Original subtitles

June 23rd, 1941.

The scent of fresh pine and the promise of conquest

hang heavy in the air as Hitler strides into the Wolfsschanze -

a sprawling beast of a complex nestled in the heart of a forest

in East Prussia.

Just two days earlier, the Nazis unleashed hell on the Eastern Front,

raining fire down on the Soviets.

Amidst 200 buildings

scattered across a staggering 6.5 square kilometres,

the Fuhrer orchestrates his war against the USSR,

plotting to reshape Europe to his liking.

Here, in the Wolf's Lair, both his ambition and paranoia

will brew a deadly storm.

The Nazis are essentially building a functional, heavily-armed city

in the middle of a swamp.

There's about 175,000 cubic metres of concrete used.

These buildings were intended to stand the test of time

and survive over the course of that Thousand-Year Reich.

The Wolfsschanze becomes Hitler's second home.

It's the headquarters he visits more than any other during the war.

All his military conferences took place there

and his major decisions were made there.

This is not merely a fort, it's a monument to a madman's ego.

But even the walls of the Wolf's Lair can't contain

the growing cracks in his regime.

A boiling dissent threatens to erupt and break his iron grip.

Dictators very often reach their end

because of an inside job.

Despite these layers of protection, the Wolf's Lair ends up being

the site of an almost fatal assassination attempt.

Spring, 1940.

Colonel Rudolf Schmundt, Hitler's head adjutant, and Dr Fritz Todt,

leader of the Third Reich's Civil and Military Engineering Group,

the Todt Organisation, receive a crucial directive -

find the perfect site for Hitler's next clandestine headquarters

near the Soviet border.

After an extensive search, they identify a site

deep within the Gorlitz Forest, just 8km east of the town of Rastenburg,

modern-day Ketrzyn, in Poland,

and a mere 80km from the Soviet frontier.

This hidden enclave is destined to become

one of Hitler's most elaborate and heavily-fortified bases.

Cloaked in secrecy, this will become the site

of the infamous Wolfsschanze - the Wolf's Lair.

It's a peculiar decision to build a military complex

in a remote, swampy forest.

It's mucky, it's muddy, there's instability in that soil,

potentially, there's water issues, building here is hard,

supporting these structures adequately with the soil is hard.

It's an ambitious undertaking.

The location is chosen for the strategic advantages it provides.

Nestled deep within a forest, it is surrounded by lakes and swamps,

far from any communication routes

but dangerously close to the Soviet border.

To the east, Masurian Lake system forms a 70km natural barrier

against enemy ground forces.

The area's dense woodlands and sparse population

provide the perfect cover, ensuring maximum security and secrecy

for Hitler's most ambitious headquarters.

It put Hitler close to the war, but not too close.

It was quite some time before people discovered

that he actually was operating out of that region.

The fact that this was a sparsely populated area made it easy for them

to control the information that would go in and out of this region.

Despite being this secluded, it actually is very accessible.

There are good roads, as well as a rail line

that goes directly to Berlin.

Against the backdrop of apparent invincibility,

plans for the Wolf's Lair are laid - a pivotal command post

from which Hitler envisions directing his next major move.

German principality have dreamed for a thousand years

of expanding eastward.

"Lebensraum" - living space.

The Soviet Union, of course,

are the major continental rival to Germany at that point,

France is knocked out, Italy is an ally,

and it was very questionable how long

the British are going to survive.

Hitler buys into this strange myth of a Jewish Bolshevik conspiracy,

whereby Jews and Communists are one and the same.

His plan is that they quickly defeat the Soviet Union

and are able to subjugate its people and its resources.

This is going to provide a huge pool of slave labourers

to serve the Aryan master race.

In turn, they're also going to be able to take advantage

of the massive agricultural lands, the oil in the Caucasus

and all of the other resources the Soviet Union has.

This will guarantee the creation and the preservation

of the Thousand-Year Reich.

Obsessed with keeping a tight grip on the war,

Hitler demands a base close to the action.

In the heart of these dense forests, the Wolf's Lair will be

the launchpad for his upcoming invasion and the protective den

where he hopes to watch his grand scheme unfold.

Hitler needs a location that is as close to the Soviet border

as possible, while also remaining safe and secure

and hidden from Allies.

Locating that headquarters so close to the front line

was a demonstration just of how confident

Hitler was in his victory.

Essentially, Hitler said, "All I have to do is kick in the door

"and the entire edifice will come crashing down."

On November 15th, 1940,

amidst the early successes of Hitler's blitzkrieg tactics

in Western Europe, the Fuhrer issues the official order

to commence construction on Wolfsschanze.

He demands its completion by the following April,

underscoring his urgent need to establish a secure base

for orchestrating his upcoming crucial campaigns.

