The Bomb Plot 1944

Aims
1. Linked to the Kreisau Circle and determined to achieve 'internal purification', Stauffenburg offered to assassinate Hitler by bomb plot with a preset timing device.
2. Others, such as von Tresckow, advocated the plot because they wanted to demonstrate to posterity that not all Germans had been corrupted by Nazism.
3. The plan to assassinate Hitler was code-named Operation Valkyrie.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
Outcome
1. Hundred of suspected conspirators were arrested, tortured and sentenced to death. Some escaped by suicide.
2. The army was now emasculated. The Hitler salute became compulsory in all ranks.
3. Only 22 out of 2,000 generals were executed for their parts in the conspiracy.
4. 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.

Resource summary

	Created by adriannafrak about 11 years ago