The Many Harrowing Attempts to Assassinate Hitler

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With great dictatorial powers, comes a great risk of ceasing to continue to breathe long before your elderly years, with the odds increasing markedly if you also just so happen to make enemies out of not just countless nations of the world, but within a relatively large percentage of your own population through brutality and oppression. Something the Führer of the III Reich was acutely aware of.As the Austrian champion for World’s Silliest Moustache once said: ‘There will never be anyone in the future with as much authority as I have … I can, however, be removed at any time by some criminal or idiot … No one is safe against some idealist or an assassin who ruthlessly stakes his life for his purpose.’Everybody with a passing knowledge of WWII history and/or Tom Cruise’s cinematography has heard about the Stauffenberg Plot, the failed assassination attempt against Adolf Hitler conducted on July 20, 1944. But this was just one in a long series of attempted or planned shootings, bombings and poisonings conducted against the dictator. And while efforts began rather quaint starting long before WWII, as you’ll soon see, as the years passed things got spicier and spicier for the so-called German Messiah. So let’s dive into it, shall we?

Author: Arnaldo Teoderani
Host: Simon Whistler
Editor: Daven Hiskey
Producer: Samuel Avila

00:00 Intro
03:26 Assassination attempts before the war- Beer Mugs and Freedom
05:08 My food tastes funny
09:14 Kill the Chancellor
11:47 Knives Out
16:18 Assassins in Uniform
23:01 The Lost Seminarist
25:07 A Flatulent Target
27:35 Part II Assassination Attempts During the War- Vatican vs Nazis
32:02 Just Blow Him Up Already!
34:20 A Man of Focus
37:51 A Very British Kidnapping
40:02 Stalin’s Turn!
43:36 Crazy Train
45:07 Tresckow’s Bombs
53:33 A Catwalk for Hitler
56:35 Stauffenberg’s First Attempts
1:00:14 The Big One- The July 20th Plot
1:11:37 Operation Foxley
1:15:48 Final Attempts

with great dictatorial Powers comes a great risk of ceasing to continue to breathe long before your elderly years with the odds increasing marketly if you also just happen to make enemies out of not just countless nations of the worlds but within a relatively large percentage of your own population through brutality and depression something the fur of the Third Reich was acutely aware of as the world’s Austrian Champion for world’s silliest mustache once said there will never be anyone in the future with as much Authority as I have I can however be removed at any time by some criminal or idiot No One Is Safe against some idealist or assassin who ruthlessly Stakes his life for his purpose everybody with a passing knowledge of World War II history Andor Tom Cruz’s cinematography has heard something about the stalberg plot the failed assassination attempt against Adolf Hitler conducted on the 20th of July 1944 but this was just one in a long series of attempted or planned shootings bombings and poisonings conducted against the dictator and while efforts began rather quaint starting before World War II as you’ll soon see as the years passed things got spicier and spicier for the so-call German Messiah so let’s dive into it shall we just before we get back to Simon in today’s video have you ever struggled to find the perfect pair of earbuds that are actually affordable well struggle no more because today’s sponsor raycon has you covered with their new upgraded raycon everyday earbuds these have active noise cancellation and multi-point connectivity meaning you can pair them with two two devices at once plus they come in vibrant new colors like carbon black royal blue lavender and forest green my favorite being carbon black obviously they’re also super comfortable and fit the widest range of ear types thanks to their ergonomic design and optimized gel tips something I personally have had issues with in the past with other earbuds as apparently my ear canals are tiny 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earbuds is that when people see you wearing them they don’t try to talk to you when you venture into that bizarre land outside of your door never go out without them people will literally ask you about the weather and all manner of ways to try to engage you in speaking just the worst but raycon has your back there too as you can just pretend you didn’t hear them bullet dodged and on top of all of that rayon has a 30-day happiness guarantee so you can try them risk-free so if you’re ready to upgrade your listening experience for an affordable price click the link in the description or go to byy ron.com brainfood to get 15% off your order plus free shipping now let’s get back to Simon and today’s video Assassination attempts before the war beer mugs and freedom the first alleged attempt on Hitler’s life took place on November the 4th 1921 in Munich according to Hitler’s own report in his best seller mine C at the time the future fura o was still on the rise a bit player in the chaotic political scene of the viar Republic orbe it a very vocal one that evening the National Socialist leader was in fact scheduled to deliver a speech at the hofra house Brewery a large crowd had assembled one that included a number of members of the independent Socialist Party and the Communist part party dead set on disrupting the event this wasn’t anything new and in fact the orator arrived under the escort of 14 sa Brown Shirts while Hitler spoke some members of the audience heckled him while Downing large mugs of beer and curiously kept storing the empty vessels under the table after about an hour one of them went all Braveheart and shouted Freedom at this signal the protesters began lobbing the empty beer glasses at Hitler the brown shirts counterattacked and after a fierce struggle they were able to Corner their adversaries however at this point one of the inebriated protesters decided beard glasses weren’t enough and pulled out a handgun firing two shots that hit the platform where Hitler was standing of course because the source of the events is mind calm not exactly a Bastion of literary accuracy some question whether this ever actually happens however it doesn’t really seem far-fetched given that violence and political rallies even involving Firearms was the norm at the time drunk people heated politics and guns not exactly being a great combination for civility so many historians have been willing to accept the story at face value despite its source now let’s move forward about a decade to January 1932 and travel to the hotel kaiserhoff in Berlin my food tastes funky at this point the Nazi party was clearly on the rise after securing 107 parliamentary seats in the September 1930 elections the party however had not yet established a permanent HQ in the German capital and Hitler used the kaiserhof hotel as a venue to meet his acolytes on an unspecified day in January 1932 Hitler and other Nazi car were enjoying a luxurious dinner at the hotel while discussing party policies one hour after the meal all dinner guests started suffering from violent stomach cramps and severe vomiting Hitler himself did not suffer any symptoms he was not a strict vegetarian as is often claimed but he was a fussy eater owing to his extreme gastrointestinal problems which actually is thought to have been why he went rather loopy towards the end of World War II given the bizarre cocktail of substances he was consuming or being injected with daily sometimes credited with helping to win in the war for the Allies because of it this brings us to who would have been the most successful Assassin of them all if Hitler had lived another year or two orbe it unintentionally a Doctor by the name of Theodore moral who began trying to fix Hitler’s intestinal issues by prescribing him muta Flor which was made from the excrement of others and meant to function as a sort of probiotic but the doctor didn’t stop there progressing to giving Hitler so called anti-gas pills that turned out to have stricking as a primary ingredient by 1941 he had Hitler taking 63 different pills containing 92 different drugs from stimulants to sedatives to painkillers at a rate of about 150 pills per week and just for the cherry on top he also began giving Hitler daily injections of what he called a special blend of vitamins but was actually at least in part made up of amphetamines it was reported that within minutes the injections would transform the fura from exhausted and groggy to alert euphoric and chatty a state that lasted for several hours afterward by 1944 in order to get the same effect and ward off other negative symptoms he had increased his dosage twice daily of 16 CC of whatever the specific cocktail do moral used was which was a 7 hundredfold increase from where he started and with this increasing dependence came the classic symptoms of amphetamine abuse insomnia loss of appetite Euphoria irritability paranoia impulsiveness and wild mood swings all of which severely affected his ability to make rational decisions in a time of Crisis by April 1945 while Hitler was Hol Up in his Berlin fura bunk as the Red Army closed in on the city SS dror erns Gunther schnek remembered being shocked at the leader’s condition describing him as a living corpse a dead Soul he States his spine was hunched his shoulder blades protruded from his bed back and he collapsed his shoulders like a turtle I was looking into the eye of death needless to say given how erratic mentally unstable and detached from reality Hitler progressively became as the war went on and the ramifications of this in his military tactics and Leadership many credit Dr moral for inadvertently helping the Allies win the war thanks to his efforts to try to solve Hitler’s intestinal issues but going back to the alleged poisoning attempt the party leader is thought to have avoided the specific dish which caused the ensuing clander storm amongst the rest present but the big question is was this a case of food poisoning or voluntary poisoning there were no casualties but Hitler himself suspected that the kitchen staff had tried to kill him surprisingly he continued to Lodge and dine at the kaiserhoff although his meals would now be personally supervised by Magda wife of propaganda Chief Joseph gerbos one of Hitler’s closest friends German American businessman Ern hander stagel later reported that after this incident the leader would increasingly mistrust any gift involving food and when President Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor in January 1933 he hired a trusted cook to take charge of the tarer kitchen on February the 27th of the same year the Reich stag or Parliament building was set Ablaze by a Dutch communist activist the Nazis seized the occasion to dismantle what was left of parliamentary rule with the infamous enabling act formerly initiating a dictatorial