Honourable Traitors: Operation Valkyrie and the Men Who Almost Killed Hitler

On 30 April 1945, as the Soviet Tanks rolled into Berlin, Adolf Hitler took his mistress Eva Braun and their dogs into the private quarters of his underground bunker. There, he gave Braun and his dogs a cyanide capsule. He then took his own capsule before shooting himself with his pistol. Just over 12 years after taking power in Germany, Hitler’s reign of terror was over. Eight days later Germany declared their unconditional surrender. The final year of the war was devastating for Germany, both for their soldiers and their people; it could have ended so differently. On 20 July 1944, Lieutenant Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg watched as the wooden hut he had just walked out from, being used as a makeshift briefing room for Hitler’s military conference, exploded. Stauffenberg was certain nobody could have survived such a blast. He was mistaken.

The origins of Operation Valkyrie came in 1941, at which point the Third Reich’s conquest of mainland Europe was in full swing. Both the Nazi’s and the Allies were exchanging devastating blows to the opposing civilian population in the form of terror bombing raids. The Nazi’s believed wholeheartedly in the impact of terror bombing – it’s why they persisted with it. But that belief in its effectiveness meant they were terrified themselves about the effect on public morale such attacks on Third Reich territory were having. As the Nazi’s continued their advances through the Balkans and into the USSR, they gained access to new sources of resources, which could one day become RAF targets. It also meant the population under German control increased. This gave them access to more forced labour; it also provided another potential cause of a wide-scale revolt. To combat these potential eventualities, General Friedrich Olbricht was charged with creating a plan of action that would negate the impact of any such event. Olbricht decided that the German reserve army would be used to handle any civil disobedience in the rebelling cities and towns. The plan was given the codename Operation Valkyrie and was signed off by the Führer himself.

Unlike Adolf Hitler, who grew up in an Austrian working-class household, Claus von Stauffenberg was born into a family well established in the upper classes of German society. In 1926 he joined the German Army’s 17th Cavalry Regiment in Bamberg, the traditional unit for his family to serve in. By 1939 he was a well-established military figure, fighting in the first wave of the Nazi invasion of Poland. Soon enough he and his regiment were off to France. Whilst there, his qualities were noticed by his superiors and he was soon offered a place on the general staff of the 6th Panzer Division. Stauffenberg was off to the Eastern Front.

Hitler’s decision to invade the Soviet Union came in June 1941, at a time when German successes were slowing down. The decision to divert vital resources and manpower away from their current theatres of war concerned almost every general in the German Army. Stauffenberg was no exception. Stauffenberg’s opinion of Hitler was rarely high. Initially sceptical of Hitler and his Nazi party, Stauffenberg eventually voiced his support for the Nazi’s in the lead up to the 1932 election, citing their commitment to curtailing the Jewish influence over German society as a factor in his support. However, after the Nazi’s came into power, it didn’t take too long for that support to dissipate. Being a Catholic conflicted with his deeply held nationalist ideals, particularly when it came to the treatment of Jews. While he supported an effort to curtain Jewish influence, when he saw the level of violence aimed towards the Jewish community in Germany by the SA and SS, as well as their property being destroyed, he was appalled. By the time Kristallnacht began, Stauffenberg had decided Hitler was bad for Germany. At the start of the war, just after Poland had succumbed to Germany, Stauffenberg had been approached by his uncle to join the resistance among the upper class against Hitler. Stauffenberg refused, stating that while he did not like the man in charge, it was his duty to serve Germany as best he could and to attempt to remove the leader now was tantamount to treason. However, as the war went on, the pile of reports landing on the proverbial desks of the German military’s command about organised shootings of Jews and Gypsies in occupied lands at the hands of Himmler and his SS got higher and higher. Stauffenberg’s moral opposition to the Nazi’s was becoming harder to ignore. By December 1941, his opposition to the Nazi’s was not only a moral one but also a strategic one. Without consulting his generals, Hitler declared war on the USA on 11 December 1941 – four days after Pearl Harbour. This declaration brought the anger and disbelief among German generals towards Hitler to a new peak. The fighting was stretched enough as it was, but to declare war on another superpower was nothing but short of suicidal. Those angry about the opening of the Russian front were now livid. Even those in the army that had supported to attack on Stalin’s communist USSR questioned the wisdom of Hitler’s latest roll of the dice. While many generals had to hold their tongues in public, away from the prying eyes and eavesdropping ears of the SS and the Gestapo on the Eastern Front, Stauffenberg felt safe enough to voice his own incredulities out loud. Both Hitler’s military tactics and the treatment of the Jewish and Gypsy communities got scathing reviews from Stauffenberg, but still he refused to play an active role in any conspiracy against Hitler.

