Operation Valkyrie was a contingency plan designed to ensure the continuity of government in the event of widespread civil disorder in major German cities. In any crisis the Reserve Army would take control of all government buildings and impose military rule.
By 1944 opposition to Hitler’s management of the war effort was growing within sections of the army and civil administration. A small group of senior army officers and regional administrators had formed a clandestine group to remove the Fuhrer from power before Germany collapsed altogether. They hoped with the dictator gone, they could sue for an honourable peace with the Allies.
Treating themselves as the official resistance, the conspirators believed they stood the best chance of getting rid of Hitler because of their positions in the German army. A cursory glance at the names of those involved in the conspiracy reveals this was no flight of fancy.
• Ludwig Beck, Chief of the General Staff before Wirld War II.
• Major General Henning von Tresckow, said by the Gestapo to be the “evil mind” behind the coup attempt.
• Lieutenant General Friedrich Olbricht, a senior general staff officer.
• Claus von Stauffenberg, a highly decorated young officer who was seriously wounded in Africa.
• Last but not least was Hitler’s personal favourite, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.
They were joined by several regional administrators and two other Germans prominent in public life, a former senior Nazi administrator Karl Goerdeler and the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
All of these men knew the risks involved in their joint enterprise. Failure would have meant certain death and ignominy. All were social conservatives and nationalist by sentiment, but they shared one burning desire, that was to see the end of Hitler and the Nazi Party.
Their first attempt to kill the dictator occurred in March 1944 when he was visiting troops on the Eastern front. Tresckow planned to blow up Hitler’s plane in mid-air with a bomb concealed in a wooden box which contained a bottle of Cointreau. Unfortunately, the bomb failed to explode and Tresckow had to risk retrieving it so as not to give away the plotters.
A few months later in June another more determined attempt was made that involved one of the conspirators, Claus von Stauffenberg, actually placing a bomb in the Wolf’s Lair, Hitler’s most secure wartime bunker, during a meeting with his top generals. Confirmation of the Fuhrer’s death was a thought a necessary precondition for the implementation of Operation Valkyrie, otherwise, it would not succeed.
Some of the plotters were aware of the existence of the contingency plan and thought it could be used to their advantage. In an ingenious twist Valkyrie would be deployed to eliminate the SS threat immediately after Hitler’s death. The was no scope for dithering or procrastination as the future of Germany was at stake.
Enter Murphy’s Law.
The story is dramatically presented on the big screen in an entertaining film starring Tom Cruise. I am not a big Cruise fan but, on this occasion, he is supported by a fantastic cast of actors.
Finally, there was no less than fifteen attempts on Hitler’s life made by political opponents of every stripe. Had just one been successful then the course of history could have been different for tens of millions.
I read somewhere that the Nazi Party ruled by fear. Fear was ever present in Hitler’s Germany, and it was reinforced by the regime’s barbaric treatment of ethnic minorities and political opponents alike.