50th anniversary - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 1994

In the summer of 1994, the 50th anniversary of the assassination attempt and the attempted coup of July 20, 1944, is closely linked to the name of Colonel Claus Schenk Count von Stauffenberg. At noon on July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg managed to place a briefcase with an explosive device in the immediate vicinity of Hitler at a briefing at the Fiihrer headquarters, Wolfsschanze near Rastenburg in East Prussia. After the explosion, which Stauffenberg heard from about 200 meters away, he flew to Berlin-Rangsdorf and then tried from the Berlin Bendler block to accelerate the coup attempt under the name "Operation Valkyrie". From the General Army Office in the Bendlerstrasse prepared orders had to be transmitted to the Wehrkreiskommandos so that the executive power could be taken over there. The plans for the Operation Valkyrie had been prepared by General Friedrich Olbricht, Colonel Albrecht Ritter Mertz von Quirnheim, and Claus Schenk Count von Stauffenberg. In the late evening, she and the other conspirators, including Colonel-General Ludwig Beck and Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben, realized that the coup attempt had failed. In the months following July 20, 1944, more than one hundred people were sentenced to death in connection with the coup attempt and murdered in the Plötzensee execution center in Berlin. Today, July 20 is not only the day of the memory of the military coup attempt of 1944. Due to the commemorative events of the Federal Government, the State of Berlin and the organizations of the resistance fighters and persecuted organizations, which began in the early 1950s, the 20th of July today, as the "Day of Resistance", is the central date of remembrance of all resistance fighters and members of the resistance against National Socialism. Thus, an appreciation of the total opposition against National Socialism is possible, which maintains the prestige of the few who have resisted this German dictatorship.