[5] The apparent aim of the coup d'état attempt was to wrest political control of Germany and its armed forces from the Nazi Party (including the SS) and to make peace with the Western Allies as soon as possible.

The details of the conspirators' peace initiatives remain unknown,[6][7][8] but they would have included unrealistic demands for the confirmation of Germany's extensive annexations of European territory.

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.

[20][21] Martin Borschat portrays their motivations as 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.

[22] However, at least in Stauffenberg's case, the conviction that Nazi Germany's atrocities against civilians and prisoners of war were a dishonour to the nation and its military was likely a major motivating factor.

[28] To Poland, which was fighting against Nazi Germany with both its army and government in exile, the territorial demands and traditional nationalistic visions of resistance were not much different from the racist policies of Hitler.

"[36] Detailed instructions were written for occupation of government ministries in Berlin, Heinrich Himmler's headquarters in East Prussia, radio stations and telephone offices, and other Nazi apparatus through military districts, and concentration camps.

[40] Operation Valkyrie could only be put into effect by Hitler himself, or by General Friedrich Fromm, commander of the Reserve Army, so the latter had to be either won over to the conspiracy or in some way neutralised if the plan was to succeed.

"[43] Himmler had at least one conversation with a known oppositionist when, in August 1943, the Prussian Finance Minister Johannes Popitz, who was involved in Goerdeler's network, came to see him and offered him the support of the opposition if he would make a move to displace Hitler and secure a negotiated end to the war.

[44] Nothing came of this meeting, but Popitz was not immediately arrested (although he was later executed towards the end of the war), and Himmler apparently did nothing to track down the resistance network which he knew was operating within the state bureaucracy.

that Himmler, who by late 1943 knew that the war was unwinnable, allowed the plot to go ahead in the belief that if it succeeded he would be Hitler's successor, and could then bring about a peace settlement.

[45] Tresckow and the inner circle of plotters had no intention of removing Hitler just to see him replaced by the dreaded and ruthless SS chief, and the plan was to kill them both if possible—to the extent that Stauffenberg's first attempt on 11 July was aborted because Himmler was not present.

[citation needed] On Saturday, 1 July 1944 Stauffenberg was appointed Chief of Staff to General Fromm at the Reserve Army headquarters on Bendlerstraße in central Berlin.

These included General Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel, the German military commander in France, who would take control in Paris when Hitler was killed, and it was hoped, negotiate an immediate armistice with the invading Allied armies.

[citation needed] The plan was for Stauffenberg to plant the briefcase with the bomb in Hitler's conference room with a timer running, excuse himself from the meeting, wait for the explosion, then fly back to Berlin and join the other plotters at the Bendlerblock.

[16] On 18 July rumours reached Stauffenberg that the Gestapo had knowledge of the conspiracy and that he might be arrested at any time—this was apparently not true, but there was a sense that the net was closing in and that the next opportunity to kill Hitler must be taken because there might not be another.

[46] The pencil detonator consisted of a thin copper tube containing cupric chloride that would take about ten minutes to silently eat through wire holding back the firing pin from the percussion cap.

Werner von Haeften then tossed the second unprimed bomb into the forest as they made a dash for Rastenburg airfield, reaching it before it could be realised that Stauffenberg could be responsible for the explosion.

By the time Stauffenberg's aircraft reached Berlin about 16:00,[55] General Erich Fellgiebel, an officer at the Wolfsschanze who was in on the plot, had phoned the Bendlerblock and told the plotters that Hitler had survived the explosion.

At around 18:10, the commander of Military District III (Berlin), General Joachim von Kortzfleisch, was summoned to the Bendlerblock; he angrily refused Olbricht's orders, kept shouting "the Führer is alive",[59] was arrested, and held under guard.

At around this time the planned seizure of power in Paris was aborted when Field Marshal Günther von Kluge, who had recently been appointed commander-in-chief in the West, learned that Hitler was alive.

As Remer regained control of the city and word spread that Hitler was still alive, the less resolute members of the conspiracy in Berlin began to change sides.

[61] Despite protests from Remer (who had been ordered by Hitler to arrest the conspirators), at 00:10 on 21 July the four officers were executed in the courtyard outside, possibly to prevent them from revealing Fromm's involvement.

At first, the practice was not regulated and was carried out chaotically, which was due to Himmler’s refusal to “establish specific rules regarding clan guardianship”, however, on February 5, 1945, Keitel’s order was issued, according to which the family of a serviceman who committed high treason was subjected to repression up to and including the death penalty.

[70]Fromm's attempt to win favour by executing Stauffenberg and others on the night of 20 July had merely exposed his own previous lack of action and apparent failure to report the plot.

[73] Evidence indicates that 20 July plotters Colonel Wessel von Freytag-Loringhoven, Colonel Erwin von Lahousen, and Admiral Wilhelm Canaris were involved in the foiling of Hitler's alleged plot to kidnap or murder Pope Pius XII in 1943, when Canaris reported the plot to Italian counterintelligence officer General Cesare Amè, who passed on the information.

Collaborating closely with SS-Gruppenführer Arthur Nebe, he was supposed to direct all police forces in Berlin to stand down and not interfere in the military actions to seize the government.

[76] After 3 February 1945, when Freisler was killed in an American air raid, there were no more formal trials, but as late as April, with the war weeks away from its end, Canaris' diary was found, and many more people were implicated.

Hitler took his survival to be a "divine moment in history",[citation needed] and commissioned a special decoration to be made for each person wounded or killed in the blast.

In his speech at the event, Theodor Heuss, the first President of the Federal Republic of Germany, said that "harsh words" were necessary, and that "There have been cases of refusal to carry out orders that have achieved historic greatness.