Bendlerblock
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The Bendlerblock is a building in Berlin, located in the Stauffenbergstrasse (formerly Bendlerstrasse), south of the Tiergarten. It was erected between 1911 and 1914 for the Reich Navy Office. During the Weimar Republic it additionally served as the seat of the Reichswehr Command. Today, the Federal Ministry of Defence has its secondary office in the Bendlerblock.
Under the leadership of the Infantry General Friedrich Olbricht, the center of the military resistance was formed in the Bendlerblock. It was here that Olbricht developed the "Valkyrie" operation plan into a plan for a coup d'état against Hitler. In October 1943 Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg was transferred to the General Army Office as Chief of Staff. His position gave him direct access to situation briefings in Hitler's headquarters, the "Wolf's Lair". On July 20, 1944 he set the fuse of a bomb there and returned to Berlin.
Hitler survived the July 20 Plot, and as a result the conspirators were unable to take control of Germany. Following the arrest of the conspirators in the Bendlerblock, General Olbricht, Graf von Stauffenberg, Werner von Haeften and Albrecht Ritter Mertz von Quirnheim, all members of the uprising, were executed that same night in the courtyard of the building, by firing squad. A fifth plotter, General Ludwig Beck, chose to shoot himself.
The section of the Bendlerblock around the courtyard where Stauffenberg and the other conspirators were executed now houses the Memorial to the German Resistance.
[edit] External links
[edit] Source
- German Ministry of Defence
