On August 8, 1944, the first group of condemned men was taken to Plötzensee Prison in Berlin and hanged. They were not common criminals. They were generals and senior officers of the German military. Among them was Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben and General Erich Hoepner, both men of rank and standing who had been part of a conspiracy to kill Adolf Hitler.
A month earlier, on July 20, a bomb had detonated inside Hitler’s headquarters, the Wolf’s Lair, in East Prussia. The explosion had killed four people. Hitler, the intended target, survived with little more than a perforated eardrum and minor injuries. It had been a near miss in the most literal sense.
The bomb had been planted by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, a senior officer who carried it into the briefing room in his briefcase. The assassination attempt was not an isolated act. It was the opening move in a much larger plot. The conspirators intended to kill Hitler, seize control of Germany through the Replacement Army, dismantle the Nazi leadership, and open negotiations to end World War II.
The coup collapsed almost immediately. By that same night, Stauffenberg and several of the principal conspirators were executed by firing squad in Berlin. But Hitler wanted far more than a quick death for the men who had tried to kill him. The Gestapo launched a sweeping investigation into the conspiracy.
Thousands were arrested, including senior military officers, politicians, civil servants, and relatives or associates of the suspected plotters. In the end, thousands were executed or killed as the Third Reich responded to the betrayal with extreme brutality. Hitler regarded the plot as a uniquely grave act of treachery because so many of those involved came from the military, the aristocracy, and the conservative establishment of Germany. These were not ordinary people from the lower classes or political radicals.
This was a sophisticated military conspiracy from within the country’s most influential circles, and it had come dangerously close to succeeding. That fact shaped the nature of Hitler’s revenge. He did not want the principal conspirators simply killed. He wanted them publicly humiliated before they died.
Many of the accused were brought before the infamous People’s Court, presided over by Judge Roland Freisler. These trials were staged theater rather than genuine justice. Freisler screamed at the defendants, berated them, and insulted them. They were prevented from properly explaining their reasons for acting.
In a shameful detail, several defendants were not allowed to wear belts or suspenders, so their trousers kept falling down throughout the proceedings and they were forced to stand holding them up. It was a pathetic attempt to heap disgrace upon them, but it demonstrated how far Hitler was willing to go to degrade these men. Some were also forced to appear in ragged clothing. Witzleben was among those who had to endure this treatment.
The trials themselves were filmed. The regime hoped the footage would show the shame and treachery of the conspirators and deter others from becoming traitors. But something far darker followed the death sentences. Executions of hundreds and thousands of military personnel were carried out in groups.
Hitler chose not to allow the condemned officers a firing squad. That would have been a military death, carrying some measure of honor. Instead, he ordered them to be hanged. The method of execution was deliberately degrading.
The execution chamber at Plötzensee contained meat hooks fixed to the walls and a thick wooden beam for hanging above. The condemned men were hanged using thin ropes rather than being granted the possibility of a firing squad. The rope was intentionally thin and cruel, causing a painful death. The men were hanged, then lowered and revived, then the process was repeated again and again until they finally died.
The executions were filmed on Hitler’s orders. The filming served several purposes. It represented Hitler’s personal desire for vengeance against the people who had tried to kill him. The July 20 conspiracy had come terrifyingly close to success.
Hitler regarded those involved not merely as political opponents but as traitors who had personally attempted to assassinate him and overthrow his government. Recording their deaths provided proof that his orders had been carried out. It also turned the executions into a spectacle that he and the Nazi leadership could watch without actually being present at the hangings. The footage was primarily intended for restricted viewing within the Nazi command.
It was not made for the German public. Nazi Germany used execution as a tool of intimidation, but the actual execution footage was not shown in German cinemas. Most executions were carried out under tight control. The filming was intended to demonstrate to Hitler that the revenge had been accomplished, not to convince millions of Germans that the conspirators deserved punishment.
The camera also made the punishment permanent, turning the act of execution into an eternal visual record. Whether Hitler personally watched the films remains uncertain. It has long been believed that he viewed the execution footage, and some have claimed he watched it repeatedly and laughed. However, it is not known with certainty whether he saw it or what his reaction was.
The confirmed historical fact is that some executions connected to the bomb plot were filmed, but there is no evidence of what Hitler did with those tapes. The execution footage did not survive for public viewing in the way that the People’s Court trial footage did. Its current location is unknown. It is possible the Nazis destroyed it at the end of the war.
The bodies of the executed were also denied any proper burial. Those hanged at Plötzensee were often taken for cremation rather than returned to their families for traditional military or family burial. Records from the prison indicate that the ashes were transferred to the Reich Ministry of Justice. What became of them afterward is unknown.
The executions of August 1944 were only the beginning. More and more trials followed. More and more conspirators were sentenced to death. In total, thousands were executed in brutal reprisals.
Hitler wanted the executions filmed because he wanted revenge. He wanted to humiliate his enemies and terrorize others. He had survived one of the most serious attempts ever made on his life. The plot had revealed something deeply troubling to the Nazi leadership: opposition existed within the German armed forces and among the elites of German society.
The response was designed to crush that opposition. Filming the executions was meant to prove directly to Hitler that his savage wishes and vengeful actions in response to the assassination attempt had been fulfilled.