The 80th anniversary of the assassination attempt against Hitler: What was the scenario and why did it fail?

On July 20, 1944, German officer Stauffenberg placed a suitcase of documents next to Adolf Hitler at his headquarters. The bomb exploded, but Hitler escaped by chance. What was the prepared scenario and why did it fail?

There had been failed assassination attempts on Hitler before and during World War II, but none attracted as much attention as the failed July 20, 1944, bomb attack on the leader's so-called general headquarters near Rastenburg in East Prussia.

In July 1944 the officer Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg leaves at eight o'clock in the morning in the direction of the central headquarters of the "Führer" - Hitler. His goal: Killing Adolf Hitler with a bomb. The moment is opportune: In his capacity as Chief of the Army General Staff, he must report to Hitler.

But the plan failed. Historian Tuchel says that it was the barracks that saved Hitler's life, if the assassination had taken place in a bunker, with concrete walls, "then Hitler would not have survived."

Clearing operation

After the failure of the assassination, the revenge campaign against the organizing group begins. Hitler declares that the conspirators will be hunted down mercilessly and that in the meantime Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and three of his confidants have died.

The assassin's children were kidnapped by the Gestapo and sent to a special orphanage. On the evening of July 21, Stauffenberg and his three sworn accomplices were shot.

The radio announces: "Today, an assassination attempt was carried out with explosives against the Leader. Apart from light burns and hematomas, he did not suffer anything else. He started work immediately and according to plan, received Duce in a long joint conversation". When this news was announced by Rahju's radio waves, the listeners could not believe that it was true. Anyone who doubted his death could be reassured the next day by hearing that Hitler had survived the assassination attempt with the bomb hidden in a briefcase.

In the official propaganda, the assassination of July 20, 1944 is undermined as an act of desperation. But really Hitler and his fanatical followers were concerned about the morale of the troops in war and the quality of the officer corps. In the weeks and months that followed, around 1,000 men and women were arrested, whom the Nazi regime accused of participating in plotting the coup. About 200 of those arrested are sentenced to death by the so-called popular court with chief judge Roland Freisler under the charge of high treason against the state.

"In Germany it can be different"

Only a few people had the courage for active resistance at that time. Among them was Ordinance Officer Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist, whose father had also been involved in the assassination plans and had been executed by hanging by the Nazis. Young von Klejst escaped death thanks to some favorable circumstances, although he had been close to Graf von Stauffenberg from the first hours and had taken an active part in the plot.

As one of the few survivors, in 1994 he spoke in an interview about his motives, taking the trigger from the 50th anniversary of the failed attempt on Adolf Hitler. "I was horrified and tortured by the thought that all these crimes were committed in the name of the Germans. I was telling myself that it is impossible not to show the world that in Germany it can be different." /DW