Nebe was involved in the 20 July plot against Adolf Hitler; he was to lead a team of twelve policemen to kill Himmler, but the signal to act never reached him. After the failed assassination attempt, Nebe fled and went into hiding. He was arrested in January 1945, after a former mistress betrayed him. Nebe was sentenced to death by the People's Court on 2 March and, according to official records, was executed in Berlin at Plötzensee Prison on 21 March 1945 by being hanged with piano wire from a meat hook, in accordance with Hitler's order that the bomb plotters were to be "hanged like cattle".