Most people know from school that Adolf Hitler, being a charismatic leader, enjoyed the unlimited support of the entire German population, from an ordinary burgher to his closest associate. In reality, the situation with people's love was somewhat different. Proof of this is the several dozen assassination attempts that Hitler was able to survive after he became the Fuhrer of the German people.
Almost immediately after the Nazis came to power, the new Chancellor began receiving death threats. Almost every week, the police received information about the impending attempt on Hitler's life. According to the Gestapo, in 1933 alone, at least 10 cases posed a threat to the Nazi leader.
It is interesting that some of the "people's avengers" at first contrived to remain unpunished. For example, this happened with the carpenter from Konigsberg, Kurt Lutter, who in March 1933, at one of the meetings, was preparing an attempt on Hitler's life. As a result, it did not take place, the worker was seized by the police and … acquitted for lack of evidence.
In the future, the leader of the German people will correct this "annoying misunderstanding." In order to see a potential terrorist in a person, one suspicion was enough. No proof was needed. So, in just 6 months of 1933, more than 26,000 dissidents ended up behind bars: socialists, communists and others who disagreed with the regime. Moreover, most of them, among other charges, were preparing an attempt on Hitler's life.
However, as you know, there is no smoke without fire. In the early years of the reign of the popularly beloved leader of the Reich, many actually wanted to stop the "brown plague" by physically eliminating its leader. But there were far fewer than 26,000 people willing to kill Hitler.
In the 1930s, only four more or less serious assassination attempts were made on the Nazi Fuhrer. It is difficult to say which higher powers were guarding Hitler, but he, as if spellbound, managed to remain safe and sound even in situations where death, it would seem, was inevitable.
One of these fantastic rescues occurred on November 8, 1939, when the communist Georg Elser detonated a homemade bomb in a famous Munich beer hall, where the Fuehrer was performing on the anniversary of the beer putsch. Recall that the coup attempt undertaken by Adolf in 1923 failed, but in the eyes of the followers of the Nazi party, the leader of the NSDAP became a patriot and a hero, which was used by Nazi propaganda with might and main.
Hitler's annual speech in the pub where the coup once began was dedicated to the "old guard." A lot of people gathered, everyone felt relaxed - in other words, the situation gave an ideal opportunity to organize an assassination attempt.
Promotional video:
As a researcher from England, Robert Jackson, wrote, the plan to assassinate Hitler was developed by 52-year-old Karl Kuh, the leader of the primary, three-member, party cell operating in the underground of the Communist Party of Germany. With the full approval of Moscow, Kuh in January-March 1939 began to study options for installing an explosive device in a Munich pub.
But on May 29 - on the Day of Spirit - he was told that he had the Gestapo on his "tail". Karl tried to escape to Switzerland, but got into a mysterious car accident and died along with his entire family. His assistant, a pub waiter named Ketter, got scared and refused to participate in the assassination attempt on Hitler.
Then Georg Elser decided to act alone. For 3 months he was engaged in the manufacture of a bomb, extracting substances for explosives in one of the nearest quarries. In addition to this, the terrorist became a regular in the beer cellar, made friends with the waiters and learned from them exactly where the Fuhrer becomes when he delivers his annual speech to veterans of the Nazi party.
This platform was next to a huge reinforced concrete column, which was sheathed with wood panels. It was in it that Elser arranged a cache for his bomb. 1939, November 5 - the "weapon of retaliation" was installed and the clockwork started. Then the terrorist got on the train and tried to leave for Switzerland. But the German border guards detained the illegal.
Most likely, he would have been released after paying a small fine, but listening to the Fuehrer's speech in Munich on the radio in the duty room, Georg became nervous. And the fact is that Elser, setting the charge, proceeded from the fact that Hitler's traditional speech lasts about 30 minutes, because the bomb should have exploded 20 minutes after the start of the speech. But this time the head of the Reich started the event a little earlier and spoke much less than usual.
