July 20, 1944 Conspiracy to Assassinate Hitler

Among another 20 some odd attempts, this one was one of the largest conspiracies involving hundreds of loyalists in the highest echelons of Hitler’s inner circle.  Near the end of WWII, things were rapidly going south for Germany and the time seemed ripe for guilt-ridden Nazi officers to assassinate Hitler and overthrow his government. Colonel Henning von Tresckow recruited Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg to join the conspiracy in 1944.  The plot to take out Hitler and then all of his loyal officers was called Operation Valkyrie.  The plan was to use the Continuity of Government Proceedings during an assassination on Hitler’s life to take over full control of the government in Germany.  The assassination would be blamed on the Nazi SS and therefore allow Stauffenberg to take full control of all aspects of the government.  It almost worked.  In July 1944, Stauffenberg was promoted so that he could now start attending military strategy meetings with Hitler himself. On more than one occasion Stauffenberg planned to kill Hitler at such a meeting with a briefcase bomb, but he always held off because he also wanted to take out Hitler’s two right-hand men, Hermann Goering and Heinrich Himmler. On July 20, he went for it anyway and exploded a bomb inside Hitler’s conference room with a remote detonator. Hitler survived only minor injuries.