80 years ago, the incredible July heat wave saved Hitler during an assassination attempt. We tell the story of the failure of the operation “Valkyrie” (and yep, itʼs a hint again)

Hitler was wanted to be overthrown since the end of the 1930s

The first groups of conspirators who planned a coup dʼétat in Germany appeared around 1938. They were mostly military officers of high rank and aristocratic origin. They did not approve of the aggressive policy of Hitler, who occupied Austria and the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia in 1938. They feared that the Führer would involve Germany in a new large-scale war, for which — in their opinion — the country was not yet ready.

There was another solid reason. The military aristocrats did not like the increased role of the SS, the paramilitary formations of the Nazi Party. The pinnacle of it was a scandal in February 1938, when two commanders of the Wehrmacht, the Armed Forces of Nazi Germany, were dismissed due to trumped-up charges. After that, the army structure was reformatted, strengthening the partyʼs influence.

In the middle of 1941, Colonel Henning von Tresckow, a member of the army staff of the "Center" group on the Eastern Front, began to form a new conspiratorial group. By the end of 1942, he had created a whole network to which he involved both old conspirators and new ones. The core was also composed of aristocratic officers. Tresckow was a principled opponent of Nazi policy since the mid-1930s. The last straw for him was the mass extermination of Jews in Europe, which the Nazi leadership arranged after the attack on the USSR in 1941.

Some of the participants in the conspiracy had similar views. However, there were real war criminals among them. For example, the chief of the Berlin police, Wolf-Heinrich von Helldorff, was so zealous in persecuting Jews that he impressed even Hitlerʼs Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. The head of the criminal police Arthur Nebe commanded the death squads that exterminated Jews after the attack on the USSR. General George Thomas was the main initiator of the plan, according to which all food stocks were withdrawn from the occupied Soviet territories. Because of this, about four million people died of hunger. These three joined the conspiracy in 1942 rather because a quick lightning war did not happen. The German army was bogged down on the Eastern Front, and the allies from the anti-Hitler coalition were gradually gathering strength.

The future most famous participant in the conspiracy — Colonel Claus Schenk, Count von Stauffenberg — had similar motives. He was one of the last to join the conspirators, in the fall of 1943. Stauffenberg, although he did not support the Nazi policy towards the Jews, nevertheless admired the successes of the German military machine at the beginning of the Second World War. He participated in the invasion of Poland and openly advocated its colonization and the transformation of Poles into slaves. Then he fought in France, and at the beginning of 1943 he got to Tunisia. There he was severely injured, losing his left eye, right hand and two fingers on his left hand. While he was being treated in one of the family estates, Germany was unable to hold North Africa, lost several important battles on the Eastern Front — near Stalingrad and on the Kursk arc. So Stauffenberg finally despaired of Hitlerʼs ability to win the war and after a personal meeting with Treskov agreed to join the conspirators.

The conspirators were going to use the “Valkyrie” plan, which was approved by Hitler

With the beginning of the Second World War, a reserve army was formed in the German rear. Its units were scattered all over Germany and — if necessary — were to quickly assemble into combat groups. The Nazi leadership feared internal unrest, such as anti-government demonstrations, military mutiny, or even uprisings by workers who were forcibly deported to Germany. The Reserve Army was supposed to suppress such demonstrations. And its urgent deployment in case of emergencies had a name — the operation "Valkyrie". This plan was approved by Hitler himself.

Unlike his predecessors, Tresckow developed a detailed multi-level plan and was going to not just kill Hitler, but also stage a coup dʼétat. This is where the Reserve Army was supposed to come in handy. Her soldiers were to receive a secret order that began with the following words: "Führer Adolf Hitler is dead! An unscrupulous clique of foreign party leaders killed Hitler, taking advantage of the situation to betray the hard-fighting frontmen and seize power for their own selfish purposes”.

The plan gave detailed instructions for seizing radio, telephone exchanges and other key facilities in Berlin, disarming SS units and arresting members of the Nazi leadership. The conspirators believed that falsely accusing Nazi Party members of a conspiracy would motivate soldiers and junior officers to follow orders. The basis of the plan was developed by Tresckow, but in the fall of 1943 he was sent to the Eastern Front. Then Stauffenberg took over the leadership of the group of conspirators. He finalized the plan, according to which it was supposed to take control not only of Berlin, but also to capture several main headquarters of the German army on various fronts.

