CLAUS VON STAUFFENBERG AND JULY 20, 1944 ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT AGAINST HITLER

July Plot, unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Nazi leader Adolf Hitler on July 20, 1944. A group of German military officers and civilians led by Count Claus von Stauffenberg planned the assassination. Their goal was to bring down the Third Reich, the Nazi government led by Hitler, and to end the war, which they believed Germany was going to lose.

*Claus von Stauffenberg-On July 20, 1944, German army officer Claus von Stauffenberg placed and detonated a concealed bomb inside the military headquarters of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. He initially believed the assassination attempt had been successful and flew to Berlin to complete an attempted coup, but Hitler had survived the explosion. Stauffenberg and his fellow conspirators were captured, and Stauffenberg was executed later that day.

From the beginning of World War II in 1939, a small core in opposition to Hitler had managed to survive within the German military. Among them was General Henning von Tresckow, who failed to kill Hitler in March 1943 when a bomb placed on the dictator’s plane did not go off. After this unsuccessful effort, Stauffenberg became involved in planning a fresh attempt on Hitler’s life.
In October 1943 Stauffenberg was promoted to colonel and appointed to the supply section of the Reserve Army under General Friedrich Olbricht. The Reserve Army already had a plan, Operation Valkyrie, to be used to restore order in the event of a national emergency. Led by Olbricht they decided to use the plan against the Nazi regime. Stauffenberg’s job was to kill Hitler. Others who worked closely with Olbricht and Stauffenberg were generals Friedrich Fromm and Ludwig Beck. Stauffenberg developed an elaborate plan to kill Hitler and, if possible, Gestapo chief Heinrich Himmler and Field Marshall Hermann Göring, head of the Luftwaffe (air force) as well. Stauffenberg was well placed to do so: He was a disabled war hero beyond suspicion and he had access to Hitler’s war conferences.

*Hitler in July 1944-On July 20, 1944, a group of conspirators led by Claus von Stauffenberg attempted to assassinate Hitler during a meeting in Hitler’s military headquarters, the Wolf’s Lair, in East Prussia. Their goal was to bring about the collapse of the Nazi regime and enable a new German leadership to make peace with the Allies. However, Hitler survived the bomb blast with only light wounds, and the conspiracy rapidly unraveled. Stauffenberg was shot dead in Berlin that night, and the other conspirators arrested and later executed. The photograph shows Hitler, second from the right, shortly after the assassination attempt had failed. He is accompanied by, left to right, Wilhelm Keitel, chief of the supreme high command of German armed forces; Hermann Göring, commander of the German air force; and Martin Bormann, Hitler’s secretary.

As time passed and no opportunity presented itself to kill all three at once, the conspirators decided to make Hitler their sole target. On July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg smuggled a bomb into a meeting at Hitler’s military headquarters, Wolf’s Lair, at Rastenburg in East Prussia (now part of Poland). He had concealed the bomb in his briefcase, which he placed under a map table around which Hitler and others were standing. By chance, however, the briefcase was moved after Stauffenberg left the room. Although several people in the room were killed by the bomb’s explosion, Hitler escaped with only a few cuts. Stauffenberg was later arrested and executed, along with his fellow conspirators and many others suspected of dissatisfaction with Hitler. Beck and Tresckow committed suicide. The resistance