In July 1944 it became evident it was only a matter of time until Nazi Germany would
be defeated.
The Allied forces had landed on Normandy during D-Day and the Soviets were slowly penetrating
Eastern Prussia.
Within Germany, General Henning von Tresckow was asked whether it would be worth it to
continue with their secret operation.
He answered with a resolute yes: the attack had to be carried out at all costs.
The world and future generations should know the German resistance dared to take the decisive
step and was willing to sacrifice their own lives for it.
Among the conspirators was a colonel, Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg.
The man, missing a hand and eye, wholeheartedly agreed.
He had already begun with the preparations.
-intro-
The Kreisau-circle
Now, before we get to the secret operation I want to expand a bit on the conspirators
themselves.
The so-called Kreisau circle, named after Helmuth von Moltke’s estate in Silesia,
where the conspirators held several secret meetings to discuss the future of Germany.
The Kreisau Circle had been established during the beginning of the war and several meetings
had taken place over the years.
The network consisted of mainly conservative civilian and military resisters, unified in
their opposition to National socialism and its embodiment, Adolf Hitler.
The central question was about what program the conspirators would offer to the Allied
powers once Hitler was deceased.
Discussions about social, economic, religious and ethical nature ensured a unified program.
War criminals would retroactively be sentenced to death, just like what would happen during
the Nuremberg trials.
In 1943 the Kreisau Circle also reached an agreement on who would take over the high
positions within the German government once a coup against Hitler had succeeded.
It goes without saying that all members played with their lives, after all, their conduct
was deemed high-treason.
Most conspirators were rather sceptical about the virtue democracy would bring to the table.
After all, during the Weimar Republic democracy had allowed for a lunatic such as Hitler to
grab power and descend Germany in the horrors of the Second World War.
No, ideally the old Landtag would be reinstated, with an unelected upper chamber of nobility.
An authoritarian alternative to democracy, albeit more benign than Hitler’s Germany.
Two-thirds of the conspirators came from the Prussian milieu and many from old and distinguished
military families.
We have already mentioned von Moltke, but the former deputy police president of Berlin,
Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenburg, jurist and officer Peter Count Yorck von Wartenburg,
whose direct line traces back to the Yorck that commanded troops during the Napoleonic
wars and Field-Marshal Erwin von Witzleben, descendant from an old East-Elbian military
family - he was to take over command of the Wehrmacht after the assassination attempt
on Hitler would succeed.
Henning von Tresckow told his sons in 1943 ‘True Prussiandom can never be separated
from the concept of freedom’.
This statement is crucial in understanding the motivation of several conspirators: some
clung to the idea of a better world that had now vanished.
The Third Reich had perverted this ideal.
Anyway, that is not to say this conspiracy to assassinate Hitler was Prussian - for example,
the man that would carry out the assassination on the 20th of July, Claus von Stauffenberg
was Swabian.
Others felt they had the moral task to oppose the Hitler regime and holocaust.
Von Moltke felt there was an elevated task for the conspirators: a struggle to replace
the Hitler regime with new German morality and ethics.
Von Moltke
Now Helmuth James Graf von Moltke was one of the most sharp-minded members of the Kreisau-circle.
He had served as an advisor of international law to the German counter-espionage branch,
the Abwehr under Wilhelm Canaris and Hans Oster.
Curiously enough, both Canaris and Oster were involved with the German resistance against
Hitler as well.
Over the years von Moltke attempted to establish contact with local resistance organizations
throughout Europe.
His attempts to get in contact with diplomats of the Allied powers proved fruitless, however.
On the one hand, there was mistrust from allied diplomats as they had suffered several intelligence
debacles in an attempt to work with supposed German Resistance, such as the Venlo incident,
where it turned out the German resistance was actually part of the SS.
Furthermore, von Moltke was very western-oriented and ideally wanted to sue for peace with the
Western powers, whilst continuing the fight on the Eastern Front.
