July 20, 1944:
- July 19: "Twelve hundred Hungarian Jews from Kistarcsa are trucked to Rákoscsaba, Hungary, then loaded onto trains bound for Auschwitz.
- "Angelo Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, appeals to Admiral Miklós Horthy on behalf of 5000 Hungarian Jews with Palestinian visas.
Roncalli provides baptismal certificates for Jews in hiding. - July 20: "Select members of the German High Command and political conservatives mount an unsuccessful bomb-plot assassination attempt on Hitler at the Führer's "Wolf's Lair" in Rastenburg, Germany.
Protected from the bomb by a massive wooden table, Hitler is shaken and temporarily deafened but is not seriously injured.
Most of the conspiring soldiers and their supporters are conservatives who believe that Hitler is leading Germany to complete ruin by continuing to prosecute the war in the face of insurmountable odds. - "German troops commence deportations of Jews from the Italian (later Greek) islands of Rhodes and Kos."
- The Hitler Bomb Plot
"On July 20, 1944, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg detonated a bomb near Adolf Hitler that damaged Hitler's eardrums, injured his right arm, and burned the Führer, but did not kill him.
The failure to eliminate Hitler unleashed an immediate and murderous response.
"The conspirators in the assassination attempt included important individuals within the German military establishment.
They sought to end Hitler's 'incompetent, unscrupulous leadership.'
Stauffenberg's direct access to Hitler made him the most likely candidate to assassinate the German leader.
"After the bomb was detonated, the conspirators believed that they had successfully killed Hitler.
They moved to take over the War Ministry in Berlin and issue orders to arrest leading Nazis and members of the SS.
Hitler's miraculous survival, however, preempted plans to topple the Nazi regime.
"Hitler's vengeance was rapid and severe.
Participants in the attempted coup were arrested and hanged by wire, dying the most painful of deaths.
The executions were filmed for Hitler, who reportedly enjoyed watching the men twist in agony.
More than 7,000 additional individuals were captured by the Gestapo, 200 of whom were executed."
"Hitler, his right hand trembling following the explosion, inspects the aftermath of the July 20 bombing.
To Hitler's right stands his ally, Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator who had fallen from power and was rescued from imprisonment on Hitler's orders.
Between them is Paul Schmidt, diplomat and Hitler's personal interpreter.
Schmidt later wrote a memoir describing Hitler's personality."
"Ludwig Beck served as chief of the German Army's General Staff.
Initially welcoming Hitler's takeover of the German government, Beck feared a protracted war and resigned as chief of staff in 1938.
Afterward, he participated in the "Wednesday Club" of intellectuals, economists, and politicians opposed to Hitler.
One of the leading July 20 plotters, Beck was considered a likely candidate to replace Hitler as German chief of state.
Before he could be arrested, he unsuccessfully tried to commit suicide.
A soldier with the Guard Battalion finished him off."
"Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, a former mayor of Leipzig, Germany, and former Nazi official, was involved in the plot to assassinate Hitler.
Goerdeler, a unifying force among the July conspirators, was intended to become German chancellor, replacing Hitler, had the conspiracy succeeded.
He was arrested, tried before the People's Court, and executed in February 1945."
"Roland Freisler (center) was president of the Volksgericht (People's Court) from 1942 to 1945.
Here he opens the trial of the July 20 plot conspirators.
A longtime Nazi, Freisler was a fanatic anti-Bolshevik, having been captured by the Russians during World War I and imprisoned for five years in Siberia.
He was infamous for berating prisoners on trial before him.
Freisler was killed by an Allied bomb on February 3, 1945, as he presided over the trial of a conspirator in the July 20 plot."
"Otto Mueller was among Germany's most influential Roman Catholic theologians.
He established the Ketteler House, which became the heart of Catholic anti-Nazi activities in the city of Cologne.
This put him at odds with factions in the Catholic Church that hated and feared the social forces supposedly personified by Jews: liberalism, socialism, and worst of all communism.
The relationship of the German Catholic Church to the Hitler government started off as ambivalent (rather than hostile) in 1933, and stayed that way.
Nevertheless, Mueller continued his efforts and became well known to the Nazi authorities.
He was arrested after the failed July 20, 1944, coup against Hitler and died in prison."