THE PLOT THAT ALMOST CHANGED HISTORY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP70-00058R000300030063-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: November 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 14, 1999
• Sequence Number: 63
• Publication Date: July 27, 1954
• Content Type: NSPR

( I Rs R
Approved For Release 20 4~f4~~
,ii+l..- _77 1964
CPYRGHT
CPYRGHT
THE PLOT THAT ALMOST
CHANGED HISTORY
July 20, 1944-what if that
bomb had killed Hitler?
Historians and surviving par-
ticipants in the assassination plot
are convinced this would be a far
different world now.
The bomb burst did little harm
to Hitler, but it may have changed
the course of history for Russia,
East and West Europe, the U. S.-
even for faraway areas in the
Pacific.
It was just 20 years ago, on July 201
1944, that a bomb came within inche
of destroying Adolf Hitler.
Had the blast killed the Nazi dicta-
tor, instead of merely injuring him, his-
torv since World War II could have
been profoundly changed.
Hundreds of thousands of lives, lost
in the last 10 months of the European
war, could have been r saved.
Russia, still fighting on home -,round
on July 20, might have been stopped
from overrunning much of Ea"lern Eu-
rope and Germany.
but ran into a stone wall whenever the
idea of co-operation was raised.
The plotters. The bomb that almost
destroyed Hitler was planted by a ring
that included prominent anti-Nazi civil-
ians as well is high-ranking military
rueu.
Gen. Hags Speidel, first head of the
armed forces in today's \Vest Germany,
was one of the plotters. So was Eugen
Gerstenmaier, now President of the \Vest
German Bundestag, equivalent to Speak-
er of the House in the U. S.
Among the many who died because
they were involved was Nazi Germany's
most popular soldier, Field Marshal Er-
win Rommel.
Of the hundreds who were in on the
plot, only a handful are still alive. In-
side ns group r
tr..., ;C ,ham. P,,iCell hart cnr?eeeded, nost-
war Europe would have been radically
changed.
Says Ludwig von Hammerstein, exec-
utive of a West German broadcasting
network, "The map of Europe would
look different. Soviet influence, not only
in Europe, but probably throughout the
Possibly no atom 1ontb wild have
been used to end the war in the Pacific
and no race for unclear supremacy
would have been started.
The men who tried to kill Hitler
plaru,ed to take over the Government,
surrender to the Allies and end. the war.
But when they tried to work out some
kind of deal with the L. S. and Britain
they met with either hostile silence or
monotonous repetition of the catch
phrase "unconditional surrender."
At that time, the Western Allies were
dedicated to total victory in Europe and
total destruction of Germany's industrial
power. There was no inclination in ei-
ther Washington or London to make any
kind of deal with any German.
Years later, Britain's wartime Prime
Minister,'WIr1Ston Churchill, complained
that he had been misled by subordinates
as to what the anti-Nazi underground
was doing.
?h f th
FOIAb3b
world, would be of a diherent
day.
Fabian von Schlabroudorff, n. )w a
Wiesbaden lawyer, say : "There pr, lb-
ably would. not be a Berlin probl-'m or
a divided Germany. The question of
the Soviet satellite countries might not
have been posed in the way it exists
now.
Hans Fritzsche, nov, a senior civil
servant in Bonn, agrees.: "Surely 8u;sia
would never have been able to play tire.
dominating role as uncnttestedly as she
has."
A winter's losses. "'he plotter.;' loan
to end the war in the summer of I144
was not r=ealized, and fighting coi,tiniu:d
across the map of Eur rape until the fol-
lowing spring.
During t ..o ,,,~ tt , ahrmt 100 (100
French-were killed in ,a e.
as many were listed is wounded and
missing. In the German and Russian
armies, casualty lists were undo tbt ~dly
far longer. And unn nutted thous urds
were exterminated in the still-fiourisiring
Nazi concentration camps.
Allen Dulles, who spent rm.K o Key -one J F,,- an.to
war as a U. S. intelligence operative ill
rope, e t \V as hi r na1 London PROOF OF FAILURE-Hitler shows Mussolini the wrecked rocon where -a bomb,
Eu k
;,,forme to i ;GPWi~tl,totro Kele se 2OQIIQ&23iiaeC,IA'I DR?O 0 O0'Oeaolm w3 t6 World War II.
 CPYRGHT
The clAppfoyed Fe?rn>Rtelease
wanted to quit fighting could get no co-
operation in the West is verified by Al-
len Dulles. The man who later headed
the U. S. Central Intelligence Agency
wrote a book "Germany's Undergroun.,"
about his European experiences. In it the .
former CIA chief says:
"After Hitler went to war and West-
ern eyes were finally opened to what
Hitlerism meant, no one would have
anything to do with any German, wheth-
er Nazi or not. All were suspect."
