July Plot
July Plot
July Plot
An Assassination Attempt on Hitler
Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, German army officer, c1930s-c1940s. He was one of the leading members of the failed plot of 20 July 1944 to kill Adolf Hitler.  (Photo by IBL Bildbyra/Heritage Images/Getty Images)
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By Jennifer L. Goss
On July 20, 1944, Adolf Hitler, the leader of Nazi Germany, was the target of an attempted assassination.  The attempt took place at his Prussian command post and getaway, the Wolf’s Lair, and was led by several high-ranking German officials who were convinced that Hitler’s regime was destroying Germany.  The codeword “Valkyrie” was to signal the beginning of the coup that followed the assassination.
The July Plot (also known as the Twentieth of July) ultimately failed, however, when the bomb that had been planted exploded but did not kill Hitler. The leaders of the assassination attempt and thousands of others were then rounded up and executed.
Discontent Develops Within Nazi Germany
Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party, had been appointed the chancellor of Germany in 1933 but then quickly consolidated power to become the Führer, the absolute leader. As dictator, Hitler made it illegal to publicly voice discontent; those caught speaking or acting against the Nazi regime faced imprisonment or even death.
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Yet there were individuals from many factions within the government and in the general populace that found ways to privately share their unhappiness. Feeling that Germany was doomed with Hitler at the helm and unable to vote him out of office since he had assumed dictatorial powers, many realized that the only way to get rid of Hitler was to kill him.
Early Assassination Attempts
While most of these dissenters just talked, others formed groups and planned. The plans that were implemented often failed, either because they were poorly organized or because Hitler had an uncanny knack for escaping injury.
The closest anyone got to killing Hitler before the July Plot was on November 8, 1938 at the Bürgerbrau Cellar in Munich. A carpenter, Johann Elser, planted a timed bomb in the walls of the Bürgerbrau and set it to explode at 9:30 p.m. The bomb went off as scheduled, killing eight people, but Hitler escaped injury as he had left unexpectedly 15 minutes early.
After Nazi Germany started World War II in 1939, more Germans became discontented and thus more organized resistance began to build. 
By 1942, a group was formed by Colonel Henning von Tresckow , an Army staff member who was centrally involved in the rapidly failing Operation Barbarossa.  Tresckow soon recruited his ordnance officer, Fabian von Schlabrendorff, and the two attempted to kill Hitler on March 13, 1943 by planting a bomb on Hitler’s plane. The plan failed when the fuse didn’t work.
Tresckow organized several additional assassination attempts but those too failed. Tresckow would soon recruit Count Claus von Stauffenberg to join in the July Plot.
Count Claus von Stauffenberg
Count Claus Philip Schenk von Stauffenberg was an aristocrat, a poet, and an officer in the German Army. However, by the time World War II started, Stauffenberg was thoroughly disillusioned with Hitler.  Stauffenberg had already begun talking about assassinating Hitler and starting a revolution, but no concrete plans had been made.
That all changed on April 7, 1943, when 35-year-old Stauffenberg, who was riding in a staff car in Tunisia, was severely wounded when a low-flying enemy airplane opened fire. He lost his right hand plus two fingers on his left hand. He also lost an eye.
This near-death experience convinced Stauffenberg that not only must Hitler be killed but that he was the one to do it.
The July Plot Is Formed
With Stauffenberg solidly on board, the divergent groups of dissenters began to band together to work on a single, cohesive plan. Included in this new group were Henning von Tresckow, Fabian von Schlabrendorff , Friedrich Olbricht , Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, Wilhelm Canaris, and Ludwig Beck , among others.
The plan was simple, perhaps too simple – they would assassinate Hitler using a timed bomb and then take over the government.
Initial Attempts to Initiate the Plot
After several fruitless attempts, the plan began to develop momentum in the spring of 1944.  Individuals were secretly recruited to join the growing resistance movement despite concern that the Gestapo was growing increasingly aware that the plan existed. 
An exact date for implementation was difficult to pinpoint, regardless of this growing pressure, because Hitler was becoming less available to the general public as the tide of the war was turning against Germany.  Hitler was spending a larger amount of time in the Wolf’s Lair, which was heavily fortified and guarded; thus making it even harder for the group to take action.
