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.
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.