A Day at The Bendlerblock - July 20, 1944

Sixty-eight years ago, the most successful of the failed plots against the life of Adolf Hitler was initiated and concluded in a single day. The dramatic story of how it unfolded in the military headquarters "Bendlerblock" in Berlin has been put together in this article by a man who was at the time a Luftwaffe pilot serving the Reich. Wilhelm Kriessmann remembers that day very well, and how he and his fellow airmen responded to the news. Kriessmann was drafted into national service in 1939 at the age of 18, and was among those who surrendered, as ordered, in April 1945. His writings have appeared in many periodicals and include the Ein Anderer Hitler series of translations/commentaries found on this website under My Articles on the sidebar menu. -cy

By Wilhelm Kriessmann

Trusted generals of the Third Reich waited nervously in their offices in the Bendlerblock - Berlin headquarters of the OKW Home Command and General Army Office (AHA) for the call from Colonel Claus Von Stauffenberg that the bomb had this time exploded and killed Hitler.

Notable among them were: Col General Ludwig Beck (retired since 1938); Col General Friedrich Fromm, Chief of the Home Army Command; General Friedrich Olbricht, Chief of the AHA, and his chief of staff Colonel Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim; General Fritz Thiele, Deputy Chief of Communications (under General Erich Fellgiebel); Col General Erich Hoepner, retired but now in uniform again; Hans Bernt Gisevius, ex-Gestapo man just in from Switzerland.

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