List of members of the 20 July plot

On 20 July 1944, Adolf Hitler and his top military associates entered the briefing hut of the Wolf's Lair military headquarters, a series of concrete bunkers and shelters located deep in the forest East Prussia, not far from the World War I Battle of Tannenberg.[1] Suddenly there was an enormous explosion, which killed three officers and a stenographer, and injured everyone else.[1] This assassination attempt was the work of Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, an aristocrat who had been severely wounded – losing his right hand, left eye, and two fingers of his left hand – while serving in the North African theater of war.[1]

Carl Wentzel appearing before Judge Roland Freisler at the People's Court, 1944

The bomb plot was a carefully planned coup d'état attempt against the Nazi regime, orchestrated by a group of army officers.[1] Their plan was to assassinate Hitler, seize power in Berlin, establish a new pro-Western government and save Germany from the total defeat.[1]

Immediately after arresting and executing the plot leaders in Berlin, the Gestapo, the secret police force of Nazi Germany, began arresting people involved or even suspected of being involved.[2] The opportunity was also used to eliminate other Nazi critics remaining.[2] In total, an estimated 7,000 people were arrested of which approximately 4,980 were executed, some slowly strangled with piano wire on Hitler's insistence.[3] Among those executed were three field marshals, 19 generals, 26 colonels, two ambassadors, seven diplomats, one minister and three secretaries of state, as well as the head of the Berlin police.[3] This is a list of people who were identified at the time as being involved in the coup attempt: