Photo: Berchtesgaden, in Bavaria
Hitler is paid a visit by his would-be assassin on this day in 1944.
Count Claus von Stauffenberg, a German army officer, transports a bomb to Adolf Hitler's headquarters in Berchtesgaden, in Bavaria, with the intention of assassinating the Fuhrer.
As the war started to turn against the Germans, and the atrocities being committed at Hitler's behest grew, a growing numbers of Germans-within the military and without-began conspiring to assassinate their leader. As the masses were unlikely to turn on the man in whose hands they had hitherto placed their lives and future, it was up to men close to Hitler, German officers, to dispatch him. Leadership of the plot fell to Claus von Stauffenberg, newly promoted to colonel and chief of staff to the commander of the army reserve, which gave him access to Hitler's headquarters at Berchtesgaden and Rastenburg.
As the war started to turn against the Germans, and the atrocities being committed at Hitler's behest grew, a growing numbers of Germans-within the military and without-began conspiring to assassinate their leader. As the masses were unlikely to turn on the man in whose hands they had hitherto placed their lives and future, it was up to men close to Hitler, German officers, to dispatch him. Leadership of the plot fell to Claus von Stauffenberg, newly promoted to colonel and chief of staff to the commander of the army reserve, which gave him access to Hitler's headquarters at Berchtesgaden and Rastenburg.
Stauffenberg traveled to Berchtesgaden on July 3 and received at the hands of a fellow army officer, Major-General Helmuth Stieff, a bomb with a silent fuse that was small enough to be hidden in a briefcase.
On July 11, Stauffenberg was summoned to Berchtesgaden to report to Hitler on the current military situation. The plan was to use the bomb on July 15, but at the last minute, Hitler was called away to his headquarters at Rastenburg, in East Prussia.
Stauffenberg was asked to follow him there. On July 16, a meeting took place between Stauffenberg and Colonel Caesar von Hofacker, another conspirator, in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee. Hofacker informed Stauffenberg that German defenses had collapsed at Normandy, and the tide had turned against them in the West.
The assassination attempt was postponed until July 20, at Rastsenburg.
Anticipating the inevitable defeat and blaming the Fuher for the German reversals in Russia a team of top Nazi generals that included the famous Field Marshal Edwin Rommel conspired to kill Hitler. The plot codenamed as Operation Valkyrie meant to assassinate the Furher and, simultaneously, to seize the General Headquarters in Berlin.The plotters hoped that without Hitler they would be able to negotiate peace and avoid complete destruction of the German state. On July 20th 1944 Count Claus von Stauffenburg, a Colonel, planted a satchel carrying a bomb in a meeting room in an ill fated assassination attempt on Hitler at the dictator's Wolf's Lair retreat.
The bomb went off killing and wounding several people. Much to the plotter's dismay Adolf Hitler survived the blast getting away with just a few scratches. In a crackdown that immediately insued, an estimated 7,000 people were arrested and dozens were tortured and executed, among them one Field Marshal and 20 Generals. 49 Generals committed suicide to avoid execution. The families of the executed plotters also paid a heavy price for being close to those who dared try and kill Hitler.
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