regime as democracy dissolved plots to eliminate Hitler intensified but so did security around him and the first two schemes with a known named assassin took place during those crucial weeks kill the chancellor the first came from ludvig Asner a former political rival belonging to another right-wing party the Vish social block back in 1924 Hitler had objected to ARA taking a seat at the Bavarian Parliament the seething ludvig had relocated to paliso France plotting his revenge in February 1933 his plan was taking shape he would send a personal letter to Hitler DED in Lethal poison the deadly missive was stopped in its tracks however when an unknown informant reported asna to nzi officials the disgruntled politician eventually was not deemed a serious threat thanks to a large sum of money in exchange for not posting his letter of Doom and letting his animosity go during that same February another group of conspirators was at work headed by communist activist c l the plan was to be enacted on the 4th of March when the furo was scheduled to deliver a speech in kerur L and friends were to gather large quantities of explosives to blow up the speaker’s platform but unfortunately there was a police Informer in their midst the conspirators were arrested on March the 3rd but prosecutors never found any explosives and eventually they were all released it appears that over the same period German police received dozens of tip offs concerning other assassination plots which somehow almost always involved showering the dictator with gifts gifts such as an exploding pen for example or a bunch of flowers rigged with an acid spraying device and perhaps best of all a rabid dog fanciful schemes rarely come to fruition but also straightforward approaches have high chances of failing such as the attempt carried out by the first organized anti-nazi movement to take shape after the enabling act this was a network of professors government officials businessmen and Military Officers revolving around Dr Paul Joseph sturmer lawyer Nicholas Von Harlem and communist newspaper editor Joseph Ro Von Harlem offered Roma some funds for him to hire an assassin but the editor refused preferring to carry out the deed himself sometime in the spring of 1933 Roma walked straight into the Reich chancell with a concealed weapon unfortunately he was immediately caught and imprisoned at the daa Concentration Camp his sentence was relatively lenient and he was released in 1939 and resumed his schemes joining a clandestine communist group called The Revolutionary workers and soldiers it appears he was more of a liability than an asset as he frequently discarded written assassin plans in unsafe Waste Paper baskets and in the end the opposition group was dismantled by the gusto in February 1942 and Romo was executed on September the 25th 1944 before his execution Romo was questioned and tortured revealing intelligence which led to the execution of Von Harlem the lawyer and more than a 100 conspirators knives out but let’s not get ahead of our main timeline for wh still in 1934 from June the 30th to July the 2nd Hitler Nazi officials and SS officers carried out the Infamous Knight of the Long Knives the arrest and mass execution of the sa the leader of the brown shirts Ernst ROM was arrested at a spar in bad viy and action overseen by The Fury in person as R and the sa leadership were being transported to a prison in Munich a platoon of sa Troopers showed up to confront Hitler in the SS after a tth standoff the brown shirts withdrew only to set up an ambush on the road to Munich they suspected Hitler would be driving along that road very soon and placed their machine guns ready to exam act Carnage The Crafty dictator however smelled trouble and instructed his Mo to take a longer alternative route unfortunately dodging death for the eenth time the KN of the Long Knives sparked at least two more assassination plots the prize for the most ambitious one goes to that of Dr helmouth Milas Milas managed to recruit 160 supporters who then succeeded in infiltrating the SS this paramilitary organization was in charge of Hitler security and thus Mia’s men could get very very close to their target but just just like the conspirators had infiltrated the SS the Gusto were able to infiltrate the conspirators the organization was dismantled in 1935 and Milas avoided execution only thanks to the protection of his good friends General Eric Fon manstein moving on from there we have the hit- on Hitler carried out by one Hinrich grunau former sa and close friend of er Strom who had escaped the 1934 Purge in 1936 granau approached Otto strausser for support in his plans Otto and his brother Gregor had been amongst the early members of the Nazi party but had been expelled in 1930 U had gone into Exile in France while Gregor had remained in Germany only to be killed during the night of the Long Knives he was not a member of the sa but the Nazis had taken the occasion of the general Carnage to settle some old scores according to Otto strauss’s own Memoirs granau wanted Hitler’s death to be more than a mere act of violence an isolated assassination a sudden crime of passion I want his death to mean something to the German people Otto agreed to help providing out with funds and the support of one Idol STM in May 1936 the two wouldbe assassins set off for the burkoff Hitler’s Retreat on the Bavarian Alps some days later only storm returned to strausser bearing bad and good news the bad news grenal was dead the good news so is Hitler allegedly there are some issues with the exact details on this one obviously and more than just the obvious leading some to question its veracity despite contemporary accounts Idol storm reported that on May the 16th 1936 he and grout had set up the perfect Ambush they had identified a bend on the road leading to the burkoff where Hitler’s car would be forced to slow down they waited patiently clutching their high-powered rifles finally Hitler’s car arrived without any escort it was just him and his chauffeur as the car slowed down granal leap to his feet took aim and fired twice storm let go one more shot and the figure in the passenger seat flopped over in the back of the car and the chauffeur panicky jammed the gas pedal fell down and the car lurched and skidded out of sight with his mission apparently accomplished granau allegedly produced a revolver stuck the muzzle into his mouth and pulled the trigger STM having no desire for self- imulation crossed the border with Czechoslovakia and then rejoined staser in France so what exactly happened supposedly that day Hitler should have been driven by his favorite chauffeur bodyguard and occasional body jobble Julius Shrek but the dictator liked to sit behind the wheel from time to time swapping places with Shrek thus according to strausser the two must have pulled a switch shoo and the slain man in the back of the car was actually Shrek strausser also wrote how the assassination attempt was Kept Secret and Shrek’s official cause of death was reported as sepsis caused by an infected tooth this version of events was confirmed by Chicago Times article of the time According to which quote they reached a railway Crossing and slowed up as they did so shots fired with unring accuracy burst from the roadside the man in the passenger seat slumped the wrong man had been assassinated however several points in stosor don’t seem to be accurate for example Shrek’s official cause of death was not a bad tooth as he reported but rather menitis and Heinrich brunau did not shoot himself records show that he was concocting another assassination plan when he was arrested in January 1940 and died in March 1945 at the Sak and Haren concentration camp assassins in uniform thus far the fura had had several brushes with death but none of them could really be described as a close call that is until the Autumn of 1938 perhaps the period in which organized resistance to Nazism would get closest to shaving that toothbrush mustache off the face of the Earth the man at the center of these resistance efforts was Lieutenant Colonel Hans uster Deputy head of the ab the Armed Forces intelligence service Oster had grown disillusioned with and indeed horrified by national socialism following the night of the Long Knives and the horrors of the crystal knar in which Jewish families homes and businesses were targeted by carefully orchestrated mob violence AER was also concerned at how the party was seeking to extend its influence over the Armed Forces an influence they might use to declare war on France and Great Britain Germany had successfully skirted most of the limitations imposed by the Treaty of Versa at the end of World War I thus embarking in an impressive rearmament program but insiders like austar knew that in 1938 the vmark was still too undersupplied understaffed and undertrained to engage in a major European War such concerns were also shared by high ranking officers such as Field Marshal Verna Von blumberg commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces and minister of war and by the next in line in his chain of commands General Verna Von frit in February 1938 Hitler and Hinrich himler head of the SS swiftly ousted them from office with well orchestrated sexual scandals replacing them with the more compliance Marshall Von brtish after this loky takeover of the Armed Forces descent within the Army grew and more and more notable figures started rallying around auster and his Superior the head of the ABA Admiral vham canaris figures such as former Gusto official Hans Bernard gisevius and chief of the army general staff General ludig Beck with the latter’s support osta was able to plant anti-hitler agents in all 12 military districts of Germany ready to mobilize the Army against Nazi government and if necessary take out Adolf Hitler himself by August 1938 the fura had set sights on Czechoslovakia and was planning an annexation of the bordering Sudan land region auster Beck and the conspirators feared that such a move would precipitate an allout war with France and Britain one that Germany would surely lose they reasoned that if Paris and London opposed Germany’s demands the bulk of the army would rise up against Nazi leadership rather than challenging the Western Powers the plan thus developed along two main lines of attack agents abroad would encourage the British and French governments to firmly oppose the annexation of the sudaan land while Army conspirators at home would plan for the occupation of key Targets in Berlin veritable coup General Von brockdorf alfeld took responsibility for Designing the plans for the coup two infantry divisions would swiftly move from potam and into Berlin while an Armored Division would block access points to the capital thus preventing an intervention from the SS once the capital was secured the mutinous Army would seize local Barracks the main radio