July 20: Colonel von Stauffenberg, Valkyrie and the plot to kill Hitler

On this day in 1944, Hitler’s own Wehrmacht officers attempted to assassinate their leader as part of Operation Valkyrie. But after years of plotting, a misplaced briefcase of explosives meant the Führer’s fate was limited to some singed trousers and a perforated ear drum. Here's how events unfolded. 

July 20: The plot to kill Hitler

"The assassination must be attempted at all costs," wrote Henning von Tresckov, one of the leaders of the July 20 plot."What matters now is no longer the practical purpose of the coup, but to prove to the world and for the records of history that the men of the resistance dared to take the decisive step. Compared to this objective, nothing else is of consequence". The plan was ambitious and Von Tresckov was determined to derail Hitler.

It is believed that throughout his life, Hitler was the target of 23 assassination attempts, a fact of history that inspires curiosity about alternative ways events could have unfolded towards the end of the Second World War. 1942 and 1943 saw a succession of defeats for Hitler and Mussolini’s armies; at Stalingrad, to the allies in Tunisia - ending the North Africa campaign - and to the British in Sicily. As the summer of 1944 rolled on, scepticism grew in Germany and within the Führer’s inner circle about whether the country could still defeat the Allies with Hitler in command. 

Many senior Nazis were losing confidence in their leader, but the specific motivations of the key conspirators of the July plot - Friedrich Olbricht, Henning von Tresckow, Claus von Stauffenberg and Claus-Heinrich Stülpnagel - remain contested. While some members were at odds with Hitler’s genocidal policies, most believe the plot was an attempt to save the country from defeat at the hands of Hitler and transform the Reich into a “British-style” constitutional monarchy, a rebranding that hoped to convince the allies that Germany could be a political partner in a battle against Soviet communism rather than a fascist opponent. 

Though the plan to assassinate Hitler involved a close-knit group of high-ranking Nazis with a plan to take power into their own hands, the extended coup plan was supported by around 200 people from varying groups that opposed the dictatorship’s policies. Within this extended group, which encompassed Hitler’s communist opponents and actors from all classes, motivations for the assassination were varied and often contradictory. 

If the coup d’état were to succeed, the plan was for former Leipzig Mayor and vocal opponent of Hitler, Carl Friedrich Goerdeler to be installed as Chancellor of Germany’s new government, with Nazi General Ludwig Beck as president. Instead of Germany stubbornly succumbing to total defeat, Goerdeler and Beck were to enter negotiations with the allies, ideally in a manner that would benefit Germany in the long run. But not all went to plan...

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Colonel von Stauffenberg: Hitler’s would-be assassin

Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg is the July 20 conspirator whose name has been best committed to the history books. Von Stauffenberg was a Nazi and conservative nationalist who had fought in many of Hitler’s major military campaigns such as the invasion of Poland, France, the Soviet Union and Tunisia.

According to Von Stauffenberg’s granddaughter, Sophie von Bechtolsheim, her grandfather's disillusionment with the dictatorship he served and its treatment of the Jewish people was spurred on by the aristocrat’s Catholicism. Von Stauffenberg believed the assassination was the only possible way to save the country’s moral reputation, a view that, according to the only surviving conspirator Philipp Freiherr von Boeselager, was shared by other plotters.

After losing one eye, his right hand and two fingers during the Nazis' attempts to grab Tunisia, Von Stauffenberg was sent to his family castle in Baden-Württemberg to recuperate. It was when he returned to work that he was propositioned by his co-conspirators.

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Operation Valkyrie members: Who were Von Stauffenberg’s co-conspirators?

Like Von Stauffenberg, almost all of the primary military conspirators of the July 20 plot were Nazi, conservative nationalist members of the German aristocracy.

A mathematics professor-cum-senior Nazi officer, General Friedrich Olbricht, was the mole of the July plot. Olbricht would recruit other senior Nazis to conspire against Hitler and assign co-conspirators to positions in which they were able to manipulate proceedings to their advantage. After developing the plan for Operation Valkyrie during the winter of 1941 / 1942 Olbricht approached the wounded Von Stauffenberg.

Olbricht had been working with Henning von Tresckow to draft the Valkyrie assassination plan since it was established that enough senior members were on board to make a coup feasible. Von Tresckow was born into a Prussian aristocratic family, served as Major General in the German army, and had made an earlier attempt on Hitler’s life as part of Operation Spark in 1941.