In July 1944, a major player joined the resistance group - General Erwin Rommel, famous for leading the campaign in North Africa.  Rommel had grown frustrated with what he felt to be Hitler’s poor decision-making regarding the war effort and believed that the only way Germany could be saved was by eliminating Hitler.  Rommel’s accession to “the cause” put the wheels in motion for what would become the official assassination attempt.
Between early July and July 20, several false starts occurred.  Stauffenberg had, by this point, obtained a position at the Reserve Army Headquarters in Berlin.  He had access to Hitler on several occasions but was unable to successfully execute the assassination.  Co-conspirator General Helmuth Stieff also was incapable of carrying out his orders when he encountered Hitler in Salzburg. 
The following week, during a meeting at the Wolf‘s Lair where Stauffenberg was present, the plot was initiated but then aborted when Hitler left the room after Stauffenberg had planted the briefcase bomb.  Fortunately for the movement, he was able to remove the bomb before it exploded.
July 20, 1944        
On July 20, 1944 Stauffenberg returned to the Wolf’s Lair once again to attend an important meeting with the Führer.  This time, the meeting had been moved from Hitler’s bunker (a wonderfully enclosed room to explode a bomb) to the Lagebaracke, a temporary wooden building that was surrounded by concrete but still had three windows (not the best place to explode a bomb).
Despite the change of location, Stauffenberg decided to go ahead with the assassination attempt. He carried a suitcase containing a hexite time bomb. After a meeting with Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Stauffenberg armed the bomb by breaking a small, glass capsule that contained acid. Stauffenberg then had just ten minutes before the bomb would explode.
Carrying the briefcase with the three fingers he had left, Stauffenberg walked from Keitel’s office to the meeting, arriving a few minutes late at 12:35 p.m.  Stauffenberg took his place with the 24 other officers and stenographers that stood around the large, oak table that sat sturdily upon two oak slabs. He then carefully placed the suitcase near a table slab, but on the inside so that it would explode toward Hitler. Stauffenberg then quickly made an excuse to leave, saying he had been waiting for an important phone call.
After Stauffenberg left, Colonel Heinz Brandt moved the briefcase to the other side of the table slab. (Perhaps the suitcase had been in his way?)  This new position allowed the slab to shield Hitler from the bomb.
At 12:42 p.m., the bomb exploded.  Although the bomb did cause mayhem and bloodshed, killing four and severely injuring three others, it failed in its mission to kill Hitler. Ultimately, Hitler only suffered a punctured ear drum from the deafening noise of the explosion, some slight burns on his legs, and a laceration on his right hand.    
The Coup
Upon hearing the explosion and assuming his attempt had been successful, Stauffenberg fled the Wolf’s Lair.  He didn’t realize that the assassination had failed until he reached Berlin later that afternoon.  Despite the news of the failed attempt, Olbricht attempted to implement the full scheme of overthrowing the existing government. 
Chaos ensued when it was officially determined that Hitler remained alive. The coup rapidly deteriorated. Around 10 p.m., Stauffenberg, Olbricht, Werner von Haeften (who drove the getaway car from the Wolf’s Lair), and Merz von Quirnheim were captured and then shot.
Punishment of Conspirators
Hitler was furious after his near-miss with death and ordered Heinrich Himmler and the Gestapo to focus nearly all of their resources on the discovery and arrest of anyone remotely involved in the plot.  Many of the arrests and subsequent searches turned up evidence that widened the pool of suspects. 
The Gestapo ultimately arrested 7,000 individuals and nearly 2,000 of them were killed. Both Rommel and Tresckow committed suicide.  Only a select few individuals of the resistance group survived the failed coup. 
Hitler, himself, moved forward with renewed vigor for a time believing that his destiny had prevented his death at the hands of these men.
Professionals Were Needed
The conspirators have been hailed as heroes, but historian Robert Payne has a harsher opinion:
The conspirators died heroically, but they were not heroes. They bungled the most necessary assassination of their time when it was within their power to do the job well, and they bungled their short-lived revolution and incriminated thousands of people through their carelessness and lack of understanding of the elementary principles of conspiracy. They were amateurs when professionals were needed.*