Studios the gapo headquarters and the chanelly building here a squat led by one major hindes would be tasked with liquidating Hitler’s bodyguard and arresting the main man most conspirators had been convinced by austar that the end goal would be to force the fur’s resignation but both austar and Hines were privy to a conspiracy within the conspiracy the major had instructions to provoke a gun battle one which would result in Hitler’s death now military action would have surely helped neutralize the SS the gapo and other party-friendly forces but AER believe that for the coup to be truly successful the furer had to lose face and for that he needed the Western politic IAL establishment to take a defiant stand against Hitler’s demands to this end he dispatched acolyte Edward Von kly SCH menen into London with precise instructions bring me certain proof that England will fight if Czechoslovakia is attached and I will make an end of this regime Von kle met with Sir Robert vanart an under secretary at the foreign office advising him that Britain’s decisive action could prevent the invasion of Czechoslovakia vanart consulted with foreign secretary Lord Halifax who escalated the issue to prime minister Neville Chamberlain the latter held a cabinet meeting on August the 30th but his ministers could not make up their mind should they oppose Hitler and call this Bluff and what if it wasn’t a bluff what if Germany really was ready to unleash a second war on the European continent Chamberlin’s cabinet eventually decided to wait and see a decision which played in the prime minister’s hands an advocate of appeasement Chamberlain had already prepared the so-called plan Zed in his back pocket a plan to propose a peace deal to Hitler at the very last minute and another of osta’s Agents Theo Court met with Lord Halifax and treasury secretary sir Horus Wilson on September the 5th reiterating the message should they oppose Hitler the political and Military circles for whom I speak will take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them meanwhile back in Berlin ludvic Beck had been replaced by General France halder as chief of general staff halder would be one of the first commanders to receive orders from Hitler to initiate plan green the invasion of Czechoslovakia there would have been a great period of 24 hours before Halo was expected to Cascade down those orders to divisional commanders luckily for roster Halo was on his side so as soon as Haler would receive those plan green orders he and the other conspirators would use those 24 hours to set the coup in motion and just to be on the safe side Haler took to attending staff meetings with a loaded pistol ready to blow Hitler’s brains out if the occasion was right but then history got in the way on September the 14th Chamberlain set in motion his own plan Z calling for a peaceful solution to the Sudan land problem Hitler agreed but then clamored for Invasion once more at the end of the month this time Bonito musolini stepped in proposing to mediate a conference with Britain and France the result was the infamous Munich agreement of September the 30th which essentially gifted the Sudan land of Germany and sacrificed the Integrity of Czechoslovakia Chamberlin proudly announced that he had achieved peace with honor and peace for our time but this ill-timed policy of appeasement had essentially boosted Hitler’s popularity just when the opposition against him was at its Zenith Oster canaris halder and the other conspirators realized that the bulk of the Armed Forces would not turn against the triumphant fura now hailed as a diplomatic and political genius who had liberated the sudaan land without a shot being fired the plotters set their schemes aside but especially those in the ab would remain Vigilant waiting for another opportunity to strike against the fura unbeknownst to them a Swiss Seminary Student would soon attempt to eliminate Hitler on his own remarkably this young wouldbe assassin would arguably closer to accomplishing the deal than ustar and friends the Lost seminarist Maurice bod was a member of the debate group called the company of mystery whose discussions frequently focused on the persecution of devout Catholics by the Nazi regime Bal eventually came to the conclusion that Hitler had to go and he formulated A Simple Plan he would move to Germany in the Autumn of 1938 pretend to be a staunch Nazi and thus gain access to the dictator by October the 21st Bal was in Berlin carrying a 6.35 mm pistol in his pocket looking for ways to gain access to Hitler problem was his Target was not in town at the time rather he was chillaxing down at the berhoff the Swiss student relocated to burus Garden looking for ways to infiltrate Hitler’s residence but it was too late as the furer had just left for Munich Bard was running low on funds and he had to find a solution fast luckily whilst defending Nazis in a beer hall as you do he learns that Hitler would soon be attending the annual celebrations in Munich commemorating the failed coup of 1923 thus on November the 19 1938 bod posed as a Swiss journalist and gained access to a grandstand seat overlooking the road where Hitler and friends would soon be marching at the head of a procession but just when the fura came within range of bod’s pistol a wave of right hands shot up in the Nazi salute thus obscuring the view Bal hesitated and by the time his Target was again in view it was already out of range the wouldbe Assassin did not desist however in the following days he forged two letters of introduction ostensibly drafted by the French foreign minister hoping they would open the door to either the burkhoff or the brownhouse the not CQ in Munich but the ruse did not work and to completely broke Bard had no choice but to escape to France jumping on a train without a ticket he was soon caught by a ticket inspector who escalated the case to the railway police and eventually to the gapo marce bot however enthusiastic and energetic was no professional operative and the secret police found stashes of evidence in his luggage the gun ammunition and maps of Munich and The buroff Bard eventually confessed declaring during the ensuing trial that he had acted for the good humanity and all of christiandom the confession did not Grant him leniency and the brave Maurice Bard was executed on the 14th of May 1941 a flatulent Target let’s now fast forward to August 1939 one month to go before the start of the war a pair of Munich residents had taken notice of an extraordinary fact whenever Hitler was in town he would have lunch at his favorite restaurant Austria Bavaria virtually without any protection the furer would take a seat in a small private room separated from the other patrons own only by a thin wooden screen a pair of friends noted how the dictator would always order the same menu Hard bed eggs and Mayo followed by vegetables and pasta with a fruit compot for dessert the entire Mill would be accompanied by a generous barrage of farts it appears now these two friends weren’t just any regular Joe’s hanging about in Munich their names were Alexander foot and Bill Phillips Veterans of the Spanish Civil Wars and double agents working for both British and Soviet Secret services and it was to the Soviets that they pitched the idea of of eliminating Hitler while he was licking his plates clean at the auster rear Bavaria their superiors in Moscow gave them the go-ahead and fo formed a plan the wooden partition used to screen Hitler’s private room was also used as a coat hanger and this partition was placed in a coridor surrounded by stone walls foot’s idea was to fill a briefcase with explosives and hang it on the partition hidden by coats the stone walls would have deflected the force of the blast directly toward the private dining room ensuring the dictator’s body would be cooked very thoroughly ering on the Char side foot and Phillips however missed a key ingredient the explosives and having no contacts in town they could not procure them when they tried time for Plan B Hitler would casually walk in and out of the restaurant in full view of the patrons in the main dining hall it would have been easy peasy for a patron to just pull out a pistol stand up and open fire the two conducted a tral run as described by foot one day Bill stationed himself at the table next to the gangway and as Hitler approached put his hand rapidly and furtively into his pocket and Drew out a cigarette case foot expected for Bill to have been at least tackled To The Ground by some SS bodyguard but nothing of the sort happened it appeared that Hitler and his Entourage felt entirely safe when dining and tooting at the Osteria so what prevented foot and Phillips from taking action once again it was gr’s political schemes which foiled the actions of operatives on the ground in this case it was the signature of the molotov ribbon drop non-aggression pact of August the 23rd 1939 in other words Hitler and Starland had just become allies in preparation for the invasion of Poland and the British double agents were ordered to abort the Mission Part Two assassination attempts during the war only a few weeks into the start of World War II Hans uster had resumed his schemes to eliminate Hitler with the backing of Admiral canaris AAR sought to establish a Channel of communication with London Germany and Britain were now at War so AAR needed an intermediary and he found one in the Vatican Vatican versus Nazis on September the 27th 19 39 the two conspirators summoned to Aba headquarters one Dr Joseph Müller leader of Silent anti-nazi Catholic resistance and personal friends of Eugenia Peli also known as Pope p i 12th Müller agreed to cooperate and act as a messenger with the Holy sea piloting his own single seat plane the newly recruited agent flew to Northern Italy in October carrying concealed documents for the eyes of the Pope on October the 17th P agreed to participate in the plot he would help ustan canaris use the Vatican as a SA Dropbox to communicate with the British secret services and secure their help in eliminating Hitler and his Sidekicks mullet would continue acting as a goet and canaris gave him the perfect cover his official mission would be to travel frequently to Italy and investigate anti-fascist resistance groups under this guys Müller returned to Rome and met with the Pope’s private secretary Father Robert Liber on November the 7th Liber informed Müller that the pope was eager to speak directly to the British and to propose a peace deal between London and Berlin this was still the time of the phony War war with little land-based engagements having taken place in the west but this was about to change as general halder informed the conspirators that Hitler aimed to invade France on November the 12th such an invasion would nullify any chance at even attempting peace talks via the pope so austar and Friends redirected their