The UK and the US did not want to risk entering negotiations with Moltke.
If they did and the Soviet Union got wind of it, the alliance between the west and Soviet
Union would become unstable during a time when they needed to work together.
So another problem of von Moltke was the fact that until far into 1943 he was vehemently
against killing Hitler.
He certainly wanted to have him arrested and have him stand trial, but killing him was
a moral issue.
Moltke opposed national-socialism because the ideology had institutionalized crime.
He was convinced if a new Germany was to be created this renewal should not take off with
a crime such as assassination.
Over time he realized that assassination was the only viable option available to the conspirators,
and late in 1943 he told his friend, General Alexander von Falkenhausen: “the only possible
way to dispose of Hitler is by killing him”.
Now there were other groups in Germany that opposed Hitler.
A group of generally older men around Karl Gördeler and General Ludwig Beck had plotted
several assassination attempts on Hitler’s life, though all were aborted or failed.
Von Moltke was arrested by the Gestapo in January 1944 and the Kreisauers now pointed
to Karl Gördeler as the person fit to assume the presidency after a successful coup against
Hitler, with Julius Leber, a social-democrat as the Minister of Internal Affairs.
Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg
Several failed assassination attempts preceded the 20 July Plot.
When Claus von Stauffenberg joined the conspiracy, after initial reluctance, he became one of
the most zealous conspirators.
Stauffenberg was wounded during the Africa campaign and had lost an eye, a hand and two
fingers on his other hand.
It was decided that von Stauffenberg would carry a briefcase containing a bomb to a military
meeting that Hitler would attend as well.
Using pliers with his three fingers he would have to activate the bomb and put it in a
briefcase next to Hitler.
Stauffenberg had joined the conspiracy at the moral low point: Oster and Canaris had
been fired from the Abwehr and placed under arrest, von Moltke was in prison, the Allied
powers ignored the existence of German opposition and wanted an unconditional surrender and
a feeling of isolation and despair overtook more Germans by the day.
During this time, Stauffenberg made two attempts at assassinating Hitler before the 20th of
July and each time inexplicable luck, which Hitler enjoyed since he had come into power
for some reason, saved his life.
On the 11th the plan was aborted because Heinrich Himmler wasn’t there and on the 15th Hitler
was called from the room at the moment Stauffenberg was preparing the bomb.
But on the 20th of July, it would initially seem that luck was on the side of Stauffenberg
and the conspirators.
20 July
The military meeting attended by Hitler and several high ranking military generals was
supposed to be a normal meeting, discussing the state of affairs of the German military.
It was held in Hitler’s headquarters, the Wolfsschanze in East Prussia.
A few minutes past 1:30 pm von Stauffenberg entered the room together with Fieldmarshal
Wilhelm Keitel.
Stauffenberg was able to attend the meeting because he had been promoted to chief of staff
of General Friedrich Fromm.
As Keitel and Stauffenberg entered the room, Keitel interrupted the conversation between
Hitler and General Adolf Heusinger in order to introduce Stauffenberg to Hitler - the
men had never met before.
Von Stauffenberg put his briefcase, containing the bomb, as close to Hitler as possible.
It was then he received a planned phone call and was able to leave the room - the most
stressful minutes had passed.
Several minutes later the bomb in the briefcase exploded.
It was a devastating blow.
Two officers, a stenographer and Colonel Heinz Brandt next to Hitler were killed instantly.
But not Hitler.
Now details are obviously not very clear but it is assumed Colonel Heinz Brandt moved the
briefcase behind the leg of the table, thus blocking Hitler from the shrapnel and blast.
It did cost him his own life, though.
Two officers were seriously injured but most in the room, including Hitler, suffered minor
injuries.
From the outside, von Stauffenberg witnessed the explosion.
Driving away from the Wolfsschanze he flew to Berlin by plane, fully convinced Hitler
had died.
