One of the leaders of the coup attempt against Hitler: Who is Ludwig Beck?

(1880-1944) German commander and politician. He was one of the leaders of the failed coup against Hitler in 1944. He was born on June 29, 1880, in the town of Biebrich on the Rhine River. Joining the German army in 1898, Beck became a staff captain in 1913. During World War I, he took various positions on the Western Front and fought in the Marne and Verdun battles. At the end of the war, he was promoted to major. In 1933, he was appointed as the head of the Units Department, which was established instead of the General Staff Office, which was banned by the Versailles agreement. He became chief of the General Staff in 1935. During his presidency of the General Staff, he became one of the implementers of Hitler's armament policy. But starting in 1935, he consistently opposed Hitler's plan to invade Czechoslovakia. When it became clear that the invasion plan would be implemented in 1938, he tried to get the entire General Staff to resign and protest this policy, and when he failed, he resigned alone in August 1938.

After that, Beck, who wrote essays on military theory, soon began to oppose Hitler together with the conservative politician Carl Goerdeler. During the war years, he worked to organize a passive resistance against the Nazis and to prepare a government that would be formed after the Nazis were overthrown. During this period, Beck was considered by the conservative opposition as the future president. Beck and his followers attempted to assassinate Hitler in the early 1940s but failed. Finally, on 20 July 1944, they staged a coup d'etat. However, upon the failure of this coup attempt, Beck committed suicide on the same day.