A difficult task. Mr. Dulles notes:
"Both Washington and London were
fully advised beforehand on all the con-
spirators were attempting to do, but it
sometimes seemed that those who de-
termined policy in America and England
were making the military task as diffi-
cult as possible by uniting all Germans
to resist to the bitter end. '
One of the surviving plotters, Schla-
brendorff, had gone to London in 1939
to tip off the British about the impend-
ing Nazi attack on Poland. While there,
he told Churchill about German hopes
for overthrowing Hitler.
"Churchill left me under the impres-
sion that he was in favor of our inten-
tions and that he would help us," Schla-
brendorff recalls.
But no help came, and a decade
passed before the Englishman and the
German met again. Said Schlabrendorff:
"Ten years later, after the war, in
1949, I met Cahill again and we had
-European Photo
COUNT von STAUFFEN-
BERG, who planted the
bomb for the conspirators.
GENERAL SPEIDEL, plotter,
later led West German Army.
-J. I. Boca Photo
-USN&WR Photo
ALLEN DULLES, of U. S., kept Washing-
ton "fully advised" of anti-Hitler plots.
a long talk about the German resistance,
the July plot and its aftermath.
"Then Churchill said to me: `After our
discussion now it suddenly dawns on me
that my closest associates and collabora-
tors have not kept me fully informed
about these events in Germany during
the war-which is deplorable."'
To the end. of the was, the West
downgraded the anti-Nazis in Germany.
But, the Russians, according to Allen
Dulles, "were far smarter than we. They
took a more realistic view of things."
Mr. Dulles recalls that Moscow radio
praised the bomb plotters of July 20 and
urged the German people to rebel. But one of the other officers pre,cut
"What,." asks Mr. Dulles, "came from inadvertently kicked the briefs tse,
Washington and London? The attempt picked it up and moved it out of his
on Hitler's life was dismissed as of no way. Its new position put it farther f,olo
consequence." Hitler, against the hea'-y oak sup,-iol of
In this, the West agreed with Hitler. the conference table. '!'his undouhte dly
Twelve hours after the explosion on absorbed much of the impact an(` poh-
July 20, Hitler took to the air to tell the ably saved Hitler's life.
world he was still very much alive. Four persons were killed'in the bast.
Hitler described the would-be assas- But Hitler escaped with minor iii u'ies
sins as "a very small clique of ambitious -a bruised arm, a few burns and d ' if-
officers, devoid of conscience and at the Hess in one ear.
same time criminally stupid." Hitler's survival doomed the plot
Like so many Nazi declarations, this In Berlin, conspirators who were up-
was a lie. Before Hitler's crackdown was posed to take over direction of an led
over, some 7,000 Germans had been ar- forces throughout Germany and the oc-
rested. About 5,000 were executed. cupied areas were fror:en into iuaci ion
Intellectuals, Socialists, labor leaders, by the news that Hitler was still liv
anti-Nazi politicians, Catholic and Prot On the Western front in I'raiice.
estant churchmen, as well as hundreds where a deal to surrender to the Allies
of military men, were killed. was to have been put in motion, top-
The early conspirators. Many of ranking officers similarly refused to act..
those in on the plot were of the Johnny- Stauffenberg managed to get to l "er-
come-lately type. They joined only when lin three hours after planting the be utb
convinced Germany would lose the war. and tried to rescue the failing coup, hut
58t[tity=VL4r5+trfax+new r hief of
state. lie bad resigned as Chief of the
German General Staff n 1938 in pri,test
against Hitler's plans o start war.
Another was the Chancellor-t(_-be.
Carl Goerdeler, ex-mayor of ,ci_txig
who broke with the Nazis in 19;
Dictator's luck. The almost-suer ess-
ful explosion on July 2O was the last of
literally dozens of German attcnript . to
kill Hitler.
Luck enabled the dictator to es, ape
unhurt on many occasions. Once ie left
a Nazi party meeting _`1_0 minutes be 're
a bomb killed several of those l rv eiit.
On another occasion, :, time bomb was
placed on his airplane, but the deton for
failed to work.
Chance saved him on Jul, 20, too
The than who undertook to kill H tier
on that date was Count Claus icl.enk
von Stauffenberg, a 37-year-old A my
colonel. He had been badly wour,de, i in
North Africa, losing his left eye i -ght
arm and two fingers of his-left hand.
No longer fit for combat, lie had been
assigned to a staff joir in Berlin. His
duties included attending many ,f :lit-
ler's staff conferences.
Just before entering the con?cri rice
room in Hitler's headquarters at itas.en-
burg, East Prussia, oii the fat. 1 day,
Stauffenberg activated the fuse of the
bomb concealed in his briefcase. It vas
set to go off in 10 minutes.
As he entered, he saipped the h ief-
case onto the floor near Hitler. Lien
quietly left, saying he had to in ukt an
important telephone call.
it was too late. He wa:; handed rave, to
a firing squad before the day was over.
one of the first of the thousands who
start of the war in 1939. were to die because the plot to kill I lit
One of these was (,en. Ludwig Beek, ler had failed.
But others, including those who were
to head the new Government, had been
plotting against Hitler since before the
JIlL 2 7 1964
e 2000/05/23 : CIA-RDP70-00058R000300030063-6