Most of these structures, they want to bury them,

they want to protect them, they want them to be more secret.

However, here, they're building on the surface.

And if they were to try and build underground,

you would do the excavations and they'd fill back in with water.

The way the Nazis prevented these structures

from sinking down into the swamp

was by building incredibly thick, reinforced concrete foundations.

These look like relics from an ancient society.

Massive concrete monuments

that have slowly been swallowed up by the forest.

In the months and years that follow,

Wolfsschanze undergoes continuous growth and development.

Construction never ceases, and the site evolves

into a formidable fortress with thick fences, ever-expanding

minefields, and concrete blocks casting shadows in the lush forest.

By the time it is fully operational,

Wolfsschanze consumes nearly 175,000 cubic metres.

You have to wonder why the Wolf's Lair, hidden in plain sight,

was never subject to Allied bombing campaigns.

Even after the Allies were aware of its location,

they didn't launch a campaign to attack this particular site.

To further disguise the site's true purpose, the Wolf's Lair

is built in total secrecy right beneath the Soviets' noses.

They tell the locals that they're actually building

a massive chemical plant.

There's also thick forest cover that makes it almost impossible

to detect from the air.

The workforce are forced to wear greenish-brown uniforms

taken from the Czech army after the invasion

of Czechoslovakia in 1939.

Workers are rotated constantly,

so no one worker gets a sense of what they're working on.

It looked like perhaps some kind of military operation,

but the idea that this is where the Fuhrer is going to be living

and working was a super secret.

The exact number of workers involved in constructing the Wolf's Lair

is uncertain, with estimates ranging from 2,000 to over 5,000.

Hitler was also a very careful strategist.

He would unpredictably move around his schedule

so that even if there was risk of a leak of what was going on

at the Wolf's Lair, there would be a layer of protection.

The forest buzzes with activity as inhabitants and buildings

are cleared, transforming the area into a forbidden zone

with a 10km radius, surrounded by barbed wire and fences.

Access to the Wolf's Lair is tightly controlled by a strict system

of passes issued solely by the HQ Commandant.

Every visitor must navigate at least three security checks,

and only about 200 individuals possess the coveted pass

granting entry to the inner security zone.

Officially, anyone found inside without a pass

faces arrest and interrogation, but, in reality,

the consequences are often far more brutal.

The Wolfsschanze was highly fortified.

There were three layers of protection surrounding it.

There were over 54,000 land mines placed strategically around

to ward against any intruder gaining access to the site.

On top of that, it was regularly patrolled,

so it was impossible for any intruder to penetrate

into any level of the Wolfsschanze where Hitler was likely to be.

The entire Nazi regime is built on the principle of hierarchy,

with him being at the centre of it

and him being in complete control of it.

And that same concept is then mirrored in the way

that military complex itself is built - in concentric circles.

Today, all we see are scattered ruins of the watchtowers

and bunkers, remnants of roads, barbed wire fences,

and other buildings are preserved throughout the site.

Within Security Zone III is Security Zone II,

a self-contained area ringed by a menacing fence.

Its buildings, vital to the Wolf's Lair's operation,

are huddled south of the complex's railway line.

Security Zone II contained housing for Hitler's ministers

and top staff, and there were one-storey houses that were used

by top Nazis, including Armaments Minister Albert Speer

and the Reich Labour Front leader Fritz Todt.

A second ring of steel tightens around the innermost layer

of Wolfsschanze - Security Zone I.

This fenced enclosure, patrolled by elite SS bodyguards,

becomes an impenetrable bubble

within the already heavily-guarded complex.

Only those deemed worthy by Hitler's personal security detail are allowed

to enter this inner sanctum.

Wherever Hitler goes, these men follow.

They remain in his shadow, close enough to watch for danger

but always out of earshot.

Security Zone I was the inner sanctum of the Wolfsschanze.

This is where Hitler himself would reside in the Fuhrerbunker,

where he would be safe from any bombing or other incursion.

But it was also constructed so that Hitler wouldn't be exposed

to direct sunlight.

Hitler is a bit of a night owl, and so we see here

how he really doesn't want any light intruding on him.

The Fuhrer really surrounds himself with his inner circle,

and so only his closest advisers, his high command,

his personal physician, are allowed into this bunker with him.

This is why it was so important that the Wolf's Lair

was so heavily fortified and protected.

A successful assault could have taken out the top Nazi leadership,

so it was critical that the Wolfsschanze be impenetrable

and protected at all costs.

Deep within the forest of Gierloz,

the Wolf's Lair possesses a logistical challenge.

To overcome its remote location,

the Nazis built a multi-pronged access system.

Visitors arrive by air or rail, while a hidden railway

ensures Hitler's personal train can discreetly come and go.

Tunnels further ensure the Fuhrer's safety,

underscoring the Wolf's Lair's transformation

into a self-contained wartime capital.

