1944
The execution of anti-Hitler conspirators
On July 20, 1944, German military officers disenchanted with the rule of Adolf Hitler attempted to assassinate the Führer in his command post called the Wolf’s Lair. The plan was to place a bomb in a briefcase next to Hitler while he was in the map room, and then, after the explosion, to rally elements in the army, intelligence services and secret police to the plotters’ cause. They hoped that with Hitler out of the way they could negotiate a truce with the Allies on the Western Front and continue the war against the Red Army in eastern Europe. One of Hitler’s aides, the decorated hero Claus von Stauffenberg, placed the bomb and left the bunker; the briefcase was accidentally nudged by an onlooker farther under the heavy oak table which permitted Hitler to be only slightly wounded after the device exploded. Stauffenberg, however, was under the impression that Hitler and been killed and flew back to Berlin to take part in the expected coup. When the news of Hitler’s survival was announced, those officers high up in the plot arrested the lower-ranked conspirators, and executed them on the morning of July 21. Stauffenberg was among those shot.
He was among the lucky ones. 7,000 more suspects were arrested and almost 5,000 of these were executed, some by slow strangulation — filmed for the watching pleasure of Hitler and his inner circle. Among those garroted, revived, and strangled again and again was Claus von Stauffenberg’s brother; General Erwin Rommel was forced to commit suicide for his peripheral part in the plot.