And when, in full accordance with the plan, the "weapon of retaliation" worked, the head of the Reich was no longer in the pub. The explosion killed 8 Nazis, more than 60 people were injured. The unnatural behavior of the detainee aroused suspicion among the border guards, and they handed him over to the Gestapo. There it was quickly established that it was Georg who was the author and performer of the failed assassination attempt, and he was imprisoned in "Dachau". In April 1945 he was shot.
Naturally, Elser's action, however, like most others like her, was associated with the fact that many considered Hitler a sinister figure, a bloody dictator. However, one should not be mistaken: there were times when the frantic Adolf wanted to kill and those who considered him too liberal. More dangerous in this case was the extreme right organization "Black Front", under the leadership of Otto Strasser.
After coming to power, the Fuhrer banned this ultra-reactionary organization, and its leader was forced to seek political asylum in Prague. But he did not stop his subversive activities in exile, all the time emphasizing that Hitler's softness would destroy Germany.
1936 - Strasser found in Prague a "comrade in misfortune" - a poor Jewish student Helmut Hirsch, who for obvious reasons had emigrated from the Nazi state. The leader of the "Black Front" conducted educational work with the young man and persuaded him to return and take revenge on the main anti-Jewish activist of all Germany. As a result, Hirsch agreed to set up an explosion at one of the party congresses in Nuremberg. But the young fighter for justice did not even have time to get explosives - he was betrayed by one of the participants in the conspiracy.
The failed terrorist was sentenced to death by the court. The execution took place on July 4, 1937 in the Berlin prison "Pletzensee", where the lives of many fighters against the Hitler regime ended. After that, the Black Front organized several more assassination attempts on the head of the Reich, but all attempts ended no better than in the case of Hirsch.
Among the potential assassins of Hitler were also, so to speak, lone non-partisan avengers. The names of those of them who came closest to the intended goal even went down in history. For example, Maurice Bavo from Lausanne. As a citizen of neutral Switzerland, the theology student nevertheless hated two things - communism and fascism. In the end, he came to the conclusion that he must free the world from the villain and tyrant Fuhrer and decided to shoot him. As noted above, the most popular place for organizing all kinds of assassination attempts was Munich, where every year there were mass events dedicated to the anniversary of the failed "beer putsch".
But after the attempt on Hitler's life on November 8, 1939, the security service drew conclusions and proved that it was not in vain that they were eating their bread. Bavo was unable to pass the police barriers and reach the site of the alleged assassination attempt. Then the next day he decided to try again, already at the Fuehrer's residence in Obersalzburg. The unlucky terrorist said at the entrance that he had to give a letter to Adolf Hitler, but the guards, suspecting something was wrong, arrested Maurice. After three years of investigation, Bavo was executed.
Naturally, all these "amateur" assassination attempts did not pose a serious threat to the head of the Reich. The real threat came from those for whom killing was a profession - the military. Of course, most of the Wehrmacht personnel were fanatically devoted to the Fuhrer. But even in the highest echelons of the German army there were those who did not want to blindly and resignedly obey Hitler.
And the leader of the German people understood this perfectly. According to the British researcher Robert Jackson, already in 1939, after the failed assassination attempt of the lone communist Georg Elser, the Fuhrer suspected that his closest associates could actually be behind the attack.
Perhaps this is why the unlucky "bomber" at "Dachau" was in a privileged position: he was well treated, allowed to work as a carpenter, and even had short "leave" letters issued outside the camp. As you can see, Hitler believed that sooner or later Georg would tell about the customers of the assassination attempt he organized. But even if in the case of Elser the trace of the Wehrmacht is unlikely, this does not mean at all that Hitler's officers did not hatch plans to assassinate Hitler.
The army opposition began to form even before the war. Its center was the so-called "Goerdeler Circle", headed by the former chief burgomaster of Leipzig Karl Goerdeler. This man was able to find like-minded people among the senior officers and generals of the Wehrmacht. One of these allies was the Chief of the General Staff of the German Army, General Beck. He categorically did not share Hitler's aggressive geopolitical views. For some time he even tried to find support from the British government, but in humane England they preferred to pursue a policy of “appeasing the aggressor”.