The main way of accessing the Wolf's Lair was through the train station -

Bahnhof Gorlitz, and that's where Hitler would arrive

in his infamous private train

and make his way from there to the bunker.

Expanded to accommodate Hitler's personal train,

this station serves as his private rail stop upon arrival

at the Wolf's Lair headquarters.

Complete with hidden sidings, it ensures a discreet

and secure entry point for those deemed worthy

of entering the Wolf's inner sanctum.

His train remains, while Hitler is in residence,

prepped to be on the move within two hours.

When travel by train isn't feasible,

visitors arrive by air at the nearby Rastenburg Airport,

which is retrofitted with over 200 buildings and extended runways

to accommodate the Fuhrer and his Luftwaffe planes.

With the bulk of the construction complete,

it's time to launch the attack.

The Wolf's Lair stands ready and Hitler prepares

to set Operation Barbarossa into motion,

signalling the beginning of his grand invasion of the Soviet Union.

June 22nd, 1941, Operation Barbarossa explodes,

unleashing the largest military invasion

the world has ever witnessed.

The unsuspecting Soviet Union

plunges into a brutal new chapter of war.

Two days later, Hitler arrives at the Wolf's Lair,

ready to oversee the colossal offensive.

Operation Barbarossa had three lines of attack.

German forces headed towards Leningrad, towards Moscow

and into the farmlands of Ukraine.

Three million German troops are engaged in this offensive

and they are pitted against three million Soviet soldiers.

The Red Army quickly suffers catastrophic losses.

In large encirclement battles, hundreds of thousands

of Red Army soldiers are killed or captured by the Nazis.

A blitzkrieg inferno engulfs the Eastern Front

as German tanks surge forward.

Powered by air superiority and ruthless tactics,

the German army cuts deep into Soviet territory.

By September, millions of Soviet soldiers are captured.

Leningrad is besieged and Kiev is within reach.

The Nazi juggernaut seems unstoppable,

crushing all resistance.

Hitler spent a lot of time at the Wolf's Lair

during this part of the war, but the isolation gave him more space

for crazy plan-making and building up a fantasy

of what the world could and should look like

that's increasingly detached from the facts on the ground.

The fact that he is so well protected also means that

the intelligence is not reaching him as efficiently

and as effectively as it should have.

And yet, at the same time, this is where he feels most secure.

The above-ground structures and support buildings at Wolfsschanze

posed a vulnerability to potential air attacks -

a critical drawback for a military headquarters.

Protecting this conspicuous site would require innovative solutions

and strategic planning to mitigate the threat.

Listening troops are dotted around the area,

using specialist equipment to be able to detect aerial approach

from up to 100km away.

Hitler comes from an era where people believed

after the First World War that there will be no more ground warfare -

that aerial warfare is going to dominate warfare in the future,

so Hitler's bunker addressed his fear

of being assassinated from the air.

Though only 2km wide, the forest isn't a uniform shield.

Open spaces dot the landscape

and construction requires felling some trees.

The Nazis hired a specialised gardening company from Stuttgart

called Seidenspinner to come to the Wolf's Lair and plant shrubbery

and trees in the hollowed-out roofs of its various buildings,

essentially to create a canopy above it,

shielding it from prying eyes and effectively camouflaging it.

They deliberately built what would be now known

as a modern-day green roof.

They put soil and vegetation on top of their structures

to make it look like normal land.

Using this seagrass and green dye mortar mix looked more organic,

less human-made, and helped blend into the environment.

To confirm this masterful deception,

the Germans commissioned aerial photographs.

The results are undeniable.

From a bird's-eye view, the entire complex vanishes,

swallowed by the dense canopy above.

In 1941, beneath the cloak of fall foliage,

lies a hornet's nest of military activity

made up of heavily-fortified bunkers.

Security and secrecy were paramount in the design

and layout of the entire complex.

The remnants of the bunkers today offer an insight

to the extraordinary engineering that went into creating

the Wolf's Lair complex.

You can still make out the angled blast corridors

and underground tunnel networks.

You can imagine the logistical challenge of transporting

and assembling hundreds of thousands of cubic metres of concrete.

Each above-ground bunker is made from steel reinforced concrete

with roofs up to two metres thick.

Their foundations, though, extend up to seven metres down

into the swampy ground.

These bunkers are designed to withstand the mighty explosion

of the half-tonne bomb.

There is a massive amount of energy and force in those bombs.

An impact might create cracks in the concrete

and create shrapnel of concrete flakes.

They often had steel panels installed on the roofs

to protect any occupants inside from bomb impacts.

As the network of fortified bunkers snakes through the Wolf's Lair,

one stands out - Hitler's personal sanctum.

