20 July Plot

5 Key excerpts on "20 July Plot"

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  Rommel

  A Reappraisal

  • Ian F. W. Beckett(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Pen & Sword Military

    (Publisher)

  CHAPTER SIX Rommel and the 20 July 1944 Bomb Plot Russell A. Hart

  It has become widely accepted that the conspirators who sought to assassinate Adolf Hitler during the failed 20 July 1944 bomb plot had recently won over Erwin Rommel to their cause and – had Rommel not been severely wounded in an air attack on his staff car on 17 July – that he would have led the plotters in the West towards a separate capitulation in France, thereby giving the attempted coup d’état a chance to succeed, despite the failure to kill Hitler. The events that unfolded after the failed assassination attempt helped forge such an assessment. Rommel came under suspicion of complicity in the bomb plot during the witch hunt that followed its failure and on direct orders from Hitler was forced to commit suicide on 14 October 1944. In return for taking his own life, he was given a state funeral with full military honours, rather than facing trial by the notorious People’s Court established to condemn the guilty. In addition, his family was spared collective arrest and even possible death under the Nazi principle of Sippenhaft: shared collective responsibility and punishment. Unfortunately, the true extent of Rommel’s involvement in the 20 July bomb plot is very difficult to ascertain. Like many of those ultimately snared in the vicious Nazi backlash that led to almost 5,000 deaths, Rommel’s involvement remains ambiguous and unclear, but clearly it was much more minor than both his Gestapo inquisitors and many historians have subsequently concluded. In reality, Erwin Rommel was not a member of the 20 July conspiracy, abhorred assassination, was only superficially connected with the anti-Hitler Resistance and, therefore, it is highly improbable that he would have actively aided the coup d’état

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  Operation "Valkyrie"

  A Military History of the 20 July 1944 Plot

  • Winfried Heinemann(Author)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter Oldenbourg

    (Publisher)

  Widerstand – Staatsstreich – Attentat (“Resistance – Coup d’État – Assassination Attempt”), a title which gets the priorities right: the bomb attempt comes last. The emphasis is misplaced when the German public routinely refers to 20 July as “the anniversary of the attempt on Hitler’s life”; it would be far more appropriate to call it the anniversary of the coup d’état or of the putsch.

  After the attempt failed, the discussions about its moral legitimacy continued. Some of those arrested distanced themselves from the bomb plot, and some (such as Roland von Hößlin) even declared they had not known about it beforehand.53 These reactions can of course be explained by the dire circumstances and consequences that the conspirators faced in the aftermath. But in October 1944, Colonel Alexis Freiherr Roenne managed to have a message to his wife smuggled out of his prison cell, in which he wrote: “God has decided against them! He has shown again that even the greatest patriotic aims do not justify the sin needed to reach them!”54

  That the bomb attempt was only a means to an end had important practical implications for the execution of the plot. Stauffenberg was the only conspirator who still had access to the Führer, and time was running out (see Chapter 7.4). However, he was also needed to oversee the military takeover from Berlin, so that a suicide bombing like the one Gersdorff is supposed to have planned (see Chapter 6.5) was out of the question, no matter the consequences. The events also proved that the conspirators had predicted accurately that the Wehrmacht would not move against the Führer as long he was still alive: Once it became clear that Hitler had survived, the military putsch collapsed like a house of cards.55

  7.2  No Time to Lose

  By the spring of 1942, clear-eyed Wehrmacht officers understood that Germany did not have the wherewithal to conduct a war on two fronts, let alone to win simultaneous wars against both the Soviet Union and the United States. That is how Canaris put it to Fromm, commander of the Replacement Army.56 More than a year later, in August 1943, the Kreisau Circle drafted as part of its plans for a postwar Germany a set of “Special Regulations for Reich Administrators” which included the following provision: “The Reich government will do anything in its power to prevent enemy forces from penetrating the Reich,” followed immediately, however, by instructions to follow should enemy forces manage to do so.57 In early July 1944, shortly before Roland von Hößlin transferred his battalion of cadets from Insterburg, East Prussia, to Meiningen, in Thuringia, he wrote home that at night, one could already hear the rolling thunder of artillery from the frontline – Soviet occupation of East Prussia had become an imminent possibility.58

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  Panzer Leader [Illustrated Edition]

  • Generaloberst Heinz Guderian, Constantine Fitzgibbon(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Verdun Press

    (Publisher)