In November 1942 Stauffenberg was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. With the promotion came a move, upon his own request, from the cold of the Eastern Front to the Africa Corps. Awaiting him was the Tunisian heat and harsh Saharan Desert, where he was to serve under Erwin Rommel. Stauffenberg’s arrival came as the Germans were planning to launch a counter offensive into American held territory. The initial shove forward was effective for the German’s, but eventually the American’s found a foothold and resisted any more advances. Very quickly the American’s and their new allies were countering the counterattack. The German’s were forced to retreat. Being a Lieutenant Colonel, Claus von Stauffenberg was afforded the luxury of a quick exit and on 7 April 1943 was escorted from the frontline to a secure German stronghold in a staff car. On this race to safety, his convoy was attack by Australian Royal Air Force Fighter Bombers. There were several deaths and plenty of casualties from the carnage caused by the Australian pilots. Stauffenberg lost his left eye, his right hand and two fingers on his left hand. He was sent back to Munich to recover.

The Lieutenant Colonel spent three months in hospital as he recovered physically and slowly came to terms mentally with the life changing injuries he had sustained fighting for his beloved Germany. While recovering, he heard stories from other recuperating soldiers of how Hitler had refused to allow the German troops stuck in Stalingrad to surrender,  even when the battle was unquestionably lost. He also heard that Hitler had lost interest in the North African campaign and that was why he had allowed the African Corps to all but disintegrate. There is no doubt that more reports about the ethnic cleansing of the Jewish community and other so-called undesirable peoples in German controlled lands would have swept through the hospital housing many wounded soldiers. Stauffenberg had stood idle for too long. It was in Munich, surrounded by other men who had risked everything for the ambitions of a deranged fascist dictator, he finally felt compelled to act.

One man who was a patient at the same hospital as Stauffenberg was Werner von Haeften, a lieutenant who had been injured quite severely whilst fighting on the Eastern Front. Once recovered, Haeften became Stauffenberg’s adjutant (military lingo for admin assistant). It was a professional relationship which quite literally took Haeften to the Wolf’s Lair. Having been approached to join the movement against Hitler and the Nazi’s on several occasions, Von Stauffenberg knew exactly who to make contact with to sign himself and his new adjutant up to the resistance. Among Stauffenberg and Haeften’s co-conspirators was a man named Ludwig Beck. Unlike Stauffenberg, and indeed Haeften, Hitler knew all about Ludwig Beck. A distinguished staff officer after impressing in the first world war, Beck’s stock within the German Army rose quickly following the Nazi Party’s successful power grab. Beck was vocally supportive of Hitler’s determination to, hypothetically speaking, rip up the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles. In 1935 he became chief of the elite general staff. Beck’s opinion of Hitler began to change once the Nazi began his efforts to expand Germany’s frontiers. This switch in opinion came to a head in 1938, after Beck feared that Hitler’s brinkmanship in the Sudeten Crisis would bring Germany to war against an alliance which, he believed, the German military could not defeat. Beck had tried to orchestrate a coup to remove Hitler from power. The coup never got off the ground; the Munich Agreement was signed, and Beck was forced to resign. The resentment Beck felt towards Hitler never subsided. The combination of intelligence, military acumen and a hatred for Hitler made Beck a key player in the wartime plots against the Führer. Beck like many, if not all, involved in the attempts on Hitler’s life, hoped that by bringing about his demise would bring the Western Allies to the negotiating table in a formal setting. With Beck as president, it was anticipated the British, Americans and French would give Germany several concessions, including a return of the territory that had belonged to Germany pre-1919. In return, Germany would join forces with the Western Allies to fight the Red Army and bring down Stalin’s USSR. This anticipation was a complete delusion. Whilst the Western Allies would have been delighted if an attempt on Hitler’s life proved successful, there was a resolute desire among all the Western Allied nations to completely dismantle Germany post victory, before rebuilding it in their own image. To them, this constituted the best way of avoiding the roots of an extremist ideology rising through the cracks of a deeply nationalistic German state once again.

