#ThrowbackToday: How the July Plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler almost came through

In today's #TBT, we recall how a few disgruntled, and rightfully so, senior German officials who were done with cruel Hitler and his cruelties, attempted to assassinate him for good. This is how...
The ultimate dictator | (Pic: Wikimedia Commons)
The ultimate dictator | (Pic: Wikimedia Commons)

An explosives-packed briefcase was strategically placed under the table, right where Germany's dictator Adolf Hitler was expected to sit and attend a meeting. Seemed like the wish of senior-level German military officials, the would-be assassins of the Führer, was finally going to come true. But as they say, there is many a slip between the cup and lip.

Turns out there were many more atrocities that Hitler was yet to unleash on the world because, as luck would have it, the briefcase was moved and when it detonated at 12.42 pm on July 20, 1944, someone died but it was not Hitler. The Nazi leader escaped with a few injuries, in fact, he kept his appointment with Italian dictator Benito Mussolini on the same day and even gave him a tour of the blast site which was Wolf’s Lair, Prussia (present-day Poland).

READ ALSO: #ThrowbackToday: Why Earth could very well be dubbed the 'Plastic Planet'

This July Plot was dubbed Operation Valkyrie, though the assassination attempt was only part of the coup. After the assassination, Lieutenant Colonel Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg was supposed to take the help of Germany’s reserve army to upstage the Nazi regime, but that plan did not happen, of course. In fact, the very next day he and Colonel General Friedrich Olbricht (another key conspirator) were ratted out and hence, executed.

After this failed assassination attempt, Hitler is known to have said, “Having escaped death in so extraordinary a way...I am now more than ever convinced that the great cause which I serve will survive its present perils and that everything can be brought to a good end.”

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