All of the generals promoted went on to achieve further success in their careers during the early years of victory which the German military obtained in the Second World War. Brauchitsch, Bock, Kesselring, Keitel, Leeb, List, Reichenau, Rundstedt, and Göring would all play decisive and important roles in the German-led Axis invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Sperrle spent the rest of the war in semi-retirement, based with his unit in France. Milch was transferred to the production department and was responsible for aircraft production until the end of the war. Following his avid extermination of Jews in the autumn of 1941 (Severity Order, Babi Yar), Reichenau died on 14 January 1942. In 1943, after a series of German defeats on the Eastern Front, and the Allied invasion of Italy, the German military lost all initiative. Hitler's leadership became increasingly disconnected from reality as the war turned against Germany, with the military's defensive strategies often hindered by his slow decision making and frequent directives to hold untenable positions. His response to the worsening war situation was to unceremoniously sack general after general, a routine which ultimately affected the field marshals promoted at the ceremony. Erwin von Witzleben and Günther von Kluge were both involved in the 20 July Plot to assassinate Hitler. After it became clear that the assassination attempt had failed, Kluge committed suicide by taking cyanide poison on 17 August 1944. Witzleben was to have become Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht if the attempt had succeeded. He was arrested, stripped of his rank and expelled from the Army so that he could be tried in a civilian court, and sentenced to death; the execution was carried out on 8 August 1944. On 4 May 1945, less than a week before Nazi Germany surrendered, Bock died of wounds inflicted the day before by a strafing British fighter-bomber.