The planned assassination was implemented on 20 July 1944: it damaged the dictator but failed to kill him. For Ruth von Kleist-Retzow it was followed by the grim experience of hearing that many of her friends and relations had been sentenced to death and executed. Others chose or were persuaded to choose suicide. Her son, Hans Jürgen, was arrested on 21 July 1944, the day following the failed assassination, by the Gestapo. It was the second time they had arrested him. They were unable to find persuasive evidence linking him to the conspiracy, however, and at the end of November 1944, just as he had been back in 1939, following his previous arrest.