This Day in #WWII #History: On July 20, 1944, Adolf Hitler survives an assassination attempt led by German Army Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (20 July plot).

20 July plot


Martin Bormann, Hermann Göring, and Bruno Loerzer surveying the damaged conference room

Type: Decapitation strike
Location: Wolf's Lair, East Prussia
Coordinates: 54°04'50"N 21°29'47"E

Planned by:
Henning von Tresckow
Erwin von Witzleben
Claus von Stauffenberg
among others…

The 20 July plot was a failed attempt to assassinate the German dictator Adolf Hitler and overthrow the Nazi regime on 20 July 1944. The plotters were part of the German resistance, mainly composed of Wehrmacht officers. The leader of the conspiracy, Claus von Stauffenberg, planned to kill Hitler by detonating an explosive hidden in a briefcase. However, it only slightly injured him. The planner's subsequent coup attempt also failed.

As early as 1938, German military officers had plotted to overthrow Hitler, but indecisive leadership and the pace of global events stymied action. But plotters gained a sense of urgency in 1943, after Germany lost the Battle of Stalingrad and Russian forces began to push towards Germany. Under the leadership of Stauffenberg, plotters tried to assassinate Hitler at least five different times in 1943 and 1944. With the Gestapo closing in on the plotters, a final attempt was organized in July 1944. Stauffenberg personally took a briefcase full of explosives to a conference in the Wolf's Lair. The explosives were armed and placed next to Hitler, but it appears they were moved unwittingly at the last moment behind a table leg by Heinz Brandt, saving Hitler's life. When the bomb detonated, it killed Brandt and two others, and injured the rest of the rooms occupants. Hitler's pants were singed by the blast, and he suffered a perforated eardrum and conjunctivitis, but was otherwise unharmed.

The plotters, unaware of their failure, then attempted a coup d'état. A few hours after the blast, the conspiracy used Wehrmacht units to take control of several cities, including Berlin, right after giving them disinformation on the intention of the orders they were given. This part of the coup d'état attempt is referred to by the name "Operation Valkyrie", which also has become associated with the entire event. Within hours, the Nazi regime had reasserted its control of Germany. A few members of the conspiracy, including Stauffenberg, were executed by firing squad the night afterwards. In the months after the coup d'état attempt, the Gestapo had arrested more than 7,000 people, 4,980 of whom were executed.

The apparent aim of the coup d'état attempt was to wrest political control of Germany and its armed forces from the Nazi Party (including the SS) and to make peace with the Western Allies as soon as possible. The details of the conspirators' peace initiatives remain unknown, but they would have included unrealistic demands for the confirmation of Germany's extensive annexations of European territory.

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