#schwarzekapelle

The 1944 Plot to Assassinate Hitler

A group of German generals attempted to assassinate the leader of Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) using a bomb on 20 July 1944 but failed. The conspirators were against Hitler's conduct of the Second World War (1939-45) and Nazism in general and wanted an honourable surrender while there was still a chance of saving Germany from destruction.

Hitler was injured by the bomb left by Claus von Stauffenberg (1907-1944) but lived to instigate brutal reprisals on anyone remotely connected to the plot. The conspirators, called the Schwarze Kapelle ('Black Orchestra') by the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police, included senior generals, diplomats, and aristocrats who had hoped to stage a coup d'etat following Hitler's death. The conspirators were hunted down as several thousand were tortured and brutally executed.

Hitler & Stauffenberg at the Wolf's Lair

Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1984-079-02 (CC BY-SA)

Hitler as War Leader

Adolf Hitler was the absolute dictator of Nazi Germany and the supreme commander of all Germany's armed forces. In addition, all armed forces personnel had to swear allegiance to Hitler personally. Germany had started WWII with a string of victories, which included the Fall of France in 1940, but from 1942, the Allies began to gain the upper hand. As a war leader, Hitler proved incapable of appreciating the strategic consequences of his decisions. Operation Barbarossa, the attack on the USSR, ended in failure for many reasons, but Hitler's persistence in overriding his generals, such as his decision to halt the advance on Moscow and insistence that the army at the battle of Stalingrad fight to the death, did not help. Distrustful of experts, Hitler believed his generals were too pessimistic, and so he made himself the Feldherr or commander of the German armies in the field. It was also in 1942 that the North Africa Campaign seriously deteriorated following defeat at the Second Battle of El Alamein (Oct-Nov 1942). Nevertheless, Hitler continued his military meddling by dismissing generals on a whim. Even if he had not been strategically inept, the sheer volume of work he gave himself by refusing to delegate meant that Hitler's decisions were not based on detailed analysis of any given military situation.

The D-Day Normandy landings of June 1944 finally opened a second front, and Germany found itself squeezed between the two armies of the Allies. It seemed to many of Germany's top generals that the war was already lost and it would be better to surrender with honour now before Germany itself was invaded. This was not an option for Hitler, and so a group of generals decided to take matters into their own hands.

Hitler the War Leader

Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-B24543 (CC BY-SA)

Tentative d'Assassinat d'Hitler de 1944

Un groupe de généraux allemands tenta d'assassiner le dirigeant de l'Allemagne nazie, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), à l'aide d'une bombe le 20 juillet 1944, mais ce fut un échec. Les conspirateurs étaient opposés à la conduite de la Seconde Guerre mondiale (1939-45) par Hitler et au nazisme en général, et souhaitaient une capitulation honorable tant qu'il restait une chance de sauver l'Allemagne de la destruction.