attention again towards killing the big man in charge if they blo to Smither before the 12th The Invasion would be aborted an official at the foreign Ministry Eric CT volunteered to carry out the deed he was senior enough to have frequent access to the chancell in the furer himself and on the those occasions he was never search for weapons cord asked another plotter General von laon to Source some explosives but the officer could not fulfill the order due to wartime restrictions on ordinance Court resolved to just walk into the Chancery with a pistol and shoot Hitler at Point Blank Range but austar deemed the plan too risky eventually Hitler and his generals decided to postpone the attack in the west until May of 1940 which gave ustar and canaris more time to reconsider their plans and they had another reason to regroup müller’s activities had been uncovered it it turns out that Muller had been ratted out by one Haron Keller who happened to be a Benedictine Monk and agent for the SD the SS intelligence service Keller’s report made its way to both the SD and the ab which allowed canaris to pull a genius move before anyone at the SD could take any action canaris instructed Müller to file another report completely made up describing a plot to remove Hitler from Power the second report implicated two generals one of which had died in Poland and the other was a known Nazi fanboy Walter R now who would have never supported such a scheme karis’s bogus dossier muddied the waters enough of the SD and apparently Hitler himself to dismiss any reports coming from the Vatican as utter nonsense Willer was safe but canaris advised him to lay low for a while in the meanwhile Pope par the 12th continued to conduct talks with the British meeting with ambassador to RC Osborne in January and February of 1940 Osborne related to his Superior foreign secretary Lord Halifax that the plotting generals were eager to seal a peace deal with London provided that Germany maintained some of their territorial gains such as Austria and the Sudan land in March Halifax informed Osborne and the Pope that the British government was indeed interested provided that canaris ostar and Co would first remove or eliminate Hitler at this stage General France halder took a gamble he attempted to bring on to their site the commander-in-chief of the vmark field Marshal Von bradish did it work well how was not arrested let alone executed so that’s a win but the Marshall’s loyalties were well defined what is happening here is sheer treason under no circumstances can we be involved in this we are at war in peace time you could talk about contacts with the foreign power but in Wartime soldiers cannot do that after the war bratic stated that he had the power to remove Hitler from power but decided against it claiming the dictator’s rule was legitimized by popular support quoting I could have had Hitler arrested and even imprisoned him I had enough officers loyal to me who would have carried out that order if given by me but that was not the problem why should I have initiated action against Hitler it would have been action against the German people the German people were Pro Hitler just blow him up already all conspiratorial strands related to the Vatican eventually fizzled out but those were not the only plans in motion over late 1939 and early 1940 as the invasion of Poland was taking place the out their officers received a message from a general stationed on the secred line on the border with France Baron von Hammerstein eward had famously described Hitler in his leadership as filthy pigs and a gang of criminals so he was eager to rid the face of the Earth of such a Scourge the disgruntled General asked the conspirators out the advert to inform the British secret Services of his Simple Plan he would invite the furer to visit his formidable fortifications on the SEC Creed line to bolster the Garrison’s morale once there the dictator could suffer an unfortunate accident for example the detonation of a grenade in a bunker because sha happens Hitler however did not accept the invitation Von Hammerstein was later moved to another post and eventually made to retire from the Army it’s not clear if the dictator had smelled a rat more probably he was too preoccupied with operations in Poland when these came to a swift Victory the fura did accept another invitation attending a Victory Parade in VSA on October the 5th 1939 the Polish Army may have formerly surrendered but numerous officers were still unbeaten two of them General ktz tazuki and major nitzki traced the itinery of the Victory Parade and prepared two booby traps in advance and when I say booby traps I really mean massive underground bombs each containing 125 kg of TNT a group of soldiers under a junior officer were tasked with detonating the charges as soon as the major gave the order so the parade came this close to being livened by a magnificent firework display and concluded with the spectacle of Hitler flying high into the sky of Warsaw but the major was held back by a German roadblock and the junior officer onside hesitated he had instructions to act on his own initiative only if Hitler was indeed at the head of the motorcade but he had absolutely no certainty of this as it was rumored that the dictator’s Place may have been taken by a senior General instead plus German authorities have previously arrested a number of high-profile polish hostages to prevent any seditious activities was it worth risking their lives if Hitler was not in the parade after all as the officer pondered those questions the victory moade drove by the explosive devices completely unharmed a man of focus just some weeks after the missed opportunity at Warsaw another bomb attack came very very close to snuffing out the fur for good Hitler and his top party brass never missed an opportunity to visit Munich on November the 8th the anniversary of the failed Nazi coup of 1923 as per tradition the dictator would deliver a speech normally around 9:00 p.m. at the burer braa the beer hall in which the coup had started this regular patent was not lost on George eler a committed communist with the obsession to assassinate the fura Elsa was a carpenter by trait and had no affiliations to any resistance movement no contacts with the ab conspirators and no training as an operative whatsoever but much like a certain retired Hitman he was a man of focus commitment and sheer will Elsa’s plan was to plant a bomb in a pillar right behind the speaker’s Podium at the beer hall and to accomplish this plan he prepared for an entire year seeking employment in Armament factories and quaries so he could steal small amounts of explosives fusers and detonators in August 1939 Ela relocated to Munich and spent his evenings at the Burger BR H each night after dinner he was then hide in a store room and wait for all the patrons and staff to leave the building then at the faint light of a torch Elsa chipped away at the chosen pillar little by little night after night until he had carved a cavity of the right size during the days he worked at building his bomb which was completed by the end of October on the night of November the 2nd he installed the device inside the pillar and on the 7th he set the timer for the bomb to explode on November the 8th at 9:20 p.m. a perfect plan what could possibly go wrong Hillary arrived in Munich by plane just in time before a thick fog descended on the city the furer intended to return to Berlin that very night but flying was out of the question his personal pilot advised to catch the Night Train instead which would be leaving Munich at 9:31 Hitler had to rearrange his plans at the last minute and instead of starting his speech at the beer hall at 8:30 p.m. it start at 8: and leave at 9:00 p.m. sharp to catch the train thus the bomb went off as planned claiming 8 dead and 62 wounded but the dictator and his closest cronies had already left the building that night Elsa attempted to cross the board with Switzerland but was arrested by two border guards who found his pockets bursting with incriminating evidence a badge of the Communist Party a photo of the beer hall a fuse and a sketch of the bomb the Gusto interrogated and tortured him at length and eventually the Lone Wolf was ured at daa and executed on April the 9th 1945 the intelligence branch of the SS the SD knew very well that elzer had acted alone but they glimpsed a propaganda opportunity to link the assassination attempt with British involvement the perfect opportunity was handed over to Walter shenberg head of SD counter Espionage the very next day you see a group of SD operatives including shellenberg himself had been meeting with British and Dutch Intelligence Officers near the border with the Netherlands September 1939 the SD men had been posing as anti-hitler conspirators in a scheme to extract information from the British officers Sigman best and Richard Stevens best Stevens and Dutch officer Lieutenant klopp were due to meet their SD contacts on November the 9th at velmo on the Dutch side of the Border shelburg thus organized a daring raid which became known as velmo incident SD agents drove past the Border guns blazing klopp returned fire but was shot dead by the Germans best and Stevens were arrested and intered until the end of the war following the incident not only German propaganda was able to spin the conspiracy theory that elza was just a British porn but the involvement of Dutch intelligence gave Hitler a pretext to later violate the neutrality of the Netherlands a very British kidnapping throughout 1940 and 1941 the axis escalated its military engage ments opening more and more fronts across Europe and North Africa all German generals regardless of their stance Vis national socialism were expected to fulfill their duties being too busy with their day jobs auster and the other high-ranking conspirators had to take a break from their side hustle in plotting British forces however were always open to any plot plan and scheme to eliminate Hitler whether by assassination or kidnapping a little too open in this particular case in February 1941 the British Air at Ashe and Sophia Bulgaria was approached by a local man called kurov who claimed to be the father-in-law of a German pilot called Johan Peter barah known as Hans kurov informed the atache that bar had grown disillusioned with the war in the Nazi party and thus intended to defect by Landing his fov condor in southern englands it turns out this bar was not some random Emon he happened to be the personal pilot to Adolf Hitler himself and he intended to defect while fura was on board his playing in other words B was offering to kidnap his employer and hand him over to the enemy what could go wrong well when the report landed on the desk of RAF Air Marshal Arthur Harris he informed his Superior Air Marshal scho Douglas on February the 21st the latter authorized the