People, Places, and Events behind the Headlines in History

Valkyrie

The July 20, 1944, plot to kill Adolf Hitler introduced to moviegoers by the 2008 Tom Cruise film Valkyrie, was a sophisticated plan for a military coup that capitalized on and modified actions that could be taken in a state of emergency to mobilize Reserve Army forces at a moment’s notice, institute martial law, and put down internal unrest.

https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/valkyrie https://www.filmelier.com/movies/19438/valkyrie

 The German Resistance plan for a coup following Hitler’s assassination was based on a comprehensive set of emergency directives that actually had been established by the German Army and approved by Hitler himself. Called Operation Valkyrie, the plan was formulated by Friedrich Olbricht, Chief of the General Army Office, in 1941-42.  There were two phases to the plan. Valkyrie I was created after the German Army’s catastrophic losses on the Russian front in 1941 and was designed to develop and mobilize reserve army units to the front lines. (Peter Hoffman: Stauffenberg, Cambridge University Press, 1992)

Valkyrie II prepared combat-ready units to operate in the home land or in occupied areas as internal threats to the stability of the Third Reich grew: The number of prisoners of war and foreign workers in defense industries was higher than 4 million in 1941 and expected to more than double by 1944. (Stauffenberg; Eberhard Zeller: The Flame of Freedom, University of Miami Press, 1964.) As the war intensified, the General Army Office also expected more intensive Allied bombing campaigns.

Central to Operation Valkyrie was the Ersatzheer, the Replacement or Reserve Army, which was stationed within Germany and responsible for training and guard duties. With Operation Valkyrie, the Reserve Army would “take control of infrastructure and preserve public order” in the face of turmoil or an actual uprising. (https://www.beachesofnormandy.com/articles/Valkyrie/?id=2f2b1260f5)

The Coup Plan

Operation Valkyrie was modified in 1943 and 1944 by Henning von Tresckow to foster a military coup that would follow Hitler’s death.

(The Tom Cruise film Valkyrie makes it appear that Claus von Stauffenberg was the prime mover behind the planning of the Operation Valkyrie, but documents obtained by the Soviets after the war and released in 2007 show that three people were responsible for the revisions to the Operation Valkyrie and the General Orders: Tresckow, his wife Erika, and his secretary Margarethe von Oven. https://www.beachesofnormandy.com/articles/Valkyrie/?id=2f2b1260f5)

The revised operation included two General Orders that would be triggered immediately after Hitler’s assassination. The first General Order would announce that the Führer was dead and that “an unscrupulous clique of Party leaders, remote from the fighting front, have tried to exploit the situation, stab the struggling army in the back, and usurp power for their own ends.” (The Flame of Freedom, p 238)

The second General Order would declare a state of emergency and transfer power from both the Wehrmacht and the leadership of the Third Reich to designated commanders of the Reserve Army in the home territory. It would institute immediate actions to:

·         Occupy postal and military communication centers and broadcasting outlets.

·         Arrest the heads of the SS, police, Gestapo, SS administrators, district and propaganda leaders.

·         Take over operation of concentration camps and arrest commandants and guards.

·         Arrest resisting Waffen-SS leaders and disarm any units that resisted the change of power.

·         Occupy SD and Gestapo centers, with the help of local police.

·         Maintain liaison between the Reserve Army and the Navy and Air Force. (The Flame of Freedom, p 239)

The revised orders directed the Ersatzheer to seize and remove members of the civilian Nazi government “under the pretext that the SS had killed Hitler.” The Reserve Army High Command, as a result, would actually be executing the coup when they believed they were the ones who were targeting and eliminating traitors and restoring the existing government. (https://www.beachesofnormandy.com/articles/Valkyrie/?id=2f2b1260f5)

Focusing primarily on Berlin, detailed orders were prepared for the officers who would be assuming command as well as the troops they would lead. Designated commandants would be responsible for:

·         Sealing off the Government quarter using the Guard Battalion, arresting Josef Goebbels and overseeing the Propaganda Ministry as well as the Head Office of the SS.

·         Using shock troops to occupy Reich Headquarters and arrest Reich leaders.

·         Attacking SS barracks by sealing off access roads, demanding surrender of senior SS officials, disarming SS unit members, and firing on anyone who resisted.