1938 - the chief of the General Staff with the rank of Colonel-General resigned, but Hitler did not abandon his thoughts about saving Germany from a catastrophe. To prevent Germany from being drawn into a hopeless war, Beck planned to violently remove the Fuhrer from power and prepared for this a special assault group from officers loyal to him. They included the commander of the Berlin district, Major General (since 1940 - Field Marshal) Erwin von Witzleben and senior military intelligence officers (Abwehr) - Colonel Hans Oster and Major Friedrich Heinz.
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill confirmed in his memoirs that it was planned to overthrow the Fuhrer on September 14, 1938, at 8 pm. General Gepner's tank division was to enter Berlin and occupy the city's key points. It was planned to capture Adolf Hitler alive, tried by a popular tribunal, and then, having recognized him as mentally ill, sent to a madhouse.
However, not everyone agreed with such a “humane” decision on the fate of the warmonger: in particular, military intelligence officers Oster and Heinz had their own opinion. They were convinced that in order to save Germany, the Fuhrer must be physically eliminated, and they planned to shoot the dictator on the sly during the capture. But the conspirators miscalculated a little. They were going to time the overthrow and possible assassination by the moment when the Fuhrer gave the order for a military invasion of the Czech Sudetenland, but the situation around Czechoslovakia was resolved by the relatively peaceful Munich Agreement. Thus, the war was postponed and the assassination attempt as well.
A year later, the inevitable - the outbreak of World War II - still happened. With the outbreak of hostilities in Poland, members of the Goerdeler Circle again put the question of an attempt on Hitler's life on the agenda. Now no one doubted that the only effective measure against the dictator could only be his physical destruction. For example, the conspirators wanted to stage a "covert" assassination attempt, simulating an enemy air raid or a train disaster.
1940 summer - Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben, commander of the German forces in France, and three officers of his staff were about to shoot Adolf Hitler during his stay in Paris in connection with the celebration of the victory over the French. Then, having received the news that the "epileptic Genghis Khan" - as the Fuehrer dubbed Goerdeler - is no longer alive, the conspirators in Berlin, acting according to Auster's plan, had to take power into their own hands. But at the last moment, the attempt on Hitler's life failed.
Another attempt at a military coup, scheduled for December 1941, was associated with the defeat of the German army near Moscow. It was led by the then Chief of the General Staff, Halder. To capture or destroy the head of the Reich, it was supposed to use the tank and airborne divisions. However, these units, by order of Hitler, were urgently transferred to the Eastern Front and soon defeated. The coup did not take place.
All attempts by the military to overthrow the Fuhrer failed, and in 1942
1943 - the season of the "hunt for Hitler" was continued by Erwin von Witzleben's closest friend Henning von Treskow. In March, the leader of the German people visited the troops of Army Group Center. On the plane on which he was returning from Smolensk to Berlin, Treskov managed to deliver a bomb disguised as two bottles of cognac. One of the officers accompanying the Fuehrer agreed to take these bottles to Germany and give them as a gift to General Friedrich Olbricht. But the explosive mechanism did not work, maybe because of the low temperature on board the plane that took off …
Eight days later, another headquarters officer of Army Group Center, Colonel Rudolf von Gersdorff, tried to blow himself up with the Fuehrer at the Berlin exhibition of captured weapons. Adolf Hitler had to stay there for an hour. When he appeared in the arsenal, the terrorist set the detonator for 20 minutes, but after 15 minutes the head of the Nazis suddenly left. Gersdorf barely managed to get to the toilet to remove the fuse from the infernal machine …
Captain Axel von Bouchet and Lieutenant Edward von Kleist were also willing to sacrifice themselves. Independently of each other, they wanted to kill Hitler during the demonstration of the new army uniform in early 1944. However, for some reason, he did not come to the "military fashion" show.
Captain Eberhard von Breitenbuch, an orderly to Field Marshal Busch, wanted to shoot Hitler on 11 March 1944 at the Berghof residence. But on that day, he was not allowed to the tyrant's conversation with the Field Marshal.
One after another, during the long 5 years, attempts on Hitler's life were invariably thwarted. And only in the middle of 1944 did the military eventually have a more or less real chance to put their long-term plan into practice. The last hope of the army opposition was Colonel Klaus Schenk von Stauffenberg, who in spring, together with a small circle of like-minded people, had been planning an operation codenamed Valkyrie.
