How he assassinated Hitler: Although Claus von Stauffenberg could not achieve success with his actions, he is one of the names that changed history. What happened to Claus von Stauffenberg, who assassinated Hitler in 1944?
The opponents of Hitler wanted to eliminate Hitler directly, liquidate the party members and groups trained with the party ideology, such as the SS, to re-establish the democratic environment in Germany, and make an agreement with the Allies and end the war before Hitler made Germany lose the war.
Claus von Stauffenberg (15 November 1907 – 21 July 1944) was a German army officer who is best known for his failed attempt on 20 July 1944 to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the Wolf's Lair.
Lieutenant Colonel Stauffenberg was shot when he was captured that very night. After the failed coup attempt, a manhunt was launched everywhere. Many generals among the coup plotters were captured. Many committed suicide, while others were executed. After the coup, 7,000 people were captured and 4,980 of them were executed. What should not be forgotten is that those who assassinated Hitler organized this operation because they thought that Hitler was leading Germany to a disaster in the war, rather than because of the racist policies of the Nazi Party or the fact that he was the murderer of 6 million Jews.
The story of the assassination attempt
In 1943 and 1944, the war turned clearly against Germany. The Germans, who began to retreat rapidly on the Eastern Front, were first expelled from North Africa, and then the Allies' landing on Sicily and Italy, taking Italy out of the war, and the opening of a new front in the west was discussed.
He was serving in Africa
Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, who had previously served in Africa and lost one arm and one eye there, thought that the biggest danger for Germany was Hitler and his ideology. He believed that the coup would not take place without killing Hitler and that even if Hitler was killed, senior party members such as Himmler, Göring, and Goebbels should also be eliminated.
On July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg entered the meeting hall where Hitler was with a briefcase containing 970 grams of British-made timed plastic explosives. He placed the bag under the table, very close to Hitler's feet. According to his plan, after he left the meeting hall with an excuse, the contracted orderly would call him out with the excuse that he had received a call from the phone, and Stauffenberg would fly directly to Berlin with his plane ready and announce to the German people the declaration that Hitler was dead and that the Wehrmacht was now in power.
He left the bomb under the table
Stauffenberg entered the hall where the meeting was held. There were 18 officers from three armed forces present at the meeting. SS soldiers were standing around the table inside. Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler were not present at the meeting. Hitler was playing with the magnifying glass in his hand, while he was using the magnifying glass to read the small writings on the maps laid out in front of him and was taking notes in two shorthand. Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel informed Hitler why Colonel von Stauffenberg had arrived. Hitler looked at the one-armed Stauffenberg, whose eye was covered with a patch, bowed slightly, and said that he wanted to finish off General Heusinger before listening to Stauffenberg's report.
Stauffenberg sat down at the table between General Günther Korten and Colonel Heinz Brandt. He was located one and a half meters away from Hitler. He put his bag containing the bomb on the ground. He drove forward. He leaned it against the inner edge of the thick oak table leg. The bag was two meters from Hitler's feet. It was 12.37 at that time. General Heusinger continued his speech, pointing out the places mentioned on the huge situation map on the table. Hitler and the officers were leaning over the map, looking at it.
At that time, no one noticed that Stauffenberg had gone out. Only Colonel Brandt saw him come out. Brandt was listening to the general's story at the time. At one point, he leaned over the table to get a better look at the map and tripped over Stauffenberg's bag. He tried to push the bag aside with his foot. Then he reached out with one hand and lifted the bag onto the other side of the heavy table leg. Now there was a thick leg between the bomb and Hitler. Perhaps this seemingly insignificant action saved Hitler's life.
So how did Hitler survive that explosion? The meeting was to be held in the town of Rastenburg in East Prussia (in the town of Ketrzyn in today's Poland) in Hitler's famous headquarters, a sheltered building made of extremely thick concrete walls, hidden in the forest, known as Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair). All the walls of this building were indestructible concrete and it had no windows opening to the outside. This would increase the effect of the explosion inside, and the shock wave that could not escape would turn the inside into hell. However, Hitler requests the meeting to be held in the conference hall at the last minute, on the grounds that the weather is hot. The explosion did not have the expected effect in the conference hall, where all the windows were open because the weather was hot, and the shock wave went out through the window, reducing the effect of the explosion.
In fact, Stauffenberg, who came to the meeting with two of the same explosives, did not have time to activate the second bomb device because Hitler postponed the meeting 15 minutes early. It was not easy for Stauffenberg, who lost his left eye, right hand, and ring and little fingers on his left hand, due to war wounds, to operate this mechanism in a difficult situation.
The bag, which was placed very close to Hitler, tripped over one of the men there (Colonel Heinz Brandt) at the last moment, and Colonel Brandt placed the bag in a more distant corner, on the other side of the leg of the table (one of Colonel Brandt's legs was severed in this explosion and he died in the hospital a day later). lost).
The thick and heavy meeting table made of oak wood, with maps and all military documents on it, protected Hitler by acting as a shield.
When Hitler survived this assassination attempt, he believed that he was protected by God and thought that the plan he designed in his mind was a plan approved by God, so he did what he knew until the end of the war and lost the war by ignoring the suggestions of anyone around him.
Moreover, after even one of his most trusted officers tried to kill him, he became paranoid and suspicious of everyone around him. As such, he constantly changed the positions of generals and disrupted the army.
He was quickly arrested
Later, Joseph Goebbels announced over the radio that Hitler was alive, and after Hitler himself made a speech on state radio stating that he was alive, the conspirators realized that the coup had failed. During the brief skirmish with the conspirators at their offices on Bendlerstrasse, Stauffenberg was injured in the shoulder. Stauffenberg and his supporters were hastily arrested in his office on July 21, 1944.
In an attempt to save his own life, co-conspirator Generaloberst Friedrich Fromm held an impromptu trial at the Bendlerblock Headquarters (Army Command) where he condemned the conspirators and ringleaders and sentenced them to death. On the orders of Friedrich Fromm, they were executed by a makeshift firing squad in the inner courtyard of the Bendlerblock, by shot with a rifle, before 01:00 that night (July 21, 1944).
A truck's headlights were on during the execution. His aide-de-camp, Lieutenant von Haeften, was the third to be executed after Stauffenberg. It was Stauffenberg's turn to be executed, but Lieutenant von Haeften himself placed himself between Stauffenberg and the firing squad and was shot in Stauffenberg's place. Stauffenberg's last words as he was executed were Es lebe unser Heiliges Deutschland! (Long live our sacred Germany!) was shouting.