Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim B.
Perhaps the conspirators knew retaliation would be harsh if an assassination attempt failed.
It was.
Count Claus von Stauffenberg, who planted the actual bomb, got caught first, was immediately caught when he got back to Berlin, and was stood up against a brick wall, framed by the headlights of a police car, and shot to death by the dreaded SD, (the security arm of the SS).
When the July 20, 1944 officer's attempt at the Wolf's Lair, Hitler's HQ in East Prussia, failed, a hastily convened "People's Court" went into session, and the best their "lawyers" could argue as a defense was that their clients be shot rather than hung.
However even this, was to no avail.
The executions were carried out with grim teutonic efficiency in short order.
The defendents were hung from the ceiling from meat hooks, and in some cases piano wire, and their agonizing deaths were each filmed, and the movies were susequently widely shown as a strong deterrent to any future such attempts.
(Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, the famed "Desert Fox", who was only peripherally involved, in deference to his wartime heroism, was allowed a choice of suicide or execution, and unsurprisingly, took his own life.)
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Sadly, the German resistance had asked for help in planning an assassination of Hitler from both England and the United States but were told no. I believe that had the resistance received support from either England or the United States, they very well may have been successful in offing Hitler. But, then, the war would have turned out differently and with Hitler making the very stupid decision to invade Russia, it opened the door for the Ruskies to control parts of Germany post WWII.
By the time the German people realized what was going on, the Nazi party had so much power that nobody could lift a finger against them. They had voted a certified lunatic into power.
Germany is still occupied by foreign powers to this day.