On 20 July of each year, in commemoration of the resistance to the National Socialist reign of terror in Berlin, the Federal Government holds a solemn ceremony at historic sites of the coup attempt of 20 July 1944.

Until 2014, two commemorative ceremonies were held on the anniversary of the coup attempt; a year later, the two ceremonies were merged. Since then, the ceremonies (during which the dead are remembered and wreaths are laid) take place in the ceremonial courtyard of the Bendler Block building complex at 12:00 (2016, 2018, 2020. etc.) or at the Plötzensee Memorial Center at 15:00 (2015, 2017, 2019, etc.), on an annually rotating basis.

The historic sites related to the attempted coup are the German Resistance Memorial Center at the Bendler Block building complex, the former headquarters of the Army High Command, and the Plötzensee Memorial Center.

Colonel Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg and three co-conspirators were summarily executed in the courtyard of the Bendler Block immediately after the abortive coup attempt.

From 1933 to 1945,what is now the Plötzensee Memorial Center complex served as a prison and a site of executions by the National Socialist regime. More than 2,800 people were executed there, among them numerous opponents of the dictatorship.

The monument created by Richard Scheibe in the ceremonial courtyard of the Bendler Block was unveiled by the governing mayor of Berlin, Ernst Reuter, on 20 July 1953.

The purpose of the permanent exhibition at the Memorial Center is to keep alive the memory of the men and women who took part in the resistance to National Socialism and aid the Germans in the necessary process of coming to terms with this part of their history.

On 20 July flags are displayed throughout the country at the highest federal authorities and the agencies within their remit as well as at the public-law corporations, institutions and foundations under the supervision of federal authorities.