17. Assassination attempts in Berlin
The attempts to kill Hitler in Berlin, both at the museum displaying captured Soviet military equipment and during the modeling of new winter uniforms, were hampered by the desire of the conspirators to eliminate simultaneously Hitler, Goering, and Himmler, thus decapitating the nation and the SS simultaneously, and leaving a power vacuum at the head of the Nazi party. The three Nazi leaders were difficult to get into the same place at the same time, which caused multiple delays and frustration among the conspirators, who were well aware that they were committing high treason. Even those officers who were aware of the plots but did not expose them to the Gestapo and the SS were guilty of treason, as many would discover in the aftermath of the July 20 plot, in which assassins came the closest to actually killing the Fuhrer.
General Helmut Stieff had been committed to the assassination of Hitler and the overthrow of the Nazis since 1943, but by the spring of 1944, his commitment wavered. The many failures and delays completing the plots discouraged him and when the final attempt to kill Hitler by suicide bomb when he was inspecting new uniforms was canceled, Stieff withdrew from the conspiracy. No other conspirator had routine access to the physical presence of Hitler but one, Claus von Stauffenberg. Stauffenberg was a wounded veteran of combat, having lost an eye, his right hand, and two fingers of his left. It fell to Stauffenberg to both plant a bomb at Wolf’s Lair and return to Berlin to activate the replacement army as part of a coup designed to kill Hitler and overthrow the government. The plan, prepared by Stauffenberg and Tresckow, was called Operation Valkyrie.