Juin, Alphonse (1888–1967) JUIN, ALPHONSE (1888–1967) French general During FALL GELB, the invasion of France in 1940, he led the defense of the perimeter around Dunkirk to permit more evacuations He was taken prisoner by the Germans After the armistice of June 22, 1940, Juin stayed loyal to Vichy in North Africa, into whose hands he was released In November 1941, he took command of ground forces of the Armée d’Afrique Upon the TORCH landings in Morocco and Algeria in November 1942, Juin turned coat and commanded French forces fighting in Tunisia alongside the Western Allies He commanded the Corps Expộditionaire Franỗais in the Italian campaign in 1943 He was promoted Maréchal de France in 1952 JULY PLOT (JULY 20, 1944) The main assassination and coup attempt by the “Resistance Circle” of mostly retired, but also some active, German officers, on July 20, 1944 The “July Plot” was the most significant and most nearly successful effort by German officers to kill Adolf Hitler and push the Nazis from power The aim of the key plotters, comprising anti-Nazi resisters inside the Wehrmacht as well as a number of more opportunistic officers, was to kill Hitler, seize power from the Nazi Party in a military coup, and negotiate an end to the war with the Western Allies before Germany suffered catastrophic defeat It was not the first attempt by the German resistance to kill Hitler There were several other attempts assayed by political opponents in the 1920s, even before he came to power There was contemplation of a coup by senior Wehrmacht officers in 1938, including discussion of assassination of Hitler That scheme was prompted by Hitler’s highly aggressive stance toward the Western Allies leading into the Munich Conference that September Fear of war against the Western democracies brought the first plotters together But Hitler moved more quickly, purging and taking personal control of the OKW Another possible close call occurred on November 2, 1939, when the Bürgerbräukeller bomb went off in Munich In March 1943, a bomb placed on Hitler’s plane by a small conspiracy of anti-Nazi officers failed to detonate It had to be physically retrieved for the plotters to remain undetected Starting in April 1943, the Gestapo and Sicherheitsdienst (SD) penetrated the German resistance, made multiple arrests of religiously motivated and other anti-Nazi Germans, and scattered and frightened many more resisters into silence and submission Early in 1944 resisters with the Abwehr were hamstrung by the dismissal of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris and absorption of the Abwehr into the SD But a new group of plotters grew up around the forceful personality and moral drive of Count and Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, a Württemberger and General Staff officer who had been severely wounded in North Africa in April 1943 Stauffenberg convalesced on the roll of the Ersatzheer, during which time he came to the decision that Hitler must be deposed Making contact with other officers he knew belonged to the German resistance, Stauffenberg organized an assassination and coup attempt code named “Operation Valkyrie.” On July 20, he personally placed a briefcase bomb beneath a heavy wooden conference table inside the Wolfsschanze headquarters, next to where Hitler was then standing Stauffenberg was missing an eye, one arm, and two fingers on his remaining hand But he pressed down a specially made chemical trigger, then left the room A powerful explosion 618