operation and ordered Harris to put on alert liyy Airfield in Kent the two also divised a system of signals to ensure The Defector would not be shot down by anti-aircraft fire their plans were relayed back to Sophia and communicated to kurov limpy Airfield oh would be waiting for Mr bar and Mr Hitler on March the 25th but March the 25th came and went and no Condors landed April went by and still no signs of The Defector on May the 28th the operation was officially closed by air marshall Norman Bob Tomley so what happened well despite this particular attempt being widely cited the truth is if Hans bar had the intention to defect he must have been a Serial procrastinator as he remained in Hitler’s service until The Bitter End and fell captive to the Soviets more to the point in 1991 bar and his third wife were interviewed and he denied involvement in any plans to duck the fura moreover his wife stated that neither She nor Bar’s previous wives were Bulgarian Stalin’s turn following the launch of operation Barbarosa in June of 1941 Hitler found himself in the crosshairs of Stalin 2 but after the invasion of the Soviet Union the fura spent most of his time at the heavily fortified and heavily guarded wolf Slayer his headquarters in eastern Prussia thus the occasions to catch him in the open would be extremely scarce as the axis Advanced towards Moscow lentry barrier secret police the nkv reasoned that if the capital did fall it would be bursting with Triumph for Nazi generals and possibly the big man himself and the occupiers might indulge in organizing ballets theater shows or other events an elaborate and rather unhinged plan was concocted in October 1941 to arm ballerinas musicians with handguns and grenades ready to assassinate any high-ranking Nazi inside the spearhead of this Army of Assassins was a squad of 11 individuals led by classical music composer L Nipper and his wife Maria gnova Nipper oh would explo his knowledge of the German language and his caches of weapons to get close to and later assassinate Nazi leadership if everything else failed Kiper would sabotage moscow’s water supply the German Advance was halted by the Red Army so Kipper could stick to his compositions by the end of 1941 he had penned two preludes inspired by Iranian folk music which actually were part of another complicated scheme woven by berer L Nipper happened to have a sister Olga chova who had been living in Berlin since 19 20 becoming a successful actress in the 1930s augur had become a covert agent for the Soviets and it was time to put her to good use lender’s wife had to relocate to Iran a Proaxis country with the cover story of researching local music from there the couple had to fake a defection and mov to Germany once in Berlin Nipper would reunite with Olga and exploit a high-ranking contacts to carry out an assassination potentially Hitler’s it is our humble opinion that Burger’s plan made for a great movie Pitch and less so for a vial assassination plot unsurprisingly the entire idea was abandoned and Stalin preferred to rely on less subtle methods of eliminating his arch enemy step one locate the fura step two send the Soviet Air Force step three bomb him out of existence thanks to intelligence submitted by British code Breakers at Bletchley Park Soviet forces learned that Hitler and all his top generals on the Eastern Front would be meeting at the train station in AA bellarus on November the 12th 1941 20 bombers attacked the location but it later emerged that Hitler had not left the wolf’s slay for most of November on March the 22nd 1942 Stalin received unconfirmed reports that the German dictator and his generals were in Minsk bellarus and the city was heavily bombed on the 26th the generals were cited in vilnus Lithuania squadrons of bombers promptly pounded vilus 2 on the 27th the Soviets believed that Hitler and his Pals had returned to Minsk and The Unlucky City duck a second pounding and guess where Hitler had been all the time that’s right safe and cozy in the wolf’s la Stalin had to concede that his fellow Mustachio mass murderer would not make for an easy target besides the ever paranoid Man of Steel came to a chilling conclusion if Hitler were to be killed he would be replaced by a provisional government probably run by a hund of generals and the Western allies might be inclined to negotiate A Separate Peace with a non-nazi military government and what if his new non-nazi but still militaristic government was still intent on fighting the Soviets the Red Army would be facing the entire M of the V marked without financial and material support from the West in short Stalin evaluated that it was in his and his country’s best interest to keep Hitler alive Crazy Train the Polish resistance movement or home Army was not of the same persuasion Poland had been suffering a brutal occupation and the resistance had responded in fashion becoming lethally effective at assassinating bombing and derailing any Target bearing a swastika especially derailing trains was something of a home Army signature move as they destroyed some six thousand axis trains over the course of the war in June 1942 the resistants learned that Hitler would be hurling through Poland on his personal armored train the America more precisely in the early hours of June the 9th they would be traveling on the line connecting kbur modern day kenrad with Berlin Lieutenant Yan saleski of the home Army was in charge of the operation leading two far squads on the ground Saluki knew that the America was always preceded by a dummy train to act as a decoy at 2:45 a.m. what appeared to be the decoy Convoy sped by quick as a flash the Polish Specialists sabotaged the train line waiting for the real thing to appear the fura train soon arrived at speed flying off the damaged tracks and rolling down the embankment the carriages were utterly wrecked but several SS troops had survived they scrambled out of the train and engaged the polls in a firefight until the latter retreated Saluki believed to have scored a success but Hitler’s knack for changing plans at the last minute had saved him once again it later emerged that he had decided to make an unscheduled stop to meet with the provincial governor of Danzig and the derailed train was not the America and likely not even the dummy train but another military transport what is certain is that the furo is not on board tresca’s bombs the increasingly brutal conduct of German occupation forces in Poland and on the Eastern Front gradually brought more and more officers into the conspirators fold commanders of the Kia or land Army were issued orders such as every officer in the German occupation in the east of the future will be entitled to perform executions without trial without any formalities on any person suspected of having a hostile attitude towards the Germans such Draconian measures appalled among others General Herman Henning car Robert Von tresca and his young agitant Lieutenant Von schlab andorf serving with army group Center on the Eastern Front the two considered assassinating the furer as early as the winter of 1941 and tresca even sought to bring into the conspiracy his Commander Field Marshal Von clug the latter was ambivalent to say the least he had been accepting bribes in cash and land from the Nazi party to remain loyal to the regime and thus would not take an active role in any assassination attempt but he reassured tresca he would not oppose it either schlab andorf for his part did his homework discovering that a resistance movement had been gravitating around canaris and uster within the ab furthermore he found that General alri chief of the general Army office was highly critical of Hitler’s strategic decisions in the East and was partial to a good old regime change during the winter of 194 2 and 1943 conditions on the Eastern Front greatly worsened for the axis and many German officers grew tired of Hitler’s meddling in strategic decisions trescal felt that the mood was ripe to attempt an assassination but first he had to get the dictator out of his Wolf’s Lair after much insistence trasar succeeded in inviting the fur to perform an inspection of the army group Center headquarters at smolin to take place in March 1943 before that date arrived trescal schlab andorf and other conspirators set frantically to work out plans not only to kill Hitler but also to seize power in Berlin and put in place a new government with General ludvig Beck as the head of state initially the plotting officers considered shooting their fura either with sniper rifles or At Close Quarters both operations were dismissed on practical grounds as Hitler’s sizable SS bodyguard would have likely foiled such an attempt well how about engaging the SS and Hitler’s entire retinue in a large scale gunfight General clug vetoed the idea as he did not want large groups of Germans fighting each other another suggestion was to jump the dictator during the welcome meal clug vetoed again finding it uncouth to kill a man whilst he had his dinner eventually it was up to tescar to come up with the right idea planting the bomb on the fur’s plane for it to explode on the way back from smolin or while flying over territory held by enemy partisans this would have allowed the conspirators to blame the Soviets whilst forming a new legitimate government next tescar had to Source the right material he needed a compact yet powerful explosive a reliable fuse and a silent timer all these items were provided by a man at the ab Baron V gersdorf who discreetly piled stock capture from the British Special Operations executive finally the plotting officer obtained designs of Hitler’s personal plane to identify the best spot in which to plant the explosive device the plane by the way was the same farco wolf Condor piloted by the same Hans bar that we already discussed in the alleged kidnapping but unlike that attempt this wasn’t a bogus one tresca and schlab andorf wacked their brains trying to find a way to place the B on the closely guarded Condor and they came up with a genius solution they would wrap the devices in gift parcel and would claim it contained two bottles of contro famously Square in shape they would then find an excuse to hand the gift to a member of Hitler’s Entourage back in Berlin General Beck Admiral canaris and Colonel AER were dealing with arguably the most delicate elements of the entire plot how to ensure a quick transition to the new government whilst neutralizing the potential reaction of the SS and Hitler’s more fanatic supporters to achieve this they needed the support of the reserve Army a large core stationed inside the Reich tasked with training and internal security functions very conveniently the deputy commander of the reserve Army General Al had already pledged his support to the conspirators Al’s direct Superior General from refused to join the conspirators but crucially did not betray them