ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON HITLER, 1944
SATURDAY, JULY 20
80 years ago today, on July 20, 1944, Adolf Hitler was to die. Colonel Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg had prepared the assassination attempt with other Wehrmacht officers.
Well planned, but failed
On July 20, a meeting was held in Hitler's headquarters, the "Wolf's Lair," which Stauffenberg attended.
The colonel detonated the device he had smuggled into the room. Five people were killed in the attempted assassination, while Hitler escaped with just minor wounds. That same evening, von Stauffenberg and his accomplices were shot and killed in Berlin.
In the months that followed, another 200 officers and politicians who were connected to July 20, 1944, were executed.
Aim: To finally end the war
Von Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators saw the assassination as the only way to save Germany from certain collapse. They were in contact with other opponents of National Socialism who, like them, wanted to build a different Germany after the war. These officers were convinced that only if Hitler were dead would there be a chance of ending the war and saving the lives of many thousands of people.
Establishing a standard
Though they were not successful in their mission, the July 20, 1944 assassinations demonstrated that not all Germans were in favour of the Nazi government. They showed Germans and outsiders alike that there was a Germany "different" from the National Socialist Germany and that Germans were willing to lay down their lives to defend it.
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