  For myself I refuse to accept murder in any form. Our Christian religion forbids it in the clearest possible terms. I cannot therefore approve of the plan of assassination. Apart from this religious reason, I must also say that neither the internal nor the external political situation was conducive to a successful coup d’état. The preparations made were utterly inadequate, the choice of personalities to fill the principal roles incomprehensible. The driving force had originally been Dr. Goerdeler, an idealist who believed that the coup d’état could be performed without the assassination. Both he and his fellow conspirators were undoubtedly convinced that what they were doing was in the higher interests of their nation. Dr. Goerdeler had also decided on the choice of the majority of the people destined by the conspirators to hold office in the new government. He had drawn up lists of names in this connection which, through his own carelessness, fell into the hands of the Gestapo. The character of Colonel-General Beck, who was to have been Head of the State, I have already described at sufficient lengths. His behaviour on 20th July proved that my previous opinion of him was correct. Field-Marshal von Witzleben was a sick man. He hated Hitler with a burning hatred, but lacked the determination necessary to carry out a military putsch in such critical and difficult circumstances. Colonel-General Hoeppner was a brave fighting man; I doubt, however, if he was fully aware of the extent of the responsibilities that he incurred by his actions on 20th July. General Olbricht was a first-class officer and very good at his job; but he had no command and no troops with which to carry out a coup d’état. By July 20th, 1944, the plan had been under discussion and debate for years on end. The number of people in the know increased constantly

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  Bonhoeffer

  Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

  • Eric Metaxas(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Zondervan

    (Publisher)

  His uncle’s bold appearance suggested that the coup was imminent, that Hitler would soon be dead and they could all begin life again. Bonhoeffer already knew things were in motion, but his uncle’s visit strongly confirmed it. Von Hase was not only aware of the coup; he was an integral part of it. The plans for this plot, code named Valkyrie, had been in existence for a year, but events had never been favorable for their execution. Until now.

  Preparations for the Coup

  In truth2 , the situation was still far from ideal. But the level of desperation had increased. The conspirators moved from thinking prudently to simply wanting to act. For the longest time they wanted to kill Hitler so that they could get better peace terms from the Allies, but as Churchill’s cold shoulder flirted with absolute zero, they realized that every passing day took them further from their goal. The war raged, and fresh Allied casualties were added to the toll, as were the innocent deaths of Jews and others. It was hopeless to look for anything from the Allies, but they came to the conclusion that this no longer mattered. Now it was simply about doing the right thing, come what may. Stauffenberg said, “It’s time now for something to be done. He who has the courage to act must know that he will probably go down in German history as a traitor. But if he fails to act, he will be a traitor before his own conscience.”

  Maria’s uncle3 Henning von Tresckow said something similar: “The assassination must be attempted, coute que coute [whatever the cost]. Even if it fails, we must take action in Berlin. For the practical purpose no longer matters; what matters now is that the German resistance movement must take the plunge before the eyes of the world and of history. Compared to that, nothing else matters.”

  The final and famous July 20 plot would be led by Stauffenberg, a devout Catholic from an aristocratic family. His disgust for Hitler skyrocketed when he saw the way the SS treated Polish prisoners of war in 1939. This, coupled with the murder of the Jews, helped him decide to do all possible to end Hitler’s reign. In late 1943 he told his fellow conspirator Axel von dem Bussche: “Let’s get to the heart of the matter: I am committing high treason with all my might and main.”

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  Countdown to Valkyrie

  The July Plot to Assasinate Hitler

  • Nigel Jones(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Frontline Books

    (Publisher)

  16 July was spent by the conspirators in another lengthy autopsy on why their latest attempt had failed. Stauffenberg met first with Beck and Olbricht. All their nerves were wound up to breaking point. Beck’s housekeeper testified later that the old general, who had recently been operated on for stomach cancer, woke each morning with his sheets soaked through with sweat. Stauffenberg, too, was understandably but uncharacteristically tired, irritable and nervous. Three times now he had keyed himself up to do what he described as ‘the dirty deed’ and three times had seen his action aborted. Even his deep reserves of courage must have had a limit. Olbricht stated that the issuing of the Valkyrie codeword and its subsequent cancellation had reached the ears of a suspicious Keitel. They must act for real – and soon. Snatching at straws, they argued about whether a collapse of the Western Front and a separate peace with the Anglo-Americans was, after all, possible.

  The discussion of the plotters’ ever-narrowing options continued that night at Stauffenberg’s home in the Tristranstrasse. The core younger conspirators from Stauffenberg’s closest circle were present, including his brother Berthold; Mertz von Quirnheim, who, under Olbricht would initiate Valkyrie in Berlin; Casar von Hofacker, Stauffenberg’s cousin and the plotters’ man in Paris; another cousin Peter Yorck von Wartenburg; Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenburg and Adam von Trott zu Solz. Talking late into the night they chewed over the hard facts, always arriving at the same conclusion: nothing could be done until Hitler was eliminated, and even then the chances of success were vanishingly slight. Nonetheless, they concluded, the act must be attempted to redeem Germany’s honour. Compared to this, as Tresckow had told Stauffenberg, nothing else counted.

  Underlining the hopelessness of the Reich’s military position, on 17 July offensives opened both on the Eastern Front and in Normandy, where the Allies appeared on the point of breaking out of their bridgehead and capturing the cities of Caen and St Lô. The same day, the Normandy commander, Rommel, was seriously hurt when his staff car was strafed by an American fighter. The ‘Desert Fox’ suffered head injuries requiring his hospitalisation in Germany.

  On 18 July

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