On 3 August, at a meeting of all the Nazi Party gauleiters ("regional leaders") in Posen, Goebbels explained that the total war effort was necessary to counter treasonous activity among the leaders of the military which had surfaced with the July 20 plot to kill Hitler.[1] The gauleiters were essential to Goebbels, since he intended to put into effect the sweeping changes he had in mind not through the German government, but by using the machinery of the Nazi Party, which the gauleiters were each in charge of in their areas. For this reason, he allied himself with Martin Bormann, the Party Chancellor and, as Hitler's person secretary, tremendously influential within both the Party and the Reich.[23] The gauleiters cooperated with Goebbels as long as their own powers were not diminished, and Bormann acted as their protector.[25]