page_title: Ludwig Beck
section_title: 20 July plot
hierarchical_section_title: Ludwig Beck / 20 July plot
caption_attribution_description: English: Site of Colonel General Ludwig Beck's suicide inside the Bendlerblock office where Valkyrie was planned.
context_page_description: Ludwig August Theodor Beck was a German general and Chief of the German General Staff during the early years of the Nazi regime in Germany before World War II. Ludwig Beck never became a member of the Nazi Party, though in the early 1930s he supported Adolf Hitler's forceful denunciation of the Versailles Treaty and his belief in the need for Germany to rearm. Beck had grave misgivings regarding the Nazi demand that all German officers swear an oath of fealty to the person of Hitler in 1934, though he believed that Germany needed strong government and that Hitler could successfully provide this so long as the Führer was influenced by traditional elements within the military rather than by the SA and SS.
  In serving as Chief of Staff of the German Army between 1935 and 1938, Beck became increasingly disillusioned, standing in opposition to the increasing totalitarianism of the Nazi regime and to Hitler's aggressive foreign policy. Due to public foreign-policy disagreements with Hitler, Beck resigned as Chief of Staff in August 1938.
context_section_description: In 1943, Beck planned two abortive attempts to kill Hitler by means of a bomb. In May 1944, a memorandum by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel made it clear that his participation in the proposed putsch was based on the precondition that Beck serve as the head of state in the new government. In 1944, he was one of the driving forces of the 20 July plot, along with Carl Goerdeler and Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. It was proposed that Beck would become Reichsverweser (regent) and head of the provisional government that would assume power in Germany after Hitler had been eliminated.
  The plot failed, however, and by the evening, Beck was in the custody of General Friedrich Fromm. Beck requested permission to keep his private pistol with the intention to commit suicide to avoid torture by the Gestapo. He shot himself in the head, but he succeeded only in severely wounding himself, and one of Fromm's men was brought in to administer the coup de grâce by shooting Beck in the back of the neck. Beck, along with some other conspirators, was buried in secret that night.
caption: Site of Beck's suicide attempt inside the Bendlerblock office where Valkyrie was planned.
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