Berlin: German Chancellor Angela Merkel has urged Europeans to confront populism, nationalism, racism and anti-Semitism as she paid tribute to the Nazi resistance in her own country.

Speaking at a solemn ceremony marking the anniversary of the failed attempt to kill Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, Merkel said the courage and sacrifice of the conspirator should serve as an example to people today.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and German Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, front second right, talk to soldiers during the ceremony in Berlin. Credit:AP

"They put humanity over their own human lives," she told the crowd on Saturday, local time, at the site where plot leader Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg and others were executed.

Von Stauffenberg tried to kill Hitler with a briefcase bomb on July 20, 1944, during a meeting at his headquarters in what was then East Prussia. Hitler escaped the full force of the blast when someone moved the briefcase next to a table leg, deflecting much of the explosive force. The plot crumbled when news spread that Hitler had survived. Von Stauffenberg and his fellow plotters were executed within hours.