4. The attempt to infiltrate the SS and Hitler’s bodyguards
In 1935, various members on the far-right of German politics were growing increasingly concerned over Hitler’s strengthening grip over all political power in Germany. It became evident to many that the only way to remove Hitler from power was to kill him and at the same time eliminate several of the more prominent Nazi leaders. A German industrialist name Helmuth Mylius was the head of the German far-right Radical Middle-Class Party as well as the editor and publisher of a right wing newspaper. He joined forces with a retired officer of the former Imperial German Navy, Captain Hermann Ehrhardt, to create a complicated scheme in which members of their cabal would infiltrate the SS at the highest levels of Hitler’s personal security details, from which they could both recruit supporters within the SS and monitor the personal activities and itinerary of the Fuhrer.
The plotters were successful in placing more than 150 of their supporters in the ranks of the SS using various means. As with any plan which involves so many people operating clandestinely under the watchful eyes of secret police and counterintelligence, the chances of the operation remaining secret were remote at best. The plotters also attempted to recruit support within the upper ranks of the army, and it wasn’t long before the SS security units and the Gestapo had wind of it and were investigating, using the tried and true techniques of torture and threats to the suspect’s family to extract confessions. Most participants were rounded up by the Gestapo and other security organizations, to vanish in the growing concentration camps. A few senior Army officers managed to steer themselves away from suspicion, some of these participated in later threats to Hitler’s life during the ensuing Second World War.