Perhaps Hitler had never come so close to perishing. Maybe the whole thing was in the direct executor - the colonel, who was the least suitable for the role of a terrorist. During the African campaign, Stauffenberg was seriously wounded and lost his right eye, right hand and two fingers on his left, after which he was transferred from the front line to the rear, to the Headquarters of the Army Reserve.
For battle wounds he was awarded several higher orders of the Third Reich, was highly respected at the top of the command, and even was a member of Hitler's Headquarters. 1944 - This Headquarters, called the "Wolf's Lair", was located in East Prussia, in the Mauerwald forest near Rastenburg. It was there that Colonel Stauffenberg arrived on July 20 with two explosives in his suitcases.
And immediately the plans of the conspirators began to collapse. The colonel was informed that due to the intense heat, the meeting would not be held in an underground bunker, but on the surface, in a hunting lodge. This was unpleasant news for the "putschists", because a directed explosion in a tightly closed room had a much better chance of success than a similar explosion in a light wooden structure, and it was too late to change plans.
As a result, Stauffenberg had to act according to the circumstances. First of all, he should have put chemical fuses on alert. It was not easy to do this with one hand with three fingers, and time was running out, so the colonel managed to collect and hide only one explosive device out of two in his briefcase. The explosion was supposed to thunder 15 minutes later.
In the conference room, Stauffenberg tried to sit as close to Hitler as possible and put his deadly briefcase on the table next to the head of the Reich. In 5 min. before the explosion, the colonel left the conference room. This was not done out of cowardice. It's just that the role of Klaus Stauffenberg in the upcoming coup d'etat was not limited to the physical elimination of the head of the Reich, and outside of the "Wolf's Lair" he had to do a lot more to successfully implement the conspiracy.
But the coincidence of circumstances again saved the dictator from certain death. One of the participants in the meeting put the briefcase left by the colonel under the table, because he was covering the map. So between Hitler and the bomb there was a thick oak table leg. As a result, when an explosion thundered at 12:42 pm, 4 people were killed, many were wounded and shell-shocked, and the Fuhrer, the main target, escaped with only scratches and torn trousers.
Stauffenberg managed to leave the "Wolf's Lair" before the incident, so when he heard about the explosion, he was sure that the Fuhrer was eventually dead. But, having flown to Berlin, to the main group of conspirators, he learned that their plan had failed. Some of the failed "putschists" decided to leave the game, but the colonel was determined to go all the way and took the initiative into his own hands.
He phoned army leaders and chiefs of units stationed abroad, and, convincing them that Hitler was dead, urged them to go over to the side of the new leadership. Stauffenberg's words were taken seriously by many: in Prague, Vienna and Paris, local commandants even began to arrest SS men and employees of other German security services.
The success of Operation Valkyrie ended there. In the end, one of those who received the order from the "new Berlin leadership", Colonel Roemer, before fulfilling the orders, guessed to contact Hitler's Headquarters and the Minister of Propaganda Goebbels and found out that the dictator was not dead at all, and that a coup almost took place in the country. For his zeal, he was appointed head of the detachment to eliminate the conspirators.
By the evening of the same day, it was all over. The leaders of the putsch were arrested, handed over to the Gestapo and, after a short field tribunal, shot. An exception was made only for Colonel-General Beck - he was allowed to commit suicide "like an officer". The day after the failed coup, a wave of arrests swept across Germany all those associated with the July 20 assassination attempt.
Among the detained conspirators were some of the highest leaders of the Wehrmacht: the head of the Abwehr Wilhelm Canaris, the field marshal Erwin von Rommel - the famous Desert Fox - and many other "honored workers of the Reich."
So do not be mistaken: many of those who were considered loyal subjects of the Nazi regime and its Fuhrer, in fact, wished the death of the leader of the German people and did everything possible to make this dream come true. Researcher Yevgeny Berkovich compiled a detailed anthology of failed "army" assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler in an article under the eloquent title "42 Attempts."
L. Likhacheva
Recommended for viewing: 42 attempts on Hitler's life