two attempts had been made on Hitler earlier that year, both of which had failed. (From 1942 onwards, plans were made by senior military personnel to get rid of Hitler; from 1943 under the code name Walküre.) Von Stauffenberg was appointed chief of staff of the ‘Algemeine Heersamt’ in September 1943. As a result of this new position, Von Stauffenberg took over coordinating the coup. Soon after his transfer to Berlin, he also became acquainted with leaders of the civil resistance.
Improved situation for the conspirators
The main problem with the attack on Hitler was that in 1944 he only stayed in the hermetically sealed headquarters. In May 1944 the situation changed in a favorable way for the conspirators: it was announced that Von Stauffenberg would be appointed chief of staff to the commander of the reserve army. In that position he had to report to Hitler every now and then. He decided to use that opportunity to kill Hitler.
The attack
On July 20, 1944, Von Stauffenberg flew to the führer’s headquarters in East Prussia, now Poland: the Wolfschanze. In his briefcase was a bomb that he would set off on the spot. After the attack, the Valkyrie would start. He landed that morning at the airport of the place then called Rastenburg. The Wolfschanze was located six kilometers away; he was driven there by a driver of the local commander. At 11:30 a.m. a preliminary discussion took place between participants in the meeting with Hitler to discuss his questions. The meeting was to take place at 12.30 pm, half an hour earlier because the Italian head of state Mussolini was expected in the Wolfschanze before noon. In the bunker where the meeting took place, a large table had been placed with 24 chairs around it. Von Stauffenberg immediately placed the briefcase on the floor, as close to the fuhrer as possible, but there was still a massive table leg in the way. A colonel then pushed the bag even further back. Von Stauffenberg left the room with the apology that he had to make a quick phone call. Moments later the explosion occurred. There was enormous confusion. Von Stauffenberg and his co-conspirator Von Haeften got into a car and drove away.
Hitler lives
Von Stauffenberg drove past the bunker and believed that the attack had been successful because of the devastation he saw. But that wasn’t true: Hitler only had a few scratches and bumps and a pair of torn trousers. Ignorant of the real situation, Von Stauffenberg and Von Haeften drove back to the airport, took off and reached Berlin. Operation Valkyrie should be initiated there. However, this had to be signed by the commander of the reserve army, Commander General Fromm. He first called the Wolfschanze to be sure. There he spoke to Field Marshal and Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht Wilhelm Keitel. This assured him that Hitler was alive. Fromm knew enough; he refused to activate Valkyrie. Others had already done so, which created a confusing situation. Keitel gave the order from the Wolfschanze to ignore all orders from the conspirators in Berlin.
Coup failed
The news that Hitler had survived the attack had a fateful consequence for the planned coup. Over time, the city commander of Berlin also became aware that the fuhrer was alive and only slightly injured. Another important person in this whole was Field Marshal Rommel. He was an opponent of Hitler but did not wish to participate in a coup. Now the success of the coup depended on one man: Field Marshal Hans Günther von Kluge. After Rommel was wounded in North Africa, he was commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht in the west. However, he became aware soon after the attack that Hitler had survived the attack. For example , as far as Paris is concerned, the attack on Hitler failed. This was also the case in Berlin, where Fromm arrested the conspirators Von Stauffenberg, Mertz von Quirnheim, Von Haeften, Olbricht, Hoepner and also the former General Beck, who was present there in civilian clothes, and informed them that they would be tried by summary justice. . The coup had now finally failed. An execution platoon from the Grossdeutschland guard battalion had meanwhile arrived and executed the conspirators present.
A wave of arrests
Hitler convened a special committee for July 20. A group of more than four hundred civil servants was formed and immediately got to work. About a thousand people were arrested who could be linked to the attack; half of them were executed.
With the arrival of the Russian and American armies in the spring of 1945, the nightmare came to an end.