Widerstand im Dritten Reich

It happened 75 years ago: July 20, 1944, was the day Hitler was to die. Colonel Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg had prepared the assassination attempt together with other Wehrmacht officers. On this day, there was a conference in Hitler’s "Wolfschanze” headquarters in which Stauffenberg was involved. The colonel managed to smuggle a bomb into the room and to detonate it. However, Hitler survived the attack with only slight injuries; five other people were killed. 

After his return to Berlin, Stauffenberg refused to believe the news that Hitler had survived. Together with his friend Albrecht Ritter Mertz von Quirnheim, he made fevered attempts to win over high-ranking officers in the military districts for the coup. In the late evening, he had to admit that the assassination had failed. Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, his adjutant Werner von Haeften, Albrecht Ritter Mertz von Quirnheim, and Friedrich Olbricht were shot dead in the courtyard of the Bendler Block that same night.

The assassination attempt was the culmination of efforts by several groups in the German resistance to overthrow the Nazi German government. The failure of the assassination attempt and the intended military coup d'état that was to follow led the Gestapo to arrest more than 7,000 people, of whom they executed 4,980. Not all of them were connected with the plot, since the Gestapo used the occasion to settle scores with many other people suspected of opposition sympathies.

Von Stauffenberg and his fellow conspirators saw the assassination attempt as the only chance to save Germany from a certain disaster. They were in contact with other opponents of National Socialism who, like them, wanted to establish a different Germany after the war.

Stauffenberg's legacy in postwar Germany has been mixed. Some view him as a hero of the anti-Hitler resistance movement and others see him as an opportunist who only turned against the Nazi dictator when Germany's defeat became certain.

Historian Wolfgang Benz told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper that it was important for Germans to remember the broader resistance movement and not just the military officers involved in the July 20 plot.

"Conservatives have always focused on the military resistance, but it came very late [in the war]," he said.

"Widerstand im Dritten Reich" is a feature about Hans and Sophie Scholl, Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg and Oskar Schindler in german language. 

Widerstand im Dritten Reich 

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