nor oppose them which is essentially just as good Al had conceived another Master stroke to ensure the reserve Army could be used to achieve the goals of the coup the general had warned Nazi leadership of the risk opposed by the large number of forced laborers within German territories with their authorization he conceived a series of plans to make good use of the reserve Army and quash a potential uprising of said laborers plans which were named after elements and characters of Varian operas such as Ryan gold or more famously valiry needless to say these contingencies were in fact blueprints to seize control of the government and could be activated directly by the heads of the reserve Army if Hitler were to be incapacitated of course there was the present risk of ss troops thwarting the intervention of forces under the control of the conspirators enter another key player in the plot General felg General Fel who would be in charge of seizing all signal stations and telephone exchanges to control the narrative around Hitler’s demise and isolate his most loyal henchmen fible would also be usted with Distributing a message to the German people informing them that their fura had been assassinated by a rebellious cabal of Nazi party cadr and that the Army was now taking over the r so the big day came on March the 13th 1943 Hitler and his retinue visited Army group Center HQ in smolin for a briefing with field Marshal clu and general Ron trescal during the formal lunch that ensued trescal struck up a conversation with a member of the Entourage Lieutenant Colonel brand and spun him a big fat lie tresco had lost a bet with some colonel in service at the wolf’s slir and thus had to pay a price two bottles of contro would BR be so kind as to fly them back in the fur’s Condor br Grant fell for the ruse and unwitted carried the bombs on board Prime to detonate 30 minutes after takeoff but as usual Hitler’s Insane luck came to the rescue tresca expected brand to be carrying the parcel with him but the unwitting dupe placed the devices in the cargo hold instead as it happens a fult on the heating system of the hold caused temperatures to plummet during the flight and the cold environment prevented the fuses from functioning properly when news reached tresca and schab andorf that the Condor had landed safely at the wolf’s lab they immediately sent a code word to their allies in Berlin to abort the coup what if brand opened the package it would have been obvious that someone had tried to assassinate the fura trescal phoned brand who assured him that the gift wrap was still intact and unopened elated tresco explained that there had been a mixup that doofus of his adjudant had given brand the wrong parcel this brand must have been one of the chillest Nazi officers around as he agreed to hold on to the package until schlab andorf came to collect it the very next day of course he exchanged it with two actual bottles of contro tresco and his team were not demoralized and kept their eyes open looking for other assassination opportunities and one came along almost immediately after their failed airplane bombing trescal learned that Hitler was due to deliver a speech at the old Armory in Berlin on March the 21st 1943 the event would be followed by an exhibition of captured Soviet Weaponry trescal mobilized one of his acolytes abver officer Rudolph and gersdorf the man who had supplied the devices for the previous attempt Goff was a veteran of the army group Center on the Eastern front and therefore perfectly suited to act as tour guide for the Weaponry exhibit the perfect cover gorf scoped out the armory on March the 20th and soon came to a conclusion the location was too large and too well guarded for him to plant a device the only alternative was for him to carry the bomb in his pocket and stand beside the furer when it went off gdor was ready to sacrifice his life at 1: p.m. on March the 21st Hitler opened up the ceremony by delivering his speech gdor waited patiently for him to finally shut up before activating the 10-minute fuse of his bomb as the dictator stood down from the podium gdor approached him to guide him through the exhibition according to the program the guided tour should have lasted 30 minutes but the impatient fura rushed through the halls of the Armory while a desperate gdor attempted to slow him down it was all futile and apparently hit cleared the museum in less than a minute gersdorf had followed Hitler in the street outside the Armory as an explosiv expert he knew that in the open air the blast of the bomb would be greatly reduced and if he botched the attempt he risked compromising all of his friends Army group center with just a few minutes to spare the would-be bomber rushed into a toilet and deactivated the fuse a catwalk for Hitler DRC girl’s conspiracy ring suffered another blow when on the 5th of April 1943 abve officer Hans van denani was arrested by the Gusto this was not related to the assassination plots rather to unauthorized currency transfers organized by doni on behalf of Jewish families that he was protecting nonetheless his Superior officer was Hans Oster a leading figure in the Hawkin conspiracy as a result of the investigation against Don Ani uster was demoted to a reserve unit and then placed under house arrest around the same time General Ludwick Beck had to undergo surgery to treat his stomach cancer Beck and Oster were vital cogs in the entire plan especially when it came to securing power in Berlin in August of 1943 tresca pulled a siki and went to Berlin to redraft the valky plan accordingly the tenacious conspirator could now rely on a new recruit Colonel claran Stenberg Stenberg had become disillusioned with the regime after witnessing the extent of the losses suffered on the Eastern Front a result of Hitler’s insane war of annihilation as other officers in tresca’s circle the colonel was also sickened by the war crimes perpetrated by the SS police units and regular Armed Forces at the Nazi party’s behest while serving in the North African theater Stenberg had suffered crippling injuries losing one eye and one hand he had therefore been transferred to desk duties serving with the staff at the reserve Army so trescal and staenberg Drew up meticulous tables detailing the three phases of villery phase one after it had been assassinated the reserve Army would receive instructions to stay on alert ready to CAU an uprising phase two the commander of the reserve Army General from would sign orders for his men to round up the SS and the gapo and to capture key power centers in Berlin phase three the conspirators would broadcast an announcement imposing a state of emergency and martial law trescal and his new best buddy made it just on time to finalize the plan as the former was recalled to the Eastern front in a combat that role trescal could not act any longer as the main leader for the big officer plot but Stenberg was ready to fill in his shoes and rather enthusiastically so the first scheme cooked up by Stenberg was to take place on November the 16th 1943 on that date Hitler was scheduled to attend a sort of catwalk at the wolf slay a Showcase of new winter uniforms for the Army the man selected to model this new attire was Major Axel basy Thor a fine Aryan specimen 2 m tall blonde blue-eyed war hero who also just happened to hate the Nazis so much so that he volunteered to sacrifice his life to obliterate Hitler he would carry a modified hand grenade in his pocket during the modeling session activate the fuse at the right time and then lock the fura in a deadly Embrace but luck was once again on the devil’s side a British bombing raid destroyed the trains carrying the new uniforms and the catwalk was postponed to February the 11th 1944 busher was still on board with the plan but in January he suffered a heavy wound in battle losing one of his legs another male model SL assassin stepped forward Captain Von K but by then the military situation was so D that all plans to show off the new winter uniforms have been shelved stenberg’s first attempts on June the 6th 1944 the Allies staged the Normandy Landings opening another front on Continental Europe the Doom of Germany was only a matter of when rather than if the conspiratorial officers in the ad and the Army wondered if it was too late for them to act against Hitler for them to save Germany from further Destruction for them to atone for the war crimes committed at the Nazi party’s behest Von tresca had to relinquish a leading role in the assassination attempts but was still a source of inspiration for his fellow plotters the assassination must be attempted at all costs even if it should not succeed an attempt to seize power in Berlin must be undertaken what matters now is no longer the Practical purpose of the coup but to prove to the world and for the records of history that the men of the resistance movement dared to take the decisive step compared to this objective nothing else is of consequence by then Colonel Claus van staenberg had been appointed Chief of Staff of the reserve Army as such he would be consulted in person by Hitler and his staff in matters of training and outfitting new units this appointment had made him the Natural Choice to conduct the assassination Stenberg knew that he had to take advantage of any occasion in which he would be called to report to the fura preferably at the wolv slay headquarters in eastern Prussia or as the burg off Retreat on the Bavarian Alps the farther away from Berlin the better the colonel also knew that SS guards confiscated all officers sidearms before briefings with Hitler which restricted his weapon of choice to only one option explosives concealed in his briefcase on July the 6th 1944 staenberg attended a meeting at the burkhoff carrying plastic explosives in his case this was just a trial run which proved very encouraging as nobody searched his briefcase on July the 11th the colonel was summoned again to the burkoff and this time he intended to act before attending the meeting staenberg notified General at the reserve Army who in turn alerted win Von vitel Ben a field Marshal who had joined the ranks of the conspiracy both high-ranking officers stood ready to enact the three phases of the valki plan however nothing happened you see the conspirators had previously agreed that they needed to take out Hitler himler and guring in one go it was too risky to leave the latter two alive lest they take the occasion to seize power and then unleashed the SS and the Gusto against the resistance movements and on that day the heads of the s s and the lwfa did not show up for the meeting on July the 15th staenberg was invited once again to confer with the fur this time at the wolf’s slay to discuss the deployment of 15 Reserve divisions to the Eastern front as usual the colonel made the trip with a special item tucked under his spare shirt two kilos of plastic