Operation Valkyrie

German Officer's Plot to Assassinate Adolf Hitler

© William Silvester

Dec 13, 2008

With the success of the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944 and the costly defeat of the German army at Stalingrad on the Eastern Front, many high ranking German officers believed that the destruction of Nazi Germany was now only a matter of time. To prevent this they decided to eliminate Hitler and open negotiations with the Allies for honorable peace terms.

Plot to Assassinate Adolf Hitler

It would not be an easy task. Hitler was well aware that assassination attempts were being plotted against him and he took steps to make his movements as unpredictable as possible. He frequently changed his plans at the last minute, arriving early or late or not at all. No one knew until the last moment if he would travel by plane or car or train. No one could get close to him with a weapon. Security was very tight in the Chancellery in Berlin or at Hitler’s mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden in Bavaria or most recently the Wolf’s Lair in East Prussia.

Colonel von Stauffenberg

Despite all these factors, a group of German officers decided to make the attempt. The plan was simple. Due to his position as chief of staff and his injuries, von Stauffenberg was above suspicion and met with Hitler regularly. He had lost two fingers on his left hand, his right forearm and hand and his right eye when attacked by an Allied plane in North Africa a year before. When von Stauffenberg arrived at the Wolf’s Lair he would prime the bomb, enter the building and due to his injuries, which included impaired hearing, be positioned close to Hitler. He would place the bomb and then be called to the phone by his adjutant Lieutenant Werner von Haeften. Safely out of the room the bomb would explode, hopefully killing everyone inside. Von Stauffenberg would then fly back to Berlin where General Erich Fellgiebel would inform army headquarters that Hitler was dead. Generals Friedrich Olbricht and Erich Fromm would then take over the government and Field Marshal Erwin von Witzelben would take control of the army. The German resistance would then be contacted to take over civilian posts. In France General Carl-Heinrich von Stulpnagel, German military commander in Paris, would take control, contact the Allies and negotiate an armistice.

Von Stauffenberg had first become involved in the plot after he was released from the hospital and assigned to the staff of General Olbricht, Head of Supply for the Reserve Army. Colonel Henning von Tresckow, an officer who had been building a conspiracy against Hitler since 1941 and knew von Stauffenberg as sympathetic to the cause, arranged the appointment. A number of high ranking German officer were in on the plot and had in fact already failed in four attempts to get close enough to kill Hitler.

Operation Valkyrie

The conspirators adopted the code name Operation Valkyrie The plot took a step forward when von Stauffenberg was promoted to Colonel and made chief of staff to General Olbricht but a step back when Tresckow left Berlin for the Russian Front. It was now up to von Stauffenberg and Olbricht to keep the conspiracy on track.

As it was part of von Stauffenberg’s job to report directly to Hitler, he was the obvious man to carry the bomb the plotters decided to use. He first met Der Fuehrer on June 7, the day after D-Day when it became obvious to the plotters that the end of the Third Reich was just a matter of time. Time was not on their side and speed was of the greatest importance. Twice von Stauffenberg met with Hitler but as the conspirators wanted to kill other high ranking Nazis such as Field Marshal Hermann Goring or possibly Reichsmarshal Heinrich Himmler at the same time, he did not make the attempt. Operation Valkyrie - Part 2

Bibliography

Alan Bullock - Hitler: A Study in Tyranny –1952

Jacques Delarue – The Gestapo: A History of Horror –1965

Joachim Fest – Plotting Hitler’s Death: The German Resistance to Hitler –1996

Pierre Galante – Operation Valkyrie: The German Generals’ Plot Against Hitler - 2002

William L. Shirer – The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich –1959

Colonel von Stauffenberg

Adolf Hitler

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