The Oster Conspiracy of 1938 was a proposed plan to assassinate German dictator Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

, the leader of Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

, if Germany went to war with Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

 over the Sudetenland

Sudetenland

Sudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...

.

Background

The plot was organised and developed by Lieutenant Colonel Hans Oster

Hans Oster

Hans Oster was a German Army general, deputy head of the Abwehr under Wilhelm Canaris, and an opponent of Adolf Hitler and Nazism. He was a leading figure of the German resistance from 1938 to 1943.-Early career:...

 of the Abwehr

Abwehr

The Abwehr was a German military intelligence organisation from 1921 to 1944. The term Abwehr was used as a concession to Allied demands that Germany's post-World War I intelligence activities be for "defensive" purposes only...

; he drew into the conspiracy such people as Ludwig Beck

Ludwig Beck

Generaloberst 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....

 (a former Chief of Army General Staff), Colonel General Walther von Brauchitsch

Walther von Brauchitsch

Heinrich Alfred Hermann Walther von Brauchitsch was a German field marshal and the Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres in the early years of World War II.-Biography:...

 (Commander in Chief of the Army), Franz Halder

Franz Halder

Franz Halder was a German General and the head of the Army General Staff from 1938 until September, 1942, when he was dismissed after frequent disagreements with Adolf Hitler.-Early life:...

 (Chief of the Army General Staff), Admiral Wilhelm Canaris

Wilhelm Canaris

Wilhelm Franz Canaris was a German admiral, head of the Abwehr, the German military intelligence service, from 1935 to 1944 and member of the German Resistance.- Early life and World War I :...

 (Chief of the Abwehr), and Erwin von Witzleben

Erwin von Witzleben

Job-Wilhelm Georg Erdmann Erwin von Witzleben was a German army officer and in the Second World War an Army commander and a conspirator in the July 20 Plot.-Early years:...

 (Commander of the Wehrkreis). First, Count Hans-Jürgen von Blumenthal

Hans-Jürgen von Blumenthal

Hans-Jürgen Graf von Blumenthal was a German aristocrat and Army officer in World War II who was executed by the Nazi régime for his role in the July 20 Plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.-Biography:...

 would lead a storm party into the Reichkanzlei and kill Hitler. It would then be necessary to neutralise the Nazi Party apparatus in order to stop them proceeding with the aggression against Czechoslovakia.

Therefore, in addition to these military figures, the conspirators had contact with Secretary of State

Secretary of State

Secretary of State or State Secretary is a commonly used title for a senior or mid-level post in governments around the world. The role varies between countries, and in some cases there are multiple Secretaries of State in the Government....

 Ernst von Weizsäcker

Ernst von Weizsäcker

Ernst Freiherr von Weizsäcker was a German diplomat and politician. He served as State Secretary at the Foreign Office from 1938 to 1943, and as German Ambassador to the Holy See from 1943 to 1945...

 and the diplomats Theodor and Erich Kordt

Erich Kordt

Erich Kordt , was a German diplomat who was involved in the German Resistance to the regime of Adolf Hitler.-Career:...

. Theodor Kordt was considered a vital contact with the British on whom the success of the plot depended; the conspirators needed strong British opposition to Hitler's seizure of the Sudetenland.

However, Neville Chamberlain

Neville Chamberlain

Arthur Neville Chamberlain FRS was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his appeasement foreign policy, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the...

, apprehensive of the possibility of war, negotiated interminably with Hitler and eventually conceded to him. This destroyed any chance of the plot succeeding since Hitler was then seen in Germany as the "greatest statesman of all times at the moment of his greatest triumph".

Aftermath

The plotters survived to become leaders of the German Resistance to Hitler and Nazism during the Second World War. Oster himself survived until April 1945, when he was executed following the discovery in Canaris' diaries that he had opposed Hitler since before the war.