The 20 July Plot (a.k.a. Operation Valkyrie) and Bad Breaks

A Reader Request: Unforeseen Events That Foiled Operation Valkyrie

At the request of a reader, this week we’ll take a look at the most famous attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler, highlighting a few unforeseen breaks that led to the plan’s failure. 

Hiding in the Fuhrerbunker while the Red Army stormed Berlin, Adolf Hitler’s terrifying reign over Nazi Germany, which brought about a Second World War and the Holocaust came to an end. The man who had seduced Germany and had successfully escaped multiple assassination attempts would take his own life. Under a year before that April day in 1945, Hitler had dodged perhaps the most famous plot assassinate him - the 20 July plot known more commonly as Operation Valkyrie.  

As the Allies successfully implemented Operation Overlord in the summer of 1944, in Germany, a growing portion of the German people and multiple senior leaders in the German army were losing confidence in their ability to win the war. Placing the blame at Hitler’s feet, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg was selected by his co-conspirators, General Friedrich Olbricht, Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim and Major General Henning von Tresckow, to leverage a pre-existing emergency plan to assassinate the Fuhrer and help stage a coup in hopes of bringing peace to Germany. 

Operation Valkyrie, as it was known, was a pre-approved plan in which emergency continuation of government operations was issued in the event of a breakdown in civil order.  Von Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators all believed that the death of Adolf Hitler would warrant grounds to activate the response plan and lay grounds for staging a coup. For von Stauffenberg himself, a known German nationalist, he felt it his personal responsibility to rid the German people of Adolf Hitler in order to save his beloved Germany. 

In the planning stages, the conspirators would confer with Ludwig Beck, then the Chief of German General Staff of their plans. Beck agreed to become the head of state in the new government and assume power of the provision government after Hitler was dead. He was the piece they needed to ensure the new government remained stable as they sought peace with the Allies.

In the eyes of von Stauffenberg, von Tresckow, Olbrecht, von Quirnheim and Ludwig Beck, a perfectly executed plan would include the successful assassination by bombing of Adolf Hitler at the Wolf’s Lair in East Prussia, activation of Operation Valkyrie thereby affording the German Reserve Army power to assume government control, capturing officials in the Nazi high command, and an immediate offer of a negotiated peace with the Allies. 

On July 20, 1944, von Stauffenberg arrived at Wolfsschanze, a heavily fortified bunker frequented by Hitler and other senior Nazi officials to plan and strategize. Carrying a briefcase that concealed two explosives, von Stauffenberg and his fellow co-conspirators were banking on the meeting taking place in an underground concrete room with a heavy-steel door. Typically, these meetings were held in such a venue and in such secure and compact quarters, the explosion would surely prove fatal to its intended target. 

To von Stauffenberg’s surprise, the heat of that July day forced the meeting planners to congregate in a wooded bunker above ground. This environment, unlike the concrete bunker, would not maximize the force and impact of the explosion. It was the first of a few breaks that adversely affected the conspirators’ plan. 

As von Stauffenberg stepped out of the room to prime the explosives, the time he needed to prime both bombs was interrupted and cut short. This resulted in only one of the two bombs concealed in his briefcase being armed. Now, von Stauffenberg found himself in a more open meeting room with half the explosive power the conspirators had planned on.

Despite the wooded room and weaker explosive, von Stauffenberg decided to move forward with their plan. As fate would have it, another unforeseen event further complicated the bomb’s potential impact. The briefcase in which von Stauffenberg had concealed the explosives was repositioned near a dense table leg. Thus, when he stepped out of the room feigning a personal phone call, the bomb’s explosion did not yield the desired effects. 

The weakened bomb and its positioning near the dense table leg shielded Hitler from the most intensive focus of the blast. While the blast would eventually lead to the deaths of four Nazi officials who had gathered in the meeting room, Hitler himself suffered only minor injuries.

As von Stauffenberg slipped out of the Wolf’s Lair to return to Berlin, the conspirators began proclaiming the death of the Fuhrer and working to announce the activation of Operation Valkyrie. Confusion spread like wildfire as messages about the Fuhrer’s assassination competed with other communications that Hitler was indeed alive. The mixed messaging resulted in General Frederich Fromm refusing to activate Operation Valkyrie. The conspirators quickly arrested him and replaced him with General Erich Hoepner. The insistent Quirnheim, knowing Hitler was still alive, convinced Olbricht to activate Valkyrie.

Amidst the chaos, Carl-Heinreich von Stülpnagel, had successfully managed to disarm most of the SD and the SS (Nazi Germany’s security and intelligence agencies) and captured many high-ranking leaders. He then set off to make contact with the Allies in hopes of extending an opportunity to negotiate a peace. 

Confusion and miscommunication continued to stream into Berlin and across Germany as the conspirators tried tirelessly to amplify the lie of the Fuhrer’s death. Unfortunately, Heinrich Himmler, who had taken charge, issued orders to ignore the activation of Operation Valkyrie. It is here that the coup failed as commanding officers who had been following protocol learned that Hitler was indeed alive and began cessation of the emergency response activities. 

Before the night was over, General Fromm had regained control of the Benderblock in Berlin and held an impromptu court martial sentencing the conspirators to death. Ludwig Beck would commit suicide and von Stauffenberg, Olbricth, von Quirnheim, and another officer would be executed by firing squad right there in the courtyard of the Benderblock in Berlin.

It is tempting to speculate what may have happened had the meeting at the Wolf’s Lair taken place in its usual concrete bunker, or had von Stauffenberg been able to prime both explosives, or had the briefcase not been placed near the thick table leg. Yet another one of history’s ‘what-if’ moments. 

Despite the failed plot to kill Hitler and negotiate a peace, the conspirators were correct in that Adolf Hitler had made several strategic decisions that had contributed to their eventual loss to the Allies. And their foreshadowing wouldn’t take long to manifest. Less than a year after the failed assassination and coup de tat plot, Hitler and his closest allies would be dead and the Second World War would be over.