July Coup (Brotherhood and Unity!)

On 20th August 1944, Generalleutnant Claus von Stauffenbeg and other government leaders assasinated Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of the German Reich inside his headquarters in East Prussia. With Hitler assasinated, Beck, von Witzleben, Halder, Doenitz, Gordeler declared the state of emergency and truce with the Allies. This would be prolonged as one radical faction of the SS would still made a guerilla war until the Soviets and the Balkans took Berlin.

Background
Since 1938, there had been groups plotting an overthrow of some kind within the German Army and in the German Military Intelligence Organization. Early leaders of these plots included Major General Hans Oster, Colonel General Ludwig Beck and Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben. Oster was the deputy head of the Military Intelligence Office. Beck was a former Chief of Staff of the German Army High Command (OKH). Von Witzleben was the former commander of the German 1st Army and the former Commander-in-Chief of the German Army Command in the West. They soon established contacts with several prominent civilians, including Carl Goerdeler, the former mayor of Leipzig, and Helmuth James von Moltke, the great-grandnephew of Moltke the Elder, hero of the Franco-Prussian War.[citation needed]

Groups of military plotters exchanged ideas with civilian, political, and intellectual resistance groups in the Kreisauer Kreis (which met at the von Moltke estate in Kreisau) and in other secret circles. Moltke was against killing Hitler; instead, he wanted him placed on trial. Moltke said, "we are all amateurs and would only bungle it". Moltke also believed killing Hitler would be hypocritical: Hitler and National Socialism had turned wrongdoing into a system, something which the resistance should avoid.[7]

Plans to stage an overthrow and prevent Hitler from launching a new world war were developed in 1938 and 1939, but were aborted because of the indecision of Army General Franz Halder and Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch, and the failure of the Western powers to oppose Hitler's aggression until 1939.[8]

In 1942, a new conspiratorial group formed, led by Colonel Henning von Tresckow, a member of Field Marshal Fedor von Bock's staff, who commanded Army Group Centre in Operation Barbarossa. Tresckow systematically recruited oppositionists to the Group's staff, making it the nerve centre of the army resistance. Little could be done against Hitler as he was heavily guarded, and none of the plotters could get near enough to him.[9]

During 1942, Oster and Tresckow nevertheless succeeded in rebuilding an effective resistance network. Their most important recruit was General Friedrich Olbricht, head of the General Army Office headquarters at the Bendlerblock in central Berlin, who controlled an independent system of communications to reserve units throughout Germany. Linking this asset to Tresckow's resistance group in Army Group Centre created a viable coup apparatus.[10]

In late 1942, Tresckow and Olbricht formulated a plan to assassinate Hitler and stage an overthrow during Hitler's visit to the headquarters of Army Group Centre at Smolensk in March 1943, by placing a bomb on his plane (Operation Spark). The bomb failed to detonate, and a second attempt a week later with Hitler at an exhibition of captured Soviet weaponry in Berlin also failed. These failures demoralised the conspirators. During 1943 Tresckow tried without success to recruit senior army field commanders such as Field Marshal Erich von Manstein and Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, to support a seizure of power. Tresckow, in particular, worked on his Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Centre, Field Marshal Günther von Kluge, to persuade him to move against Hitler and at times succeeded in gaining his consent, only to find him indecisive at the last minute.[11] However, despite their refusals, none of the Field Marshals reported their treasonous activities to the Gestapo or Hitler.

Opposition of Hitler policies
While the main goal of the plotters was to remove Hitler from power, they did so for various reasons. The majority of the group behind the 20 July plot were conservative nationalists—idealists, but not necessarily of a democratic stripe.[12][13] Martin Borschat portrays their motivations to a matter of aristocratic resentment, writing that the plot was mainly carried out by conservative elites who were initially integrated by the Nazi government but during the war lost their influence and were concerned about regaining it.[14] Even so, the persons involved explained their opposition to Hitler as a matter of principled opposition to Nazi policies and actions. Tresckow was appalled at SS murders of Russian prisoners.[15] Likewise, Stauffenberg had already decided that Hitler must be removed after learning of SS murders of prisoners of war and of Jews.[16] Goerdler, who was to have been Chancellor of the government installed after the coup, had publicly opposed anti-Jewish policies from the first.[17] And long after hopes of any negotiated peace had faded, Tresckow stated: "The assassination must be attempted, coûte que coûte [whatever the cost]. [Then,] even if it fails, we must take action in Berlin. . . . [W]hat matters now is that the German resistance movement must take the plunge before the eyes of the world and of history. Compared to that, nothing else matters."

Territorial demands
The Resistance wanted to return the original territories of German Empire with Austria and Tyrol. Some members of the Resistance want to have Czechoslovakia as Reichskommissar. Some even wants the whole Poland annexed to Germany. Some wants a Central European Republic. But majority wants the new Kaiser to return as the head of state and Chancellor assumes power.

Political vision
Majority are moderate-conservative. Some are Communists and Social Democratic.