The Bomb Plot 1944

The Bomb Plot 1944

1. Aims

   • Linked to the Kreisau Circle and determined to achieve 'internal purification', Stauffenburg offered to assassinate Hitler by bomb plot with a preset timing device.
   • Others, such as von Tresckow, advocated the plot because they wanted to demonstrate to posterity that not all Germans had been corrupted by Nazism.
   • The plan to assassinate Hitler was code-named Operation Valkyrie.
   • It's aim was to trigger a rising throughout the Reich and the occupied lands ousting the Nazi regime and replacing it by a new order with Beck as President.
   • Stauffenburg had access to the Fuhrer's headquarters and on 20 July 1944, he left his bomb in a briefcase by Hitler in a briefing room. Leaving the meeting to take a phone call he then left the Wolf's Lair to fly to Berlin.
   • Hitler survived because the briefcase was moved, and he was leaning over a heavy oak table that deflected much of the explosion. The meeting took place in a wooden building which allowed the explosion to dissipate.

2. Outcome

   • Hundred of suspected conspirators were arrested, tortured and sentenced to death. Some escaped by suicide.
   • The army was now emasculated. The Hitler salute became compulsory in all ranks.
   • Only 22 out of 2,000 generals were executed for their parts in the conspiracy.
   • The Bomb Plot partly restored a little dignity and self-respect to the army, but its futility and its belatedness did not succeed in rehabilitating the tarnished image of the army as an institution.