NAZI BLOOD-BATH

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21602, 3 January 1945, Page 3

NAZI BLOOD-BATH

ATTACK ON HITLER 2000 OFFICERS KILLED GF.RMAN STORY OF PLOT <9 a.m.) LONDON, Jan. *2. At least 2000 Army officers were executed for having plotted io assassinate Hitler lasi July, says ihe Swedish newspaper, Svonskn Dagbladet. About 200 civilians also were executed Most of the executions were carried Out by slow stangulation and nearly all the officers and civilians were first tortured to extract confessions. The names of all Ihe conspirators were found in a secret safe seized by the Gestapo after the plot was discovered. The Svenska. Dagbladet says that the full story of the plot against Hitler’s life has been told for the first lime by a German officer who escaped io Sweden. The officer says that the plot originated in 1943, but the attempt on Hitler’s life was postponed many times before it was made on July 20 last year. The chief conspirators were General Olbricht, of the German Army Ordnance Office, and General Olbricht’s chief of staff, Count von Stauffenberg. The latter was summoned to a conference at Hitler’s Eastern Front headquarters on July 20 and took a suitcase containing a time-bomb into the conference room. He put the suitcase on the floor and left the room a few minutes before the bomb was timed to explode.

Count von Stauffenberg heard the explosion and was “90 per cent sure Ihat Hitler was dead.” He flew to Berlin to put the putsch in motion. In Berlin the conspirators took control of a large room full of teleprinters through which all orders to the German Army are issued. General Fromm, then Commander-in-Chicf of the homo forces, was locked in his office. Before Himmler learned of the plot and had time to act the conspirators had taken complete control of Hamburg, Vienna and Marseilles. The putsch collapsed when proHitler army officers in Berlin found General. Fromm and released him. General Fromm immediately installed a court-martial and had five high officers, including General Olbricht. and Count von Stauffenberg. shot on Ihc spot.