Another key player was Henning von Tresckow. As seemed to be case with many in the German military general staff (or those who had ambitions to join it), Tresckow was initially supportive of Hitler on account of his disregard for the Treaty of Versailles. His support quickly vanished. For Treskow the turning point was the ‘Night of the Long Knives’, which saw Himmler and the SS seize full control of Nazi paramilitary activities. To do so, the SS arrested and executed without judicial authorisation, a large number of political opponents as well as leading members of the SA, the original paramilitary group of the Nazi Party and rival of the SS. The Night of the Long Knives had a profound effect on the internal affairs of the Nazi Party. It also had a profound effect on Tresckow. As Tresckow climbed the rungs of the German Army’s hierarchical ladder, his hatred of the Nazi’s grew in stature too. Tresckow was the mastermind behind two attempts to assassinate Hitler in March 1943, the first of which failed due to a lack of understanding of the effect of air pressure on a lit fuse and the second because of Hitler’s unexpected fleet-footedness.

In August 1943, Henning von Tresckow went back to the drawing board. After an audience with General Friedrich Olbricht, it was decided that Operation Valkyrie would be used as the basis for all future assassination attempts. Over the course of August and September 1943, Tresckow adapted Operation Valkyrie for its new, secret, purpose. Operation Valkyrie had undergone an unrecognisable face lift. The plan that was crafted to protect the Nazi Party’s grip on power was now going to be used as a means of bringing the party to its knees. The catalyst for the reserve army’s seizure of control was no longer to be a people’s uprising, it was to be the death of Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler. The new plans were drawn up and Tresckow was prepared to risk his life to make a success of them. There was one issue, Tresckow’s military commitments. In October 1943, Henning von Tresckow was assigned to command a battalion on the Eastern Front. He was now too far away and too busy to play a part of any significance on Operation Valkyrie 2.0. Claus von Stauffenberg, who had been assisting Tresckow to revise Operation Valkyrie in August 1943, now took the leading role. But with Hitler splitting the majority of his time between his luxurious Berghof residence in the Bavarian Alps and the Wolf’s Lair, an East Prussian military compound, the opportunities to get to Hitler were few and far between.

Stauffenberg needed a way into the regular military meetings being held for Hitler, on 1 July 1944 he got one. After being appointed as Chief of Staff to General Friedrich Fromm of the Reserve Army, Stauffenberg found himself in position to have an audience with Hitler on a regular basis. On 7 July an attempt to kill Hitler fell through and from then on Stauffenberg decided he himself should instigate future assassination attempts. Himmler and Hermann Goering were to be in attendance of another of Hitler’s conferences on 14 July. However, the plot was aborted thanks to Himmler’s unexpected absence. Afterwards the conspirators agreed that the assassination of Hitler was imperative. Any Himmler, or indeed Goering, sized loose ends could be dealt with after the main target had been eliminated. The following day Stauffenberg was off to the Wolf’s Lair. Goering was in attendance again, as was Himmler. The plot was going perfectly, until Hitler was called out of the meeting. Stauffenberg managed to disarm the bomb in time, but once again he had to come to terms with a failed attempt.