explosive unlike the previous occupation he was accompanied by a fellow conspirator General stif the two attended a series of short meetings throughout the day Hitler was there for most of them but himler and guring were absent once again Stenberg s out of the meeting room and placed a call to Berlin seeking instructions from his fellow plotters crucially he had left his briefcase behind over the phone generals Al and Beck discouraged him from carrying out the attack while another Officer Colonel Von Quin simply told him do it at least some of the officers in the resistance had abandoned the idea of blowing up three high-ranking Nazis in one go Hitler was enough and so Stenberg returned to the briefing room ready to ignite the fuse of his device to his horror his case had disappeared and so at General stif the general walked back into the room a few minutes later carrying the briefcase probably it had been a wise move to remove it from the area when staenberg had gone on the phone with Berlin but now the meetings for the day were drawing to a close and Stenberg would not have the occasion to ignite the fuse it was another missed opportunity the big one the July 20th plot but on July the 19th staenberg received orders to travel once more to the wolf’s Lair and report on the status of those 15 divisions on the morning of July the 20th staenberg was driven to rangsdorf airport outside Berlin where he met with his Aid and Ally Verna Von haon who would be carrying two explosive devices in his briefcase their plane took off at 7:00 a.m. and landed at rastenberg near the wolf slair shortly after 10: a.m. stalberg conducted two routine briefings at 11: and 11:30 he was due to attend a meeting with Hitler’s staff at 1: p.m. but this was brought forward to 12:30 to allow for an official visit from Benita musolini later in the afternoon at 12:25 staenberg asked if he could have some privacy to change his sh shirt which tended to become soil due to seage from his wounds nobody could deny such a request to a wounded war hero and so the colonel was shown to a small room as we mentioned earlier staenberg had lost one-and in combat and so he required help from his Aid Von haon to change his shirt this was the perfect occasion for hon to transfer the two bombs from his briefcase to stenberg’s the latter was about to activate both devices when a sergeant walked into the room looking for the colonel he was wanted on the phone and in the meeting room with the sergeant standing in the doorway Stenberg was able to discretly activate only one of the bombs which was placed into his case the other device remained with haon The Conspirator then walked a short distance to the cabin hosting the meeting room as one major friend offered to help carry his briefcase staenberg eventually accepted the offer as they entered the cabin FR unknowingly placed the disguised bomb under the large table in the meeting room against one of its thick wooden supports Hitler opened the meeting on time and staenberg knew had 10 minutes before the bomb would go off he had noticed that the table’s support stood between the bomb and the fura but did not have any opportunity to place the device close to his Target moreover one General hinger had just asked the colonel to take the floor and deliver his briefing on the 15 Reserve divisions this was bad timing as Stenberg had planned to slip out of the room just moments before the blast so as to alert his acolytes in Berlin to activate the valky plan an unlikely Ally came to his rescue Hitler himself told hinger to continue with his part of the agenda stenberg’s briefing good wait it was now or never the colonel informed Field Marshal Kai told he needed to answer an important phone call from Berlin and quietly exited the room he then walked to the communications room but of course there wasn’t a call waiting for him instead he reunited with his Aid hon climbed into a car and headed for the exit of the wolf slair complex at 12:42 the bomb went off a stenographer present in the meeting room Hines bual described the explosion as such I remember it as a clap of Thunder connected with a bright yellow Flash and ever increasing Thick Smoke glass and wood splintered through the air the large table on which all the situation maps have been spread out and around which the participants were standing only we stenographers were sitting collapsed after a few seconds of Silence shouts and screams of pain arose at 12:44 staenberg and haon made it through the first checkpoint on the way out but by the time they got to the second set of gates the alarm had already been raised the wolf’s Lair had been sealed and the sergeant on duty would not allow the two officers through stalberg was a master of improv however he entered the sergeant guard house picked up the phone and rang his acquaintance Captain Von Mullen agitant to the wolf slay’s chief of security the curdle insisted that he had to reach rastenberg Airfield immediately as his own Commander General from was waiting for him in Berlin the ruse worked and the conspirators were allowed through the gates by 1:15 p.m. shalenberg and haon had taken off as they flew towards Berlin they were certain that adol Hitler was reduced to a mangled Char body that part of the plot had been taken care of now they had to activate the Valk KY plan and launched their coup meanwhile the wolf SL the fura was very much alive having gotten away from the blast with minor wounds as usual uncanny luck had protected him the force of the explosion had been deflected away from him by the thick Oak support of the table four participants to the meeting had died nonetheless the fur acknowledged his extraordinary luck to secretary Christa schroer the heavy Table leg diverted the explosion the stenotypist sitting near me had both legs blown off I had extraordinary luck if the explosion had happened in the bungo and not in the wooden heart nobody would have survived it but haven’t I always anticipated that happening it was clear from the start to everyone present that a bombing attack had just been perpetrated as it was clear that the only individual missing from the meeting room was Claus Von staenberg suspicion against the colonel was solidified when Sergeant Adam a phone operator confirmed that staenberg had indeed popped by the communications room but had not received any call from Berlin and then there was the testimony from the other Sergeant the one who had walked in on Stenberg when he was supposedly changing his shirt it did not take much brain power to realize that the colonel and his Aid were the culprits orders were immediately dis ped to the lwaa headquarters in Berlin to intercept and shoot down stenberg’s plane luckily the orders were intercepted and suppressed by one of staenberg sympathizers major Georgie that order was not the only forensic communication to be broadcast towards Berlin from the wolf’s slir after the blast but all radio traffic to the capital had to pass through four repeater stations all of which were shut down by a group of signal officers under General falal one of the key conspirators FAL was also the first member of the plot to learn that Hitler was still alive but despite being a Communications officer he somehow lacked in that department at 1:15 p.m. he phoned his colleague General thel in Berlin relaying a very ambiguous message something fearful as happened the furer is still alive and then he hung up theel was confused what was going on had Hitler survived the bombing that was not ideal but it was still worth launching the coup with the excuse of restoring order but what if the bombing had been aborted at the last minute in that case valkyri had to wait seal informed General Au whose role was to mobilize the reserve Army to take control of key locations in Berlin faced with such ambiguity or decided to wait for stalberg to return to the capital this was a fatal decision as it wasted precious time for the effective conduct of the operation in the meantime Hitler had already ordered himler to mobilize the SS the SD and the Gustavo to suppress a potential Insurgency at 3:45 p.m. staenberg landed in Berlin and immediately foamed olber to confirm what he believed to be true Hitler is dead my dear General have you started that little power grab of us the colonel learned in horror that no nothing had happened and the fura may still be alive nonetheless there was no turning back at this point valki had to be activated staenberg was then driven to the bendlerblock the war Ministry compound to join other high-ranking plotters and coordinate operations Al was already there and had finally decided to act he stepped into the office of his Superior General from and informed him that Hitler was dead he had to sign the orders to initiate valkill from was dubious he placed a call to the wolv slay and demanded to speak with field Marshal kitle his reply was there was an assassination attempt but fortunately it failed the furer is alive and was only slightly injured until that point from had been sitting on the fence but upon hearing the news he decidedly sided against the conspirators accusing them of treason for all his shouting from was alone against the conspirators and Alber and staenberg placed him under arrest command of the reserve Army was entrusted to another officer General hopner and the valky orders were promptly issued next general witel Ben broadcast another set of orders to all headquarters throughout the Reich and occupied territories aimed at seiz and control from the SS and other party loyalist organizations an irresponsible gang of party leaders far behind the front has tried to exploit the situation to stab the hardpressed Army in the back and seize power for its own ends in this hour of supreme danger the Reich government to maintain Law and Order has proclaimed a state of emergency and has entrusted to me both Supreme command of the Armed Forces and executive power in the Reich many things had gone wrong thus far in the plan but the worst was yet to come and that worst had a rank and a name major Otto Ernst reer commander of the gross deut land guard Battalion reer had received orders to seal the roads into Berlin and Surround SS Barracks smelling Something Fishy he dispatched one of his lieutenants to the ministry of propaganda to gather intelligence the young officer returned with news that Geral himself had just spoken to Hitler who was very much alive albeit not so kicking due to some wooden splinters in his legs Rema realized that Aku was underway he assembled several SS units and headed to towards the Bender block from where the uto had been issued a short but intense firefight ensued pitting the SS against the conspirators during the battle some of the plotters managed to escape While others were arrested staenberg was badly wounded in his left arm while the ambivalent General from was released from custody now from was