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42 Ways to Kill Hitler | National Geographic


[Music]
in the summer of 1944 Colonel Klaus von
Stauffenberg is a brilliant young
officer with a distinguished war record
he’s an early supporter of the Nazi
movement but news of the regime’s
brutality convinces him that Kenneth
must be eliminated
July 20th 1944 Stauffenberg is summoned
to a conference at the Wolf’s Lair
Hitler’s remote military headquarters in
East Prussia this is where Stauffenberg
will make the forty first attempt to
kill Hitler
we’ll flare is a to square-mile compound
divided into three nested security zones
each with its own checkpoints and
razor-wire fences the outer perimeter is
ring with minefields machine-gun nests
and anti-aircraft guns the tightly
controlled inner circle where Hitler
resides holds an assortment of
outbuildings and massive concrete
bunkers the walls of Hitler’s personal
bunker are more than 16 and a half feet
thick
he clearly feels very very safe there
Hitler’s sense of security will prove to
be false stalin bird manages to smuggle
– 1 kilogram slabs of plastic explosives
into the compound the security at the
Wolf’s Lair is astounding now it’s
focused on several specific threats air
attack airborne assaults raids as good
as and as layered as the security is it
is not proof against someone attacking
from inside Hitler’s inner circle if
they are trusted if they can get a
weapon into proximity with Hitler inside
the inner defense zone then yes they
have a shot at taking him around moments
before his meeting with Hitler
Stauffenberg and his aide and armed the
first drink of explosives and hide it in
a briefcase before they’re able to fuse
the second bomb there’s a knock
humph Berg is ordered to the briefing
room immediately and grabs the briefcase
and heads out the door leaving behind
the second brick of explosives the time
pencils that von Stauffenberg used
technically were 30-minute devices the
problem is it was a hot day it was a
humid day and these are things that tend
to speed that up he was walking around
with a live time bomb that could go off
any time which down fatberg enters the
room the meeting is already underway he
takes a position near Hitler it places
the briefcase on the floor moments later
he excuses himself from the room as the
meeting continues a 1 kilogram bomb sits
a mere three feet from the Fuhrer
only seconds remain on the fuse
[Music]
as the smoke clears Stauffenberg is
headed to Berlin to help manage the
transition of government he had watched
the explosion from a special distance
away and he was of the conviction that
no one in the room could have survived
the blast blows out windows part of a
wall and buckles the floor the
conference table is shattered and the
plaster ceiling comes crashing down of
the 20 plus men in the room for a fatal
damage but Hitler himself emerges with
relatively minor injuries
subsequently he begins to see a survival
as further evidence of the intervention
of Providence as he explains to his
doctor he says I am immortal
I am invulnerable
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