July Plot

or Rastenburg Assassination Plot

Abortive attempt on July 20, 1944, by German military leaders to assassinate Adolf Hitler, seize control of the government, and seek more favourable peace terms from the Allies.

According to plan, Col. Claus von Stauffenberg (1907–44) left a bomb in a briefcase in a conference room at the field headquarters at Rastenburg, East Prussia, where Hitler was meeting with top military aides. But the briefcase was pushed behind a table support, and Hitler survived the blast with minor injuries. Meanwhile, the other conspirators in Berlin failed to act. The chief conspirators, including Stauffenberg, Gen. Ludwig Beck, Gen. Erwin Rommel, and other top officers, were promptly shot or forced to commit suicide. In subsequent days, Hitler's police rounded up about 200 conspirators, who were shot, hanged, or viciously strangled.

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▪ German history

 abortive attempt on July 20, 1944, by German military leaders to assassinate Adolf Hitler (Hitler, Adolf), seize control of the government, and seek more favourable peace terms from the Allies.

      During 1943 and early 1944, opposition to Hitler in high army circles increased as Germany's military situation deteriorated. Plans for the coup, code-named Walküre (“Valkyrie”), were set late in 1943; but Hitler, increasingly suspicious, became more difficult to access and often abruptly changed his schedule, thus thwarting a number of earlier attempts on his life.

      The leaders of the plot included retired colonel general Ludwig Beck (Beck, Ludwig) (formerly chief of the general staff), Major General Henning von Tresckow, Colonel General Friedrich Olbricht, and several other top officers. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (Rommel, Erwin), one of Germany's most prestigious commanders, agreed with the conspirators that Hitler should be removed from power, but he looked on assassination with distaste and took no active part in the assassination attempt. The most stalwart conspirator was Lieutenant Colonel Claus, Count Schenk von Stauffenberg (Stauffenberg, Claus, Graf (count) Schenk von), who personally carried out the assassination attempt.

      On July 20 Stauffenberg left a bomb in a briefcase in a conference room at the Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) field headquarters at Rastenburg, East Prussia, where Hitler was meeting with top military aides. Stauffenberg slipped from the room, witnessed the explosion at 12:42 PM, and, convinced that Hitler had been killed, flew to Berlin to join the other plotters, who were to have seized the Supreme Command Headquarters there. Bad luck and indecisiveness thwarted the plans. An attending officer had nudged the briefcase containing the bomb out of his way to the far side of the massive oak support of the conference table, which thus shielded Hitler from the full force of the explosion. A stenographer and three officers died, but Hitler escaped with only minor injury. Meanwhile, the other conspirators, unsure whether Hitler was dead, failed to act until Stauffenberg landed near Berlin more than three hours later. By then it was too late. Rumours of Hitler's survival melted the resolve of many of the key officers. In a countercoup at the Berlin headquarters, General Friedrich Fromm, who had known about and condoned the plot, sought to prove his allegiance by arresting a few of the chief conspirators, who were promptly shot (Stauffenberg, Olbricht, and two aides) or forced to commit suicide (Beck). In subsequent days, Hitler's police rounded up the remaining conspirators, many of whom were tortured by the Gestapo to reveal their confederates and hauled before the Volksgericht (People's Court) to be excoriated by the dreaded Nazi judge Roland Freisler. About 180 to 200 plotters were shot or hanged or, in some cases, viciously strangled with piano wire or hung up on great meat hooks. Even Fromm was eventually arrested, tried, and executed.

Additional Reading

Broad studies of opposition to Hitler include Peter Hoffmann, German Resistance to Hitler (1988; originally published in German, 1979), and The History of the German Resistance, 1933–1945, 3rd English ed. (1996; originally published in German, 1969); Joachim Fest, Plotting Hitler's Death (1996; originally published in German, 1994); and Theodore S. Hamerow, On the Road to the Wolf's Lair: German Resistance to Hitler (1997). The July Plot in particular is treated in Pierre Galante et al., Operation Valkyrie: The German Generals' Plot Against Hitler, trans. by Mark Howson and Cary Ryan (1981; also published as Hitler Lives, 1982; originally published in French, 1981); Jakob Kersten and James McMillan, The Secret of Torgau: Why the Plot to Kill Hitler Failed (1982); and Robert Weldon Whalen, Assassinating Hitler: Ethics and Resistance in Nazi Germany (1993), which examines the moral, ethical, and religious convictions of the conspirators.

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