20 July plot
On 20 July 1944, an attempt was made to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Führer of Nazi Germany, perpetrated by Claus von Stauffenberg and other conspirators, inside his Wolf's Lair field headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia. The name Operation Valkyrie, originally referring to a component part of the conspirators' overall plot, has become associated with the event. The apparent purpose of the assassination attempt was to seize political control of Germany and its armed forces from the Nazi Party (including the SS) in order to obtain peace with the western Allies as soon as possible. The underlying desire of many of the involved high ranking Wehrmacht officers was apparently to show to the world that not all Germans were like Hitler and the Nazi Party. The details of the conspirators' peace initiatives remain unknown, but they likely would have included demands to accept wide-reaching territorial annexations by Germany in Europe.
The plot was the culmination of the efforts by several groups in the German Resistance to overthrow the Nazi-led German government. The failure of both the assassination and the military coup d'état which was planned to follow, led to the arrest of at least 7,000 people by the Gestapo. According to records of the Führer Conferences on Naval Affairs, 4,980 of these were executed.