Following his recovery Von Stauffenberg was transferred to Berlin, where he became Chief of Staff of the Reserve Army under Olbricht at the city’s General Army Office on Bendlerstraße, now known as Stauffenbergstraße. Stauffenberg was approached by Von Tresckow, who together with Olbricht believed that recruiting the aid of the Berlin Reserve Army would be an integral part of staging a successful coup. Von Stauffenberg stepped in to take the lead role of assassin. Once the Führer had been declared dead, his army would take control of key locations in the capital and arrest senior Nazi officers.

The ambitious plan also had eyes and ears beyond Germany’s borders. Claus-Heinrich Stülpnagel, a Nazi military commander in Vichy France, closely collaborated with the Nazi Einsatzgruppen in the mass murder of groups targeted by the Third Reich. Despite Stülpnagel's role in carrying out “The Final Solution”, historian Thomas J. Laub claims that his opposition to the Nazis' genocidal campaign was a large part of his motivation to join his fellow conspirators in the plot to assassinate their leader.

Borrowing its name from the maidens of Norse mythology who serve God Odin and guide the souls of the dead to the hall of the slain, Operation Valkyrie now had its core members in place.

The plot to kill Hitler: How the events unfolded

July 20, 1944, was a hot and sticky summer’s day. The plan was for Von Stauffenberg to travel to Hitler’s self-aggrandisingly named bunker, the Wolfsschanze or “Wolf’s Lair”, in what was then East Prussia and is now Poland.

As Chief of Staff for the Reserve Army, Von Stauffenberg attended regular meetings with Hitler at the lair. Between July 7 and 14, multiple attempts were called off at the last minute and it was eventually decided that it would be crucial to also target Himmler and Göring in the assassination so that the coup would stand the best chance of success. Despite the false starts, so far it seemed that all remained a secret from the Gestapo.

That was until July 18, when Von Stauffenberg caught wind of the fact that the grand conspiracy may have been foiled. The group decided that the next opportunity to kill Hitler must be taken, regardless of the risks. Plans were laid to carry out an assassination attempt on July 20. 

The meeting with Hitler was to begin at 12.30pm. Just before it started Von Stauffenberg asked a guard if he could use the toilet to change his shirt since the day was hot and he was sweaty. In the bathroom, Von Stauffenberg organised the two bombs that would be set off by a pencil detonator. 

Slowed by his injuries incurred in Tunisia and rushed by a guard pounding on the door, he only had enough time to assemble one bomb in his briefcase without arousing suspicion. Emerging innocently from the bathroom Von Stauffenberg slid his briefcase under the table, surrounded by 20 senior Nazis, and the meeting began. After a few minutes of playing his part, Von Stauffenberg received “an urgent call” and was excused. 

Almost 45 minutes later the blast went off, tearing the room to pieces and instantly killing one attendee. Thrown back from his seat but shielded by the table leg which stood between him and the briefcase, Hitler’s trousers were shredded and his ear drum perforated, but the Führer remained relatively unscathed. 

Seeing a puff of smoke rise, Von Stauffenberg naively trusted everything had gone to plan. Before he could even be suspected he was on a flight to carry out the coup plan in Berlin. On the ground, however, suspicions were being pieced together and Himmler was closing in on the coup plot.

In Berlin, poor communication and disorganisation led to a series of blunders. By 6pm it became clear that the assassination attempt had failed. “The Führer is alive,” General Joachim von Kortzfleisch exclaimed to the rebels at the General Army Office on Bendlerstraße, and the plot continued to unravel.

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Operation Valkyrie: Executions and the aftermath

The conspirators no longer stood a chance. Most, including Von Stauffenberg, were executed by firing squad on the very same day, while president-in-waiting Ludwig Beck was permitted to kill himself but was eventually shot when his attempt only resulted in injury.

Having largely recovered from his injuries on that same evening, Hitler made a radio speech on July 21, branding his attempted assassins as “a very small clique of aspiring, corrupt and simultaneously irrational, delinquently foolish officers,” thus successfully committing his own narrative of his opponents to the history books.

Hitler’s narrative continued to hold credence into the postwar period. That is, until the 1960s when further historical research suggested that the plotters' motivations were more closely linked to questioning the morality of Hitler’s endeavours than a selfish power grab. Debates over the motivations continue in Germany today, and while their story does not fit neatly into a good versus evil tale, the conspirators of the Valkyrie plot have now long been memorialised as heroes in the country’s Erinnerungskultur (culture of remembrance).

Remembering the July 20 plot

Though it was unsuccessful, almost 100 years on the July 20 plot is still remembered as one of the most important attempts to bring down the world's infamous dictator.

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