On 20 July 1944, Stauffenberg travelled back to the Wolf’s Lair to attend a military conference. It was decided that two bombs would be placed in the bunker where the conference would take place. Before the bombs detonated Stauffenberg would receive a phone call, taking him out of the conference and into safety. After confirming the bomb went off, Stauffenberg would be driven away by his adjutant Haeften. Stauffenberg would then contact the conspirators in Berlin before flying there himself. The head of the Reserve Army, General Fromm would then seize control of the city temporarily, giving the conspirators time to establish the new government. The plan seemed fool proof, but so had many of its predecessors. It was too long after arriving at the Wolf’s Lair that Stauffenberg had to start thinking on his feet. The summer heat was particularly strong that day. Far to strong to be conducting a lengthy military briefing in an underground, reinforced bunker. That was the opinion of Adolf Hitler. A venue change was organised last minute, with the conference now being held in a wooden hut. Stauffenberg made the necessary adjustments to Operation Valkyrie and continued as was planned. He went to the bathroom as planned, went into a cubical and began arming the two bombs in his briefcase. The first bomb was set, and the countdown had begun, but as he was in the process of setting the other bomb he heard a large wrap of knuckles on his toilet door. It was a soldier instructing him to hurry, as the Führer was ready to begin and not willing to wait. Stauffenberg obliged, not willing to arouse suspicion or be denied access to the meeting altogether. The meeting began, Stauffenberg was present and in his briefcase was one live bomb. He placed the suitcase beside him and listened intently to what was being dictated to him and the rest of the audience. Then, with ample time, an urgent phone call was made for Lieutenant Colonel Stauffenberg. Pretending to be caught unawares, Stauffenberg left the room to take the call. It had all gone to plan. Hitler had remained in the room and nobody had suspected a thing. The explosion went off with Stauffenberg a safe distance away. The announcement of Hitler’s death was made, and the next stages of Operation Valkyrie were ordered by Stauffenberg to be set into motion. The flight to Berlin would have been nothing short of euphoric for Stauffenberg and Haeften.

The same could not be said for their fellow conspirators. There had been conflicting reports over the success of Operation Valkyrie coming from the Wolf’s Lair. Claus von Stauffenberg was convinced that with the size of the blast, Hitler was dead. Arguments were made for cancelling the operation made, as were the arguments for persisting with it. The most ardent supporter of the latter stance was General Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim. Eventually the Berlin based General Friedrich Olbricht gave the order to commence Valkyrie. Pockets of the operation were going ahead, but the head of the Reserve Army General Fromm delayed. Seeking confirmation of Hitler’s state, Fromm called Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel. Keitel confirmed Hitler had survived. He also demanded to know where Stauffenberg was. Fromm knew this meant he was suspected of being involved. He replied that he thought he was with Hitler, hoping that playing ignorant might help his defence. That wasn’t enough cover though. Instead of ordering the Reserve Army regiments in Berlin to seize control for the new government, he ordered the arrest of the key conspirators in the hope that would save he from the inevitably grim fate awaiting the key players in the 20 July plot. Fromm set up an impromptu court martial. The court martial found Claus von Stauffenberg, Henning von Tresckow, General Friedrich Olbricht and Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim guilty of attempting to murder Hitler and ordered their executions. Ludwig Beck was not court martialled but was arrested. Knowing the fate that awaited him, Beck asked for his pistol and then shot himself. Operation Valkyrie was dead. The reprisal from Hitler was wide. Despite the belated efforts by Fromm to display loyalty to the Führer, he was executed along with almost 5,000 others. Among those was Rommel. The German public’s opinion of Rommel was too high to publicly chastise him, so he was encouraged to take a cyanide pill in private.

Operation Valkyrie, despite the meticulous planning, was a complete failure. As its orchestrators were rounded up and either shot or imprisoned, the chance of a German led coup against him died. Had it been successful, the Second World War may have ended in a much more amicable and much less deadly fashion. The leaders of Valkyrie may have had their own selfish reasons for bringing down Hitler, but the consequences would have been better for all. Had it been pouring with rain in East Prussia on 20 July 1944, or if Stauffenberg had got to the toilet five minutes earlier, history may have been very different.

Sources:

Podcast: Wars of the World – Operation Valkyrie: The Plan to Assassinate Hitler

https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/international-crimes/operation-valkyrie/

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Claus-Graf-Schenk-von-Stauffenberg

Cover Image:

"Count von Stauffenberg, the man who almost killed Hitler, 20 July 1944" by History In An Hour is licensed under CC BY 2.0