Then the participants of the conspiracy were going to share positions in the new government. Civilian politicians were also planned to be allowed into power, although there was no question of democratic elections. The conspirators intended to replace the Nazi regime with a conservative-authoritarian government that included aristocratic rule.

The next main task was to immediately end the war on favorable terms for Germany. At first, the conspirators wanted to restore the German borders of 1914, and to add occupied Austria, Poland and the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia to them. In addition, they were going to demand the restoration of some overseas German colonies and the refusal of Germany to pay reparations. But the further, the more modest their demands became. In the summer of 1944, when the British and Americans were advancing from the west, and the Soviet troops were advancing from the east, there was talk of saving Germany from total destruction. But initially, the first part of the plan had to be carried out — to kill Hitler.

German prisoners of war after the successful landing of the Allies in Normandy, 1944.

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German soldiers captured on the Eastern Front are escorted by Soviet troops, July 1944.

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Hitler survived many attempts

According to historians, Hitler was planned to be killed more than 40 times. In some cases, it never came to fruition, other cases were warned by the German special services, and the rest Hitler survived thanks to incredible coincidences. They put poison in his food, sent poisonous letters, tried to shoot him during parades or other festive events. The Führer was planted with explosives more than ten times, but he was lucky every time.

One of the most famous such occasions occurred in November 1939, when Hitler gave his annual speech in Munich in honor of the Beer Hall Putsch. That day, the German carpenter Georg Elser planted a bomb near his tribune. He went to these speeches for several years to calculate how long Hitlerʼs speech usually lasted in order to set the necessary time on the explosive timer. But in 1939, Hitler unexpectedly finished his speech 13 minutes earlier and left the hall. These minutes became decisive and saved his life. Eight of those present at the party died from the powerful explosion, and more than 60 others were injured. Elser was exposed, arrested and held in a concentration camp until he was executed in 1945, a few months before the surrender of Germany.

The conspirators under the leadership of Tresckow and later Stauffenberg also tried several times to kill Hitler. In 1943-1944, they organized at least five attempts, but failed each time.

In March 1943, Hitler arrived at the headquarters of the group "Center" in Smolensk. Tresckow went there with several other conspirators. Initially, they planned to attack the Führer on the road from the airport, but they refused because of the excessive security escort. Then they were going to shoot Hitler during a celebratory dinner, but he simply did not come to the feast. In a last desperate attempt, the conspirators planted a bomb in Hitlerʼs plane. It was disguised as a crate of liquor, which was to be detonated on the way back. But due to bad weather, the pilot had to rise above the clouds. So the detonator froze and did not work. One of the conspirators barely had time to pick up this "gift liquor" in Berlin so that they would not be exposed.

In November 1943, Stauffenberg convinced one of the conspiratorial officers to blow himself up with Hitler in Berlin during an inspection of the new German winter uniform. But the event was canceled because the wagon with the new uniform was bombed by Allied aircraft on the approach to Berlin.

Hitler became increasingly suspicious. He limited the circle of people who had access to him. He did not appear in public without increased security. He practically stopped coming to Berlin, and spent almost all of his time in his headquarters "Wolfʼs Lair" in the forest in East Prussia.

On July 1, 1944, Stauffenberg was appointed chief of staff of the Reserve Army. This position allowed him to attend Hitlerʼs military conferences. So he took further attempts at assassination.

"Anyone of us who dares to do this must be aware that he will go down in German history as a traitor. But the one who refuses will be a traitor to his own conscience," said Stauffenberg.

In the following weeks, he came to meetings several times with a briefcase containing explosives. Stauffenberg planned to kill not only Hitler, but also his closest associates — SS Chief Heinrich Himmler and Air Force Commander and Vice-Fuhrer Hermann Göring. But each time one of them was absent, so Stauffenberg postponed the attempt. Finally, everything came together on July 15, 1944 — all three arrived at the meeting. But at the last moment, Hitler was called out of the room, and Stauffenberg barely had time to defuse the explosives.

It was too dangerous to leave it too late. On July 18, 1944, rumors reached Stauffenberg that the Gestapo knew about the conspiracy and was preparing mass arrests. So he decided to kill Hitler even if Himmler and Göring were not with him. The last chance fell two days later, on July 20, at a military meeting in the "Wolfʼs Lair".