in a sticky situation he had opposed the plot at the very last moment but had known about it for a long time and did nothing to prevent it to avoid being implicated he ordered the immediate execution of the Ring leaders of the valky plot stalberg his Aid C hyon General alri and his Deputy Colonel Von quim were marched into the courtyard of the blender and executed by firing squad that was only the beginning of the brutal repression that ensued the aftermath of the failed assassination attempt and subsequent coup would require a full length video of its own so we will only cover the main consequences here today at 1:00 a.m. on July the 21st Adolf Hitler spoke on the radio reassuring the German people that he had survived an assassination attempt a simple step which effectively put an end into any remaining resistance a wave of arrests followed with 7,000 individuals being seized by the Gusto of which 4,000 980 were executed among them General from whose efforts to distance himself from the plot were eventually fruitless the spiritual leaders of the resistance movement abver spy Masters vilhelm canaris and Hans Oster are hanged in 1945 as per the men who had arguably done the most to set the Valk Ru in motion General fron tresca he decided to take his own life on July the 21st 1944 while on the Eastern Front these were his last words to his loyal agitant shindorf the whole world will vilify us now but I am still totally convinced that we did the right thing Hitler is the Archen enemy not only of Germany but Of The World God promised Abraham that he would not destroy Sodom if only 10 righteous men could be found in the city and so I hope for our sake God will not destroy Germany in other words the entire plot may have failed but at least the conspirators have shown the world that that not all Germans had bought into Hitler’s murderous lies and were willing to resist sadly however righteous tresc Arenberg and Friends approved to be their Valiant yet doomed efforts had the effect of consolidating the grip of the Nazi party over the regular armed forces the newly appointed head of the Army’s general staff legendary General heines gadarian imposed that all officers now formally join the party those who emerged triumphant from the whole ordeal were hinr Kimler and his SS troops they had proved their loyalty to the regime and as a result the organization was greatly expanded moreover himler was given commands of the reserve Army after fr’s execution which effectively Consolidated all security forces and internal troops under his command what if the assassination had actually succeeded the Allies would doubtful it would have resulted in the desired regime change a July 27th report from the US office of strategic services or OSS read there was no indication that the fighting Spirit of the German Army had been impaired the common Soldier may actually experience a certain upswing he may even believe that the defeat in the East was due to treason rather than faulty German strategy and Russian superiority it can now be assumed that the Nazi leadership is committed to a fight to the Finish and will not hesitate to make Germany a battlefield operation foxley despite the failure of the July 20th plot of the subsequent OSS assessment part of the Allied Forces did consider assassinating the fura themselves more specifically we are referring to the British Special Operations executive or S soe the Elite Force in charge of conducting daring sabotage raids in axis occupied Europe these plans were codenamed operation foxley to be coordinated by Major HB Court in November of 1944 Court handed in an extensive report to the S soe Council detailing his suggested plans to eliminate the head of Nazi Germany much of these plans stemmed from the interrogation of a 19-year-old grunt private obig who had been captured on July the 19th obig had served as a guard at the burar Hitler’s Retreat on the Bavarian Alps the young Soldier sang like a canary providing a weth of information on the burg of security measures Hitler’s habits and location of ss posts based on this intelligence major Court concluded that the dictator would be at his most vulnerable whilst chilling at his Retreat it emerged that Hitler liked to take solitary morning Walks from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. every day on his way for breakfast at his favorite tea house after indulging in milk and toast the fur would be picked up by car and driven back to his residence cour worked out that an soe team could be parachuted into the woods surrounding the burkoff a sniper team could pick off Hitler while walking into the tea house if that failed another team would blow up his car on the way back by shooting a part anti-tank weapon now the problem was finding the right men to accomplish the deed infiltrating a British operative may have been tricky so core considered employing a Czech Slovak or Austrian resistance fighter this setup was similar to operation anthropoid the assassination of him’s Deputy ryanard hydri conducted by cheze and Slovak agents in Prague on May the 27th 1942 the hit had been a success but the reprisal had been brutal with the town of litsa and its inhabitants being completely wiped from existence with this precedent in mind who would have risked conducting such a high-profile action Court considered a plan B when not of the burkoff Hitler was at his most vulnerable whilst traveling on his personal train previously the America now rebranded the Brandenburg cor knew that the train was routinely serviced in salsburg Austria where a team of six French female forced laborers were in charge of cleaning it according to the foxy report these young ladies were not only approachable but also datable so a strapping s soe operative could date one of them to convince her to slip some poison into the Train’s drinking water supply quoted even identified a poison cited only as I in the report whose effects would be delayed by six days therefore removing all suspicion from the maintenance team the plan was eventually scrapped as it emerged that the French Cleaners were only in charge of the Train’s exterior and had no access to the water tank even if the S soe toyed with assassination plans is until early 1945 operation foxley was cancelled for a variety of reasons first the SE soe Council feared that killing Hitler would make him a mar hardening the Germans resolve to fight on under new leadership second the Allied strategic objective was to impose an unconditional surrender upon Germany to do so they had to demolish Germany’s military strength rather than seeking an early solution to the war which takes us to the third reason the best way to defeat Germany in the field was to leave Hitler in charge as noted in the part about Hitler being a raging substance abuse addict by the end of the war with all the symptoms that went with it not to mention that even before his mental and physical state had deteriorated he was never exactly what we’ call a military Mastermind his poor strategic decisions meddling in military matters had been doing more harm than good to the German war efforts leftenant Colonel Ronald Thornley had eloquently expressed this point as early as October the 9th 1944 as a strategist Hitler has been of the greatest possible assistance to the British war effort his value to us has been the equivalence of an almost unlimited number of First Class s soe agents strategically placed inside Germany although the military situation has been temporarily stabilized on the Western Front and the German Army appears to have regained cohesion Hitler is still in a position to override completely the soundest of military appreciations and thereby help the Allied CS enormously from every point of view the ideal end to Hitler would be one of steadily declining power and increasing ridicule final attempts so let’s get back to Homegrown would be assassins enter Albert Spear min of armaments and war production by mid-February 1945 Hitler had permanently retreated to his bunker under the chancell building in Berlin waiting for the Soviet Onslaught during an air raade spear found himself in a shelter with one of his deputies Dietrich stall head of the main committee for Munitions according to a later testimony byar spear reveals that Hitler had given him instructions to destroy all of Germany’s infrastructure manufacturing plants before they fell into Allied hands spear despised the order and had come to despise the furer himself thus he revealed to stal his idea to eliminate not only the dictator but three of his underlings himler Geral and Martin Borman the plan allegedly involved dropping poison gas shells into the ventilators of the chanelly bunker but exactly what type of shells as a Munitions expert stal could help with sourcing the right type of ordinance schal made some inquiries and found that gas shells would actually need to explode before releasing their poisonous payload and the explosion would likely have shattered the ventilation Ducks thus dispersing and nullifying the effect of the toxic agents concocted another plan simply pumping some kind of poisonous gas through the ventilation system for it to succeed the air filters had to be removed and instructed the Bunker’s chief engineer yanes hensall to do so hensall was not in on the plot but spear convinced him to remove the filters nonetheless claiming that they were malfunctioning unluckily for spear the entire ventilation system was overhauled and its ground level shafts were replaced with well-guarded tall chimneys making it impossible to drop the gas spear eventually abandoned the idea of targeting the well secured bunker according to stles he tried to secure some weapons to Ambush himler Gobles and bourman and assassinate them in a good oldd shootout but as the Reich crumbled into the dust it became impossible for the Munitions expert to securely deliver those Firearms after the war it was ascertained that spear had indeed challenged Hitler’s Authority by refusing to devastate German infrastructure and the minister himself confirmed to the Allies that he had indeed considered poisoning the Nazi leadership but his claims as well as stars should be taken with a pinch of salt as they may have been an attempt to soften their sentences at the nurenberg Trum Charles and this takes us to the last assassination attempt against the life of Adolf Hitler Chancellor and furer of the Third Reich at around 3:30 p.m. on April the 30th 1945 A desperate individual managed to not only Infiltrate The Hitler bunker but also convinced Hitler to take a capsule which just happened to contain cyanide this would have likely killed the fura eventually but the hero of the a presumably considering how many attempts Hitler had survived over the years decided to make sure the deed was done this time by putting a bullet through Hitler’s head that viil was of course Hitler himself [Music]