20 July plot

"Attempted assassination of Adolf Hitler" redirects here. For other uses, see List of assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler.

20 July plot
Martin Bormann, Hermann Göring, and Bruno Loerzer surveying the damaged conference room
TypeCoup d'état
Locations
Several, including Wolf's Lair, East Prussia

54°04′50″N 21°29′47″E / 54.08056°N 21.49639°E / 54.08056; 21.49639
and Berlin
Objective
Date20 July 1944; 80 years ago (1944-07-20)
Executed by
  • Hitler survives with minor injuries
  • Military coup fails within 5 hours
  • 7,000 arrested; 4,980 executed, including 200 conspirators
  • Traditional military salute fully replaced by Nazi salute
Casualties4 killed, 20 injured
Wolf's Lair is located in Germany
Wolf's Lair
Wolf's Lair
The location of the assassination attempt on Hitler

The 20 July plot was a failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler, the chancellor and leader of Nazi Germany, and overthrow the Nazi regime on 20 July 1944. The plotters were part of the German resistance, mainly composed of Wehrmacht officers.[1][2] The leader of the conspiracy, Claus von Stauffenberg, tried to kill Hitler by detonating an explosive hidden in a briefcase. However, due to the location of the bomb at the time of detonation, the blast only dealt Hitler minor injuries. The planners' subsequent coup attempt also failed and resulted in a purge of the Wehrmacht.

As early as 1938, German military officers had plotted to overthrow Hitler, but indecisive leadership and the pace of global events stymied action. Plotters gained a sense of urgency in 1943, after Germany lost the Battle of Stalingrad and Soviet 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, inadvertently saving Hitler's life. When the bomb detonated, it killed Brandt and two others, while the rest of the room's occupants were injured, one of whom, Rudolf Schmundt, later died from his injuries. Hitler's trousers 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.[3][4] 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 same night. In the months after the coup d'état attempt, the Gestapo arrested more than 7,000 people, 4,980 of whom were executed. Roughly 200 conspirators were executed.[5]

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,[6][7][8] but they would have included unrealistic demands for the confirmation of Germany's extensive annexations of European territory.[9][10]

  1. ^ Kahn, Arthur D. (2003). "2 We do Not Call Upon the Germans to Revolt fall 1944". Experiment in Occupation. Penn State University Press. pp. 13–20. doi:10.1515/9780271022758-005. ISBN 978-0-271-02275-8.
  2. ^ Office of United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality (1948). Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression. Supplement B. United States Government Printing Office. p. 1688.
  3. ^ Hasic, Albinko (19 July 2019). "A Group of German Leaders tried to Kill Hitler in 1944. Here's Why They Failed". Time. Archived from the original on 20 April 2021. Retrieved 7 March 2021.
  4. ^ "July Plot". Britannica. Archived from the original on 15 March 2023. Retrieved 7 March 2021.
  5. ^ According to Shirer, Führer Conferences on Naval Affairs, 1960, p. 1393.
  6. ^ Hans Helmut Kirst "20th of July"
  7. ^ Winston Churchill, war annual books, "1944"
  8. ^ William L. Shirer The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, part IV, chapter "20th July"
  9. ^ Klemens von Klemperer, German Resistance against Hitler: The Search for Allies Abroad 1938–1945
  10. ^ Hoffmann 1996, pp. 608–609.