On this date, July 20, 1944, Adolf Hitlersurvives an assassination attempt led by German Army Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. Please go to this previous blog post to read a Speech of Hitler.
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Benito Mussolini visits Hitler's headquarter Wolfsschanzenear Rastenburg (Ketrzyn) in East Prussia in the day of 20 july attenat. The view of destroyed corridor of barrack (There is Dr Paul Schmidt - Mussolini's interpreter in the background). |
The 20 July plot refers to the attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Führerof the Third Reich, inside his Wolf's Lair field headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia, in July 1944. The apparent purpose of the assassination attempt was to seize political control of Germany and its armed forces from the Nazi Party (including the SS) in order to obtain peace with the Allies as soon as possible. The underlying desire of many of the involved high ranking Wehrmachtofficers was apparently to show to the world that not all Germans were like Hitler and the NSDAP. The details of the conspirators' peace initiatives remain unknown, but they likely would have included demands to accept wide reaching territorial annexations by Germany in Europe.
The plot was the culmination of the efforts of several groups in the German Resistance to overthrow the Nazi-led German government. The failure of both the assassination and the military coup d'état which was planned to follow it led to the arrest of at least 7,000 people by the Gestapo. According to records of the Führer Conferences on Naval Affairs, 4,980 of these were executed.