Had American intelligence not been so lacking, this failed assassination attempt may not have resulted in such extreme punishment for its plotters. Image Source: Twitter
It eventually turned out that the conspiracy had been compromised by the SS, and Himmler himself knew the names of almost every plotter, thanks to an outrageous act of negligence on the part of American intelligence.
The July 20 plotters had been in regular contact with the OSS station chief in Switzerland, Allen Dulles, who would later lead the CIA. The liaison, Hans Bernd Gisevius, visited Dulles and gave him a list of the conspirators.
Gisevius hated von Stauffenberg for personal reasons, so he didn’t include the man’s name on the list. That’s why, when Dulles transmitted the names over a compromised channel, the SS agents who intercepted the message were at a loss to know who the actual bomber was.
The day before the bombing attempt, the chief of the Gestapo sent a letter to Himmler and urged him to move against two of the plotters. Himmler, still presumably wanting to catch the assassin himself, declined, but sent his wife and children into the countryside for a vacation on July 20.
In the 24 hours following the bombing, the Gestapo effortlessly rounded up almost all of the conspirators who survived. Beck had committed suicide with a gunshot to the head on the night Valkyrie failed. Von Tresckow, at his post on the Eastern Front, got news of the failure over the radio, grabbed a grenade, walked out toward the Soviet lines, and blew himself away.
Bloody Vengeance
Image Source: Pinterest
The SS reaction to the July 20 plot was as brutal as it was swift. Thousands of people, both real and alleged plotters, were rounded up and executed. Many were tortured for days before execution.
Leading plotters were given a show trial and slowly hung from piano wire suspended on meat hooks. The Wehrmacht was purged and political officers were posted to every command. Spontaneous demonstrations of loyalty and affection for Hitler broke out all over Germany. Soldiers’ letters from this period reveal the men’s disgust at what their officers had done.
Four months after the last attempt on his life, Hitler moved into a bunker under the Chancellery building in Berlin. Five months after that, he took his own life with cyanide and a self-inflicted gunshot.
Abwehr chief Wilhelm Canaris, who had been swept up in the July 20 backlash, was survived by a widow who spent the rest of her life collecting a pension from the CIA, hinting at the role American intelligence had played in these failed plots.
After you read about the many Adolf Hitler assassination attempts, check out the people who enabled Hitler’s rise to power, and the photo of Hitler that he had banned.