What went wrong on July 20, 1944

This time, a series of small coincidences worked in Hitlerʼs favor again. Initially, the meeting was going to be held in an underground stone bunker without windows, closed with heavy steel doors. After the explosion in such a room, it is unlikely that anyone would use it. But that day it was just incredibly hot. So they decided to hold the meeting in a wooden room upstairs — with a lot of windows and furniture, which greatly reduced the effect of the explosion.

Around noon, Stauffenberg arrived at the “Wolfʼs Lair” with a large black briefcase containing two packages of explosives. He said he needed to go to the bathroom to change his shirt, which was really soaked with sweat. There he began to charge the bombs, but because of his wounds he did not do it very quickly. So he managed to charge only one, when a guard started knocking on the door and said that the meeting was about to start, and the Führer did not like to wait. Stauffenberg left with only one bomb. The other — unloaded — he gave to his adjutant, who was also among the conspirators.

Entering the hall, Stauffenberg asked to sit closer to Hitler, saying that after being wounded, he is hard of hearing, so he does not want to miss anything. One of the officers gave up his seat. Stauffenberg sat down and imperceptibly moved the briefcase with explosives towards Hitler. A few minutes later, another soldier entered the room and said that Stauffenberg was urgently called to the phone. Of course, this call was part of the plan. Stauffenberg apologized and left.

Meanwhile, everyone rose and bent over the cards on the table. One of the officers, Colonel Heinz Brandt, came closer to Hitler and reflexively pushed away Stauffenbergʼs briefcase with his foot, which was obstructing him, far behind the massive leg of the oak table. In this way, Brandt saved Hitler, but he himself died from the explosion, which happened a few minutes later. In addition to Brandt, three other people who were in the room died. The remaining 20 were injured. Despite the fact that Hitler was standing quite close to the place of the explosion, he somehow miraculously escape the easiest of them all. The Führer received burns to his legs, slight damage to his eardrums. From the most serious, his right arm was temporarily paralyzed.

Stauffenberg was already leaving the "Wolfʼs Lair" when he saw a column of smoke from the explosion. He was convinced that Hitler was dead. So, having reached the airfield, he called Berlin, launched the operation “Valkyrie” and flew to the capital.

In a few hours, while Stauffenberg was flying to Berlin, the situation changed radically. At first, soldiers and officers of the Army Reserve set about disarming the SS units and arresting the Nazi leadership, as well as occupying the Radio House. But rumors quickly spread that Hitler was still alive. After that, most conspiratorial officers, including the commander of the Reserve Army Friedrich Fromm were frightened and decided to back down. When Stauffenberg arrived in the capital, the rebellion had already failed. He was arrested together with several leaders of the coup dʼétat and soon after was summarily shot.

Closer to midnight on July 20, Hitler had already recovered so much that he was able to make a radio address. The next day, Tresckow, who was on the Eastern Front, learning about the failure of the plot, blew himself up with a grenade.

"Now everyone will vilify us, but I am convinced that we did the right thing. Hitler is the sworn enemy not only of Germany, but also of the whole world," he finally told his adjutant.

Hitler makes a nighttime radio address on July 20, 1944.

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A cell in a Berlin prison where participants in the conspiracy against Hitler were tortured and executed, 1946.

Getty Images / «Babel'»

The Gestapo began large-scale repression. More than 7 000 people were arrested on suspicion of involvement in the rebellion, and about 5 000 more were killed. Some of the participants in the conspiracy were executed especially brutally by Hitlerʼs personal order — they were slowly strangled with a piano string. Relatives of the conspirators were thrown into prisons, and their children were sent to orphanages under new names and surnames. Trials and executions continued until April 1945.

The words of Stauffenberg and Tresckow became prophetic. The participants of the July conspiracy were considered traitors for a long time even in post-war Germany. The first all-German commemoration of this event took place only in 1990. Since then, for the majority of Germans, they gradually became "participants of the resistance and heroes who tried to whiten the honor and reputation of the German nation during the shameful times of Nazism." Since 1999, recruits of the German Armed Forces take the oath in Berlin on July 20. And in 2019, the then German Chancellor Angela Merkel named Stauffenberg and other participants in the conspiracy against Hitler as role models.

Hopefully, another dictator will not be so lucky. And Babel will definitely write about it thanks to your support: 🔸 Buy Me a Coffee, 🔸 Patreon, 🔸 PayPal: [email protected].