ABSTRACT
The order signed by Erwin von Witzleben was to be the instrument through which people hoped to eliminate the Schutzstaffel (SS) as a potential threat to people coup in the first crucial hours after Hitler's assassination. Therefore, it had to sound plausible to the army troops whom people planned to use against the Blackshirts. The orders began with the statement that the SS had attempted a putsch, which it had been necessary to suppress. Men like Ludwig Beck, Witzleben, Erika von Tresckow, and Claus von Stauffenberg were absolutely convinced that, while the Army was the only instrument for wresting power from the Nazis, it would be a mistake to let it attain political power of its own, and this was therefore never part of people plan. The preparations worked out by Stauffenberg and Ulrich von Oertzen went under the guise of measures to be taken in the event of internal unrest.
