By summer of 1944, the various circles plotting against Adolf Hitler were reaching the end of their tether. Some ten or more plots to assassinate Hitler by elements of the opposition had either died on the drawing board, failed through a Hitler change of plans [an Army suicide bomber in Smolensk], refusal of higher-ups to get involved [a plan to shoot Hitler at lunch with Army Group Center's commander, Field Marshal von Kluge], or equipment failure [a bomb that failed to detonate on Hitler's plane]. Time for a strike was running out, IF they hoped to accomplish something before the Allies accomplished it for them.
Their last card was WALKURIE [Valkyrie], a plan originally planned by the German High command to protect Hitler's government from an insurrection using German Army troops. the plan had been modified by then Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, a member of the Reserve Army Staff, to include a potential putsch from within the regime [read SS], and called for the arrest of any high Nazi and SS officials named on orders emanating from Stauffenberg in the name of General Friedrich Fromm, the commanding general of the Reserve Army.
The plan had foundered on at least two occasions, because one of its components, the assassination of Hitler and Reichsfuehrer SS Heinrich Himmler, had failed to take place because the two were not together for either attempt. By 20 JUL, the plotters had jettisoned Himmler as a necessary element of the assassination. Hitler alone would suffice.
On that date Stauffenberg and his aide flew to the Wolf's Lair to attend a routine staff conference. They carried British plastic explosives and an acid activated timer, both of British origin, with them in a brief case. The plan was for Stauffenberg to activate the timer, leave the briefcase under the briefing table near Hitler, return to Berlin, and coordinate an activated Valkyrie. Things went wrong almost immediately. The conference was moved from a concrete bunker to a wooden conference building. Most of the blast would now travel outward, instead of rebounding off the concrete walls of the bunker. Stauffenberg left the building and did not remain in the area. He did not see that Hitler survived the blast. In Berlin, nothing was done before Stauffenberg's return.
Even then, there was some initial success. The FUEHRERBEGLEITBATTALION, an Army unit under Major Otto Remer, sesled off the government quarter, and began arresting SS and Party leaders. In Paris, the Army arrested over 100 SS and Gestapo leaders, including several Waffen SS generals.
Then Remer was sent to arrest the Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels. When he got there, Goebbles handed him the phone, and a familiar voice asked Remer if Remer recognized his voice. Remer did. A loyal Nazi, Remer was then put at Goebbels' orders.
By midnight it was over. Stauffenberg, and several of his fellow conspirators in the Reserve Arm were shot, on Fromm's orders [it didn't save him. Himmler took over the Reserve Army, and Fromm was executed in the Spring of 1945]. The driving force behindthe Army resistance to Hitler, MG Henning von Trescow, Chief of Staff of AG Center, committed suicide. Former Chief of Staff Ludwig Beck tried [and failed] to kill himself at Reserve Army HQ. Field Marshal von Kluge killed himself in France. Stulpnagel, the military governor of France, failed in a suicide attempt. On the operating table he named Rommel. Rommel committed suicide, by direction, on October 14, 1944.
For many more of the plotters [Field Marshal Witzleben, Gen. Erich Hoeppner and others], the end was the People's Court and Roland Friesler, and then a filmed hanging with piano wire. Many of their relatives also fell to the Gestspo under the doctrine of Sippenhaft. Surprisingly, Stauffenberg's family survived.
The war continued roughly another ten months. Hitler, believing he had been spared by divine intervention, continued to drive the Wehrmacht, and the Reich into greater ruin. Finally, on April 30th, 1945, he did what Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators failed to do. On that date, Hitler bit down on a cyanide capsule, while putting a bullet in his own head.
