72 years ago the July 20 plot against Hitler

[eagle7_31]

20 July plot - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Too bad they did not succeed it would have saved many lives. And if the September 1938 plot went thru we night not have had WWII at all.

 

[whitehall]

If it weren't for bad luck the plotters would have had no luck at all. The acronym "KISS" (keep it simple stupid) has lasted a long time because it works. All of the plotters were armed and in close proximity to Hitler. If one of the plotters simply put a bullet in Hitler's freaking head and maybe took out a few loyalists the war would have been over.

 

[Ringel05]

If it weren't for bad luck the plotters would have had no luck at all. The acronym "KISS" (keep it simple stupid) has lasted a long time because it works. All of the plotters were armed and in close proximity to Hitler. If one of the plotters simply put a bullet in Hitler's freaking head and maybe took out a few loyalists the war would have been over.

The real problem was threefold, one being Hitler's popularity with the German people, early on it would have been suicide to try and assassinate Hitler, later he always surrounded himself with loyal supporters and became quite paranoid. He was constantly on the move making it difficult to nail down his location for very long.
The second lies in the traditional German military oath and how the military viewed it. The traditional oath was always sworn to the leader of the country and the soldier saw himself as the defender of the German peoples, they put great personal stock in the oath and their adherence to it. The only time before the end of WWII that the Wehrmacht did not swear allegiance to the nations leader was during the Weimar Republic when they swore allegiance to the constitution, something the soldiers resented.
That doesn't mean there weren't those who tried or wanted to try but they were greatly hindered by not only the above two but more so the third challenge.
Number three was finally the fact that by the late 30s the Gestapo had completely entrenched themselves in the German daily life making any scheme difficult at best and that the SS had grown quite powerful and were in most positions of authority, cutting off the head of the snake wouldn't have worked unless the Wehrmacht was ready to go to war with the people it had sworn to protect and take out all the SS leadership at the same time.
One other thing is the early successes, even that of the onset of Operation Barbarossa made most of the Generals more loyal and some truly believed in Nazism. It wasn't until things really started to go bad for the Germans that many of the conspirators thought they had any real chance of success.