A Bomb Plot Against Hitler Failed
On this day · 20 July 1944
A briefcase bomb planted feet from Hitler exploded on schedule, yet a heavy oak table leg saved the dictator's life.
On July 20, 1944, a group of German military officers tried to kill Adolf Hitler and seize the state in a coup code-named Operation Valkyrie. Their instrument was Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, who carried explosives into a midday briefing at the Wolf’s Lair, Hitler’s command headquarters in East Prussia.
Stauffenberg armed a bomb, slid the briefcase under the heavy oak conference table near Hitler, and slipped out. Around 12:45 p.m. the bomb detonated, wrecking the room and killing several men. But the solid table leg shielded Hitler from the worst of the blast, and he walked away with only minor injuries.
The plot collapsed within hours, and Hitler survived to order swift, sweeping reprisals.
With the Führer alive, the conspirators in Berlin lost their nerve and momentum. Stauffenberg and several co-leaders were shot that same night. In the months that followed, the Nazi regime arrested and executed roughly 200 people linked to the resistance, crushing the most serious internal attempt to topple Hitler.
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