In Berlin, participants of the “Valkyrie” conspiracy are punished

In Berlin, officers who unsuccessfully attempted to assassinate Hitler on 20 July 1944 are sentenced to death – they are hanged.

The guilty were hanged on the bass strings of a piano.

The main people associated with the assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler on 20 July 1944 (Operation “Valkyrie” / the 20 July plot) were primarily Wehrmacht officers and conservative civilian opposition figures who understood the senselessness of the war that had been unleashed, its devastation, and wished to end it contrary to the ambitions of Hitler and those close to him.

The most important principal military figures: participants and organisers
Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg — colonel, the main executor of the assassination; placed the bomb at Hitler’s headquarters “Wolf’s Lair” (Wolfsschanze).
Werner von Haeften — lieutenant, Stauffenberg’s adjutant; assisted with the bomb and was with him.
Friedrich Olbricht — general; one of the main planners, responsible for the mobilisation of the Reserve Army.
Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim — colonel; Olbricht’s chief of staff and an active conspirator.
Ludwig Beck — colonel-general (former Chief of the General Staff); the planned head of state after the coup.
Henning von Tresckow — major-general; one of the earliest and most active organisers, especially on the Eastern Front.
Erwin von Witzleben — field marshal; the planned commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel — general, military commander in France; supported the coup in Paris.
Erich Fellgiebel — general (signals service); responsible for blocking communications after the assassination.
Hans Oster — major-general (Abwehr); a long-standing member of the opposition.
Wilhelm Canaris — admiral, head of the Abwehr; supported the resistance network.
Erich Hoepner — colonel-general; involved in operations in Berlin.
Paul von Hase — lieutenant-general, commandant of Berlin.
Helmuth Stieff and other staff officers.

Civilian and political participants
Carl Friedrich Goerdeler — former mayor of Leipzig; the planned chancellor, one of the leaders of the civilian opposition.
Ulrich von Hassell — diplomat.
Adam von Trott zu Solz — diplomat and lawyer.
Helmuth James Graf von Moltke and Peter Yorck von Wartenburg — leaders of the Kreisau Circle (Kreisauer Kreis); some members were closely linked to the conspiracy.
Others, for example Dietrich Bonhoeffer (theologian) and the broader resistance network, were connected with the opposition, although not all directly participated in placing the bomb.

Notes

Friedrich Fromm (colonel-general, commander of the Reserve Army) knew about the plans, but after the failure he betrayed the conspirators and ordered Stauffenberg and others to be shot in order to save himself (he was later punished himself).
In total, hundreds of people were arrested and punished (various sources mention approximately 200 and more death sentences in connection with this conspiracy and the subsequent repressions). Many committed suicide (for example, Tresckow and Beck).
This is not a complete list of all those involved (there were hundreds of people at various levels), but it covers the main and best-known ones. The majority were conservatively and nationalistically minded officers and officials who wished to overthrow Hitler in order to end the war and prevent the complete collapse of Germany.

Friedrich Fromm
(colonel-general, commander of the Reserve Army) acted as a traitor towards the conspirators when the assassination failed.

He knew about the conspiracy (Stauffenberg was his chief of staff) and was conditionally prepared to support it if Hitler were killed and the coup succeeded. However, on 20 July, upon learning that Hitler had survived, he refused to support Operation “Valkyrie”, tried to arrest the conspirators and later (after he himself had been briefly detained) held a summary “court”. He immediately ordered the shooting of:

Claus von Stauffenberg,
Friedrich Olbricht,
Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim,
Werner von Haeften,
Ludwig Beck (who was forced to attempt suicide).
Fromm did this in order to conceal his prior knowledge and obsequiously prove his loyalty to the regime. Nevertheless, this did not save him — he was later arrested, tried and shot in March 1945 (mainly for cowardice and for failing to report the conspiracy).

Erwin Rommel’s role
Erwin Rommel (field marshal) was not an active participant in the 20 July assassination attempt or Operation “Valkyrie”. His involvement was indirect and limited.

He knew about the resistance plans (through contact persons such as Hans Speidel and Caesar von Hofacker) and supported the idea of removing Hitler from power in order to end the war, but was opposed to killing him (he feared civil war and a martyr status for Hitler). He preferred arrest and a trial. He was not involved in planning the explosion, placing the bomb or the detailed organisation of the conspiracy, nor did he know about the specific attempt on 20 July.
On 17 July 1944 (three days before the assassination) he was seriously wounded in an Allied air attack in France and was in the process of recovery, so he could not take part in the events.

After the failure, Rommel’s name was mentioned in Gestapo interrogations and the testimonies of other conspirators (for example, from Stülpnagel and Hofacker).
It was inconvenient for Hitler to put the militarily successful and popular “Desert Fox” on public trial, so on 14 October 1944 Rommel was given the choice: suicide (cyanide) with the promise that his family would not be persecuted and he would receive a state funeral, or the People’s Court with a predetermined sentence. He chose suicide. The regime officially announced that he had died of his wounds.
Overall, Rommel was sympathetic to the ideas of the resistance and prepared to support Hitler’s removal from leadership (but not his killing), yet he did not belong to the inner circle of conspirators and took no part in the events of 20 July.
Historians’ assessments of the precise degree of his involvement still differ somewhat, but there is definite consensus that he was not an active planner of the assassination.

Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and Erwin Rommel had no personal or direct relations. They never met personally in connection with this conspiracy or other matters. Likewise, nothing is historically known of any personal friendship, correspondence or close cooperation between them.

