SPECIAL OCCASIONAL PAPER “July 20, 1944 – Who Were the Traitors? the Legal Perspective of Operation Valkyrie”
2009/#1 SPECIAL OCCASIONAL PAPER “July 20, 1944 – Who Were the Traitors? The Legal Perspective of Operation Valkyrie” An address by Dr. Hansjörg Heppe Director of the Dallas Warburg Chapter, Associate Attorney at Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell LLP, and ACG Young Leader Alumnus (2006) before the Dallas Eric M. Warburg Chapter of the American Council on Germany January 11, 2009 Dallas, Texas Operation Valkyrie was a plan devised by Adolf Hitler to suppress civil unrest that might be triggered by insurgencies in labor or concentration camps within Nazi Germany. Colonel Klaus Count Stauffenberg and other resistance fighters rewrote this plan to include civil unrest caused or utilized by Nazi leaders. Their intention was to: (1) kill Hitler; (2) blame Hitler’s death on his rivals within the Nazi regime; (3) set Operation Valkyrie in motion in order to (a) arrest all Nazi leaders, and (b) dismantle the SS, SA, and all other Nazi organizations; (4) shut down the concentration camps and release their prisoners; and (5) restore order and dignity in Germany. On July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg flew from Berlin to the Wolf’s Lair, the eastern-front military headquarters of the German high command in what is now Poland, to participate in a briefing of Hitler. During that briefing, Stauffenberg managed to deposit an explosive device in close proximity to Hitler and then left the briefing before the device went off. Hitler escaped the blast uninjured. Unaware that the plan to kill Hitler had failed, Stauffenberg returned to Berlin to participate in Operation Valkyrie. Also on July 20, 1944, Major Otto Remer was the commanding officer of the Regiment Gross-Deutschland, the guard of Berlin, and a strong supporter of the Nazi regime.
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