The conspirators took political Berlin hostage for no more than 5 hours.
While men stood ready to set up the new German government following Hitler’s death, the
military leaders, a crucial element in the coup, were not too eager to join.
It didn’t matter anyway.
That evening news reached Berlin that the Führer had survived the blast and the entire
coup collapsed.
Now in Paris, Wehrmacht-governor of France, Karl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel was part of
the conspiracy and put his part of the plot in action.
He ordered his troops to arrest all leaders of the SS and Sicherheidsdienst.
After he had done so he made his way to the Supreme Commander in the West, Fieldmarshal
Günther von Kluge, asking him to sue for peace with the Allied powers.
Von Kluge is said to have replied ‘I would.
If only that swine had died’.
The message that Hitler had survived had already reached him.
Stülpnagel would eventually be executed by strangulation with piano wire and Von Kluge
committed suicide.
These were just 2 victims of the nearly 5,000 in the barbaric purge by the Nazi regime that
followed.
Response by the Nazis
The same evening of the bomb blast the Nazi regime had been restored in Berlin.
Several leaders of the conspiracy committed suicide, realizing all that awaited them was
death.
Henning von Tresckow blew himself up with a hand grenade and former general Ludwig Beck
shot himself after his arrest, both on the 21st.
Claus von Stauffenberg, together with several conspirators were executed at 1 AM in the
courtyard of the Ministry of War by firing squad.
In a last act of loyalty and defiance, his personal aide Werner von Haeften placed himself
between the firing squad and Stauffenberg, shielding him from the initial round of bullets.
Stauffenberg was shot regardless, his last words rumoured to be “Es lebe das heilige
Deutschland”, or “Long live our sacred Germany”.
The men executed on the 21st were spared the torture by the much-feared Gestapo, and the
public degradation by Ronald Freisler, the fanatical judge nicknamed “Hitler’s Hangman”.
Most of the Kreisau circle were doomed to that fate: hung from piano wires on flesh
hooks.
Not just members of the Kreisau circle though, many people that were only slightly involved
in the plot, or not even at all.
Moltke too suffered this fate, as his name was mentioned by someone during the intensive
torture sessions by the Gestapo.
Field-Marshal Erwin von Witzleben was arrested on the 21st of July and suffered, at the hands
of the Gestapo, weeks of torture and ill-treatment.
On the 7th of August, he appeared before a court, presided over by Roland Freisler.
The next day, he was executed, never revealing the names of any other conspirators.
Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenburg suffered the same fate and did not reveal the names
of his fellow conspirators to the Gestapo, notwithstanding the extreme torture either.
Hans Oster, Deputy-chief of the Abwehr was arrested and would be executed the next year,
together with Wilhelm Canaris.
Carl Friedrich Goederling and nearly 5000 others suffered the same fate.
All these men that gave their life had one thing in common: during the most dire and
seemingly hopeless time the world has ever seen, they were willing to risk their lives
in an attempt to ensure the tiniest bit of light at the end of the tunnel.
For a brighter future.
Epilogue
For the film-buffs out there, the film Valkyrie is a very good portrayal of what happened
during the 20 July plot and its aftermath.
It is definitely worth watching the movie if you haven’t already.
Now, there are too many things to mention that happened during the Second World War,
but the following channels have uploaded some incredible videos on events during that time.
Check out the Armchair Historian’s great video about the Battle of Iwo Jima, an iconic
moment in the history of the Second World War.
For a reading of some letters by soldiers and generals during the battle of Iwo Jima,
check out Voices of the Past.
And a bit closer to the area of the 20 July Plot: History House Productions has created
a very good video about the Polish military resistance against the Nazis.
I think that leaves you with enough to watch!
Thanks for watching this video, and are there any people and events from the Second World
War that you would like to know more about, and perhaps see a video of?
Let me know your thoughts in a comment and if you enjoyed the video considering subscribing
to my channel.
See you next time!