Contacts with Rommel could only take place through intermediaries:

The main one was Caesar von Hofacker — incidentally, he was Stauffenberg’s cousin and a trusted associate.
On 9 July 1944 Hofacker visited Rommel at his headquarters in La Roche-Guyon in France and sounded out his readiness to cooperate with the resistance. Hofacker then reported to the conspirators that Rommel had been “won over” to the side of the resistance group, but the exact content of the conversation is not recorded or documented.
Other intermediaries: Hans Speidel (Rommel’s chief of staff), Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel and Karl Strölin.
Rommel knew about the plans to remove Hitler from power and was prepared to support a new government after the coup, but was opposed to an assassination (killing). He preferred Hitler’s arrest and trial. Stauffenberg and the others from the inner circle (Tresckow and others) insisted on an assassination.
In 1943 in North Africa Stauffenberg served in the 10th Panzer Division, which formed part of the Panzergruppe Afrika / 5th Panzer Army commanded by Rommel. However, there is no evidence that they ever met personally — Stauffenberg was soon seriously wounded and evacuated.
They belonged to different levels and circles: Stauffenberg was an aristocratic General Staff officer and the main executor of the 20 July assassination in Berlin, whereas Rommel was a popular and distinguished front-line field marshal on the Western Front with a late and cautious adherence to the opposition. Within the framework of the conspiracy Rommel was regarded as a potentially useful authority thanks to his popularity among soldiers and the people, but not as part of the core of the conspirators. In the end, after the failure of 20 July Rommel was implicated in testimonies and forced into suicide, but this was not connected with any personal link to Stauffenberg.

The main participants — Claus von Stauffenberg, Henning von Tresckow, Friedrich Olbricht, Ludwig Beck, Erwin von Witzleben and others — came from Prussia or other regions of Germany. By contrast, Wilfried Strik-Strikfeldt was a Baltic German, born in Riga in 1896. During the Second World War he served in the Wehrmacht and cooperated with Henning von Tresckow (and briefly also with Stauffenberg), yet he was not close to the assassination group. His main role was connected with Andrei Vlasov’s project and the Russian Liberation Army.

Connection to the occupied Baltics

Several participants of the 20 July conspiracy had close ties to the Baltics, mainly through Baltic German noble families.

1. Wessel Freiherr Freytag von Loringhoven

Born on 22 November 1899 at Lielborne Manor (Groß Born, now Lielborne, Augšdaugava Municipality).
Baltic German from Courland.
In the Latvian War of Independence (1918–1920) he fought in the Baltic Landeswehr and later in the 13th Tukums Infantry Regiment of the Latvian Army against the Bolsheviks in Latgale.
It was he who procured the explosives (British plastic explosive + chemical pencil detonators) that Stauffenberg used on 20 July.
After the failure of the assassination attempt he committed suicide on 26 July 1944 to avoid the Gestapo.

1. Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg

His mother was Caroline Gräfin von Üxküll-Gyllenband (born 1875).
The Üxküll family (German Üxküll = Ikšķile) is an old Baltic German noble family from Livonia (Vidzeme).
There are genealogical indications that this family was connected with the early Livonian aristocracy and the descendants of Kaupo (Turaida/Ikšķile area), but this is more of a romantic-historical link through the maternal line rather than a direct, strictly proven blood relationship with Kaupo himself.
Thus Stauffenberg had a maternal Baltic German / Livonian connection, but he was not a “direct descendant of Kaupo” in the narrow sense.

1. Alexis von Roenne (Aleksis fon Renne, 1903–1944)

Born on 22 February 1903 in Tukums.
Baltic German nobleman, colonel in the German intelligence service (Abwehr / OKW).
Initially supported the National Socialists, but by nature was a convinced monarchist and Christian.
During the war he deliberately supplied Hitler’s headquarters with incorrect information about Allied plans (this was his form of a “personal war” against the regime).
Indirectly linked to the 20 July conspiracy, as he knew most of the organisers, was aware of the plans, but betrayed no one.
Arrested after the assassination attempt. In court he defended his actions with arguments based on Christian convictions against Nazi racism.
On 12 October 1944 he was killed in a painful manner – hanged on a meat hook (with hands and feet bound), because Hitler had ordered the execution to be filmed in order to show others as a warning what would happen to anyone who opposed National Socialism.

1. The Üxküll family is an old Baltic German family from Livonia (Ikšķile area). Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg’s uncle (his mother’s brother), Nikolaus Graf von Üxküll-Gyllenband, was an active participant in the resistance movement and was punished after the failure of the conspiracy.

As early as 1939 he tried to involve the Stauffenberg brothers in the resistance movement.
He took part in the planning and was designated as liaison officer for the Bohemia-Moravia military district.
Arrested after the assassination attempt and hanged in Plötzensee in September 1944.

1. Additionally, Edgar von Uexküll should be mentioned, a Baltic German from Reval (present-day Tallinn), who maintained contacts with supporters of the resistance idea, including the Stauffenberg group.

Baltic German, born in Reval (now Tallinn, Estonia).
Diplomat with connections to the Kreisau Circle and the Stauffenberg group.
Arrested after 20 July, but later released.

These connections show that representatives of the Baltic German aristocracy were significantly represented in the German military resistance against the National Socialist regime. The links with Latvia are here very clearly visible and documented.

Lithuania and Poland
Lithuania: So far no significant Lithuanian or Lithuania-born participant from the inner circle of organisers has been found.
Poland: There are no Polish officers among the main conspirators.
The conspiracy was almost entirely a German (mainly Prussian and Baltic German aristocracy) affair. Some conspirators had served in Poland, but they themselves were not Poles.
The most stable and interesting connections remain those with Latvia (Loringhoven + Roenne) and with the Livonian/Estonian Baltic German families through the Üxküll line.