Under martial law, everyone would have to relinquish weapons unless they were part of specially authorized guard units. All offices of the Nazi Party would be closed and party leaders arrested. Assets of the Nazi Party also would be confiscated, and anyone removing or altering assets or making changes to documents or files would be charged and prosecuted in a courts martial.

Three-member courts martial would be empaneled to oversee trials for crimes of abuse of power, blackmail and bribery, and murder and exact swift punishment.

A complex system of communications that at first closed off all radio connections and news would be reopened within a matter of hours so coup plotters could inform the public and begin forming a provisional government. (The Flame of Freedom, p 240-247).

The Plan for Assassination

Before the Valkyrie coup plans could be initiated, Adolf Hitler had to be assassinated, and as Kathleen Michelle Maclndoe points out in her student scholarly research, The Forgotten Faces of Operation Valkyrie, the July 20, 1944, assassination plot reflects four lessons learned by Henning von Tresckow after his previous failed attempts to kill Hitler:

·         First, when?  ”An assassination attempt should ideally be made when the war was not going in Germany's favor.”

·         Second, who? ”The assassin needed direct access to Hitler, as he [Tresckow] was alarmed at the security precautions taken by the Führer's entourage.”

·         Third, where? “The assassination attempt needed to take place in Hitler's own headquarters where his movements would be more predictable and he would not be as paranoid about security.”

·         Fourth, how? “The method of assassination must not be shooting, and … a bomb was a better option.”  (Kathleen Michelle MacIndoe: University of Mary Washington Eagle Scholar Student Research Submissions Spring 4-29-2016, The Forgotten Faces of Operation Valkyrie: Major-General Henning v Tresckow and General Friedrich Olbricht)

The First Lesson: When?

In mid-summer, 1944, the German war effort was collapsing after overwhelming opposition. Among the war’s turning points:

The German war effort began to fail on the Eastern Front in early 1943. German Army units were split into pockets in Stalingrad in January. Less than a month later, 93,000 troops were forced to surrender the city.  Despite gains in Ukraine in February and March, Soviet counteroffensives led to the discontinuation of Operation Citadel, the last major German offensive on the Eastern Front in July, after more than 550 tanks had been lost and 500,000 men killed, missing, or wounded. The Red Army continued to advance, recapturing Smolensk in September, ending the German blockade of Leningrad in January, 1944, and advancing troops into Romania in March. (Anthony Shaw: World War II Day by Day, Chartwell Books, Inc., 2010.

Allies intensified their air war, launching a four-month offensive in the Ruhr in March, 1943, and night attacks on industrial centers in May. Operation Pointblank lifted off in June with steady attacks on the German aircraft industry and saturation bombings on economic and civilian targets. The late July, early August bombing campaign on Hamburg created a firestorm and “hurricane” effect that sped up and fueled flames, killing 50,000 people. Also in August, British bombers targeted the Flying Bomb V1 rocket research center on the Baltic Sea and in November began a five-month-long bombing offensive on Berlin. (World War II Day by Day)

Then, on June 6, 1944, D-Day sent 50,000 men in the initial invasion onto five beachheads along the coast of Normandy along with three airborne US and British airborne divisions. Overall, more than 2 million men were shipped to France, nearly 140 major warships as well as 220 small combat vessels, 1000 minesweepers and other vessels were deployed, as well as 4000 landing craft and 800 merchant ships, and over 10,000 aircraft, including bombers, fighters, gliders, and transports. (World War II Day by Day)

Relentless losses on the battlefield plus an emboldened Resistance led to a target assassination date: July 20, 1944.

(See the next Historka blogs for information about the Hitler assassin, the attack location, and the method of attack.)

Peter Hoffman: Stauffenberg, Cambridge University Press, 1992)

The Flame of Freedom, University of Miami Press, 1964.)

 (https://www.beachesofnormandy.com/articles/Valkyrie/?id=2f2b1260f5

 Kathleen Michelle MacIndoe: University of Mary Washington Eagle Scholar Student Research Submissions Spring 4-29-2016, The Forgotten Faces of Operation Valkyrie: Major-General Henning v Tresckow and General Friedrich Olbricht

 Anthony Shaw: World War II Day by Day, Chartwell Books, Inc., 2010.