Bendlerblock The Bendlerblock is a building complex in the Tiergarten district of Berlin , Germany , located on Stauffenbergstraße ( formerly named " Bendlerstraße " ) . Erected in 1914 as headquarters of several Imperial German Navy ( " Kaiserliche Marine " ) offices , it served the Ministry of the Reichswehr after World War I . Significantly enlarged under Nazi rule , it was used by several departments of the " Oberkommando der Wehrmacht " ( OKW ) from 1938 , especially the " Oberkommando des Heeres " and the " Abwehr " intelligence agency . The building is notable as the headquarters of a resistance group of Wehrmacht officers who carried out the 20 July plot against Adolf Hitler in 1944 . As the leaders of the conspiracy were summarily shot in the courtyard , the Bendlerblock also includes the Memorial to the German Resistance . Since 1993 , the building complex has served as a secondary seat of the German Federal Ministry of Defence . Name . The Stauffenbergstraße road was named " Bendlerstraße " from 1837 until 20 July 1955 , after Johann Christoph Bendler ( 1789 – 1873 ) from Hoym in Prussian Halberstadt . Bendler , a chief mason and member of the Berlin city council , had acquired large estates south of the Großer Tiergarten park in order to develop the later mansion district on Tiergartenstraße . History . The main building on the Landwehr Canal was erected between 1911 and 1914 in a Neoclassical style as the seat of the Imperial Naval Office , until 1916 led by Grand admiral Alfred von Tirpitz . It was also the headquarters of the Imperial Admiralty Staff and the Imperial Navy Cabinet directly subordinate to Emperor Wilhelm II . Weimar Republic . After World War I , the German Weimar government had to face the regulations of the 1919 Versailles treaty , whereafter the remaining " Reichswehr " and " Reichsmarine " forces had to be greatly reduced and from that time on used the complex jointly . It also served as the seat of the first Reichswehr Minister Gustav Noske and supreme army commander Walther Reinhardt . In Minister Noske ' s office , " Truppenamt " chief Major general Hans von Seeckt openly rejected an intervention of Reichswehr troops against paramilitary " Freikorps " forces during the 1920 Kapp Putsch ( " Reichswehr do not fire on Reichswehr " ) . The German cabinet fled from Berlin . Noske was later forced to resign and succeeded by Otto Gessler . Nazi rule . On 3 February 1933 , four days after his appointment by Reich President Paul von Hindenburg , Chancellor Adolf Hitler sought the support by Reichswehr commander - in - chief General Kurt von Hammerstein - Equord , unveiling his political ideology in an extended declamation . Despite the support by new Reichswehr Minister Werner von Blomberg , Hitler ' s appearance resulted in a grave crisis with the army command and Hammerstein - Equord ' s resignation in December . He was succeeded by Lieutenant general Werner von Fritsch . From the mid - 1930s onwards , large annexes were erected along Bendlerstraße according to plans designed by Wilhelm Kreis . From 1938 the enlarged " Bendlerblock " again was used by the " Seekriegsleitung " ( Maritime Warfare Command ) of the " Oberkommando der Marine " and the OKW " Amt Abwehr " . The main building served the General Army Office of the " Oberkommando des Heeres " ( OKH ) under General Friedrich Fromm , succeeded by General Friedrich Olbricht in 1940 , and still as seat of the commander - in - chief of the German Army ( " Heer " ) — since the Blomberg – Fritsch Affair in 1938 Colonel - general Walther von Brauchitsch , from 1941 Hitler himself . Already in 1938 , the head of the " Abwehr " intelligence agency under Admiral Wilhelm Canaris and Lieutenant colonel Hans Oster evolved plans for a coup d ' état in the course of the German occupation of Czechoslovakia . These plans were upset by the Munich Agreement , whereby the major European powers reconciled by permitting the annexation of the " Sudetenland " . During the Battle of Berlin in the last days of World War II in late April and early May 1945 , General Helmuth Weidling , commander of the Berlin Defence Area , used the Bendlerblock for his command and control , before he proceeded to General Vasily Chuikov and surrendered to the Soviet Red Army at 6 : 00 a . m . on May 2 . 20 July plot . In the early 1940s , the OKH Army Office under the leadership of General Olbricht became the focus of military resistance to the Nazi regime . In October 1943 , Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg was transferred to the General Army Office as chief - of - staff . It was here that he and Major general Henning von Tresckow secretly modified the Wehrmacht " Operation Valkyrie " plan for the suppression of a possible revolt into a scheme for a coup attempt upon an assassination on Hitler . Stauffenberg ' s position gave him direct access to situation briefings in Hitler ' s Wolf ' s Lair headquarters in East Prussia . On July 20 , 1944 , he set the fuse of a bomb there and immediately returned to Berlin . The bomb went off , but Hitler survived . As the day progressed and the news spread , the conspirators were unable to take control of Germany . Following the arrest of the conspirators in the Bendlerblock by order of General Friedrich Fromm , the resistance fighters Colonel von Stauffenberg , General Olbricht , Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim , and Stauffenberg ' s adjutant Werner von Haeften , were executed by firing squad that same night in the courtyard of the building . A fifth plotter , Generaloberst Ludwig Beck , was allowed to shoot himself . Fromm ' s opportunism did not pay off : he was arrested for connivance the next day , condemned to death and executed on 12 March 1945 . Post - war era . The section of the Bendlerblock around the courtyard , where Stauffenberg and the other conspirators were executed , now houses the Memorial to the German Resistance . It is also used as one of the ceremonial sites where new members of the Wachbataillon of the Bundeswehr ( German military ' s drill unit ) take their oaths . Use in filming . The Ministry of Defence as proprietor tends to restrict access to the Bendlerblock , due to its historical significance and lingering sensitivities about Germany ' s role in World War II . Filming permission was first granted in 2003 to a TV studio for the filming of " Stauffenberg " , starring Sebastian Koch . Though awarded with the " Deutscher Fernsehpreis " , the film was also criticised for factual inaccuracies , e . g . by Stauffenberg ' s son Berthold . The Ministry hesitated to grant permission for filming scenes of the Tom Cruise - starred movie " Valkyrie " about the July 20 Plot , especially a re - enactment of the execution on the original location . However , permission was eventually granted , and filming took place . ( The movie was primarily photographed in and around Berlin , with some African and other scenes filmed in California . ) Director Bryan Singer led the film crew in a minute of silence before filming began , in honour of those who were killed on the site in 1944 .