Far from opulent, it houses a workroom, a meeting room

and a simple bedroom.

Even a shower and toilet offer little indulgence.

A later extension adds a conference room,

but the overall impression remains one of stark functionality.

Here, within the concrete womb of the Wolf's Lair,

Hitler conceives plans for his war.

Why does a leader who could demand anything he wanted

have a place to live and work that is so underwhelming in design?

The belief was the Soviets would be invaded

and would surrender within a few months.

Hitler never had any intention of spending 800 days at this bunker.

The bunker featured thick, airtight steel doors,

which could seal off the rooms entirely

and protect the inhabitants from any blast,

but also against any gas attacks.

Hitler, in the First World War experience,

was wounded in a gas attack,

so the use of poison gas was something that Hitler feared.

The Wolf's Lair sprawls with over 80 structures.

Roughly half serve as living and working quarters,

while the rest are a mix of reinforced concrete storage bunkers

and seven imposing, heavily-fortified buildings.

It also features amenities such as a hair salon,

a sauna and a cinema.

The Wolf's Lair is essentially a self-contained town

in the middle of the forest.

The Wolf's Lair also includes a stenographer's barracks,

and it's these stenographers and their memoirs

that provide us with a lot of insight into what was going on

on a day-to-day basis within the Wolf's Lair.

Remnants of many such buildings still exist today -

an eerie reminder of a time when Hitler's daily routine

involved a mixture of daily pleasures and military meetings.

Hitler would get up around ten o'clock, 11 o'clock in the morning,

take his dog, Blondi, for a walk,

then have his breakfast,

and then the day would begin around one o'clock in the afternoon.

He would have his conferences and his meetings

and this would go till about suppertime,

and then Hitler would pontificate into the night.

So these guys, all his inner circle, have a double shift.

One is to patsy Hitler at night, the other is to run their ministry

in the morning while Hitler is sleeping.

It was this huge exercise of ego with a captive audience.

That's the way his days went.

With its concrete claws firmly dug into the forest floor,

the Wolf's Lair stands as Hitler's symbol of unwavering resolve

to conquer the East.

However, by September 1941,

as Hitler shifts focus from Moscow to Kiev and the Caucasus oil fields,

the tide of war turns.

The Battle of Kiev sees over 500,000 Soviet troops encircled

and captured, while German armies besieged Leningrad's outskirts.

The brutal campaign claims millions of civilian lives -

unsettling even within Germany.

Freezing temperatures and tenacious Soviet resistance

halt the German advance outside Moscow,

marking a critical turning point.

Because the winter ends up setting in a bit earlier that year,

the Germans can't make any more advances

and, as a result, the Soviets are able to regroup,

they also are better equipped to deal with the winter conditions,

and so, by the spring of 1942,

the Soviets are ready to actually continue fighting

against the Germans.

The Soviets were able to repel the German advance

and, in the wake of the failure of Operation Barbarossa,

Hitler only became more fanatical,

more possessed of this messianic idea that he was either going to

impose his will on the world or watch the world burn around him.

You're the military commander, you're the Fuhrer,

you're completely checked out

because you're secluded in your bunker.

As Hitler became increasingly more and more paranoid,

the number of people that he could trust was also starting to shrink.

Information is power and, with poor intelligence,

you're going to make some poor decisions.

As the Red Army recaptures territory near Moscow,

a fierce battle erupts further south in Stalingrad,

where every inch of the city becomes a brutal battleground.

The German army is forced to fight street by street,

house by house, and Hitler condemns those soldiers

to a horrific fate by ensuring they are made to hold their ground.

And as someone who fought in the First World War

and experienced first-hand the horrors of stalemate,

it's absolutely unforgivable

that he didn't allow his generals to move their forces around.

The Germans are unsuccessful.

They actually are not able to take Stalingrad

and, as a result, can't push further and deeper into the Soviet Union.

Everybody in Germany lost somebody at Stalingrad,

so this wasn't something that could be hidden from the German people.

After Stalingrad, Hitler will make no more public appearances,

he's so embarrassed.

The failure exposes a weakness of Hitler

and the Allied forces were ready to exploit it.

While war rages on beyond its fences,

within the Wolf's Lair, there is an eerie air of normality

concealing rising tensions.

August, 1943.

As the tide of war shifts decisively in favour of the Red Army,

the atmosphere in the Wolfsschanze undergoes significant change.

Hitler now orders improvements to be made at will Wolfsschanze,

because, of course, the danger is becoming more real.

As well, you know, it's symbolic that we're not going to

abandon this place. We're going to win this war

and so we're going to invest money into improving this place

because we're not leaving.

When Hitler ordered additional fortifications,

he had it built to be able to withstand a 6.8-tonne bomb.

The so-called Grand Slam.

This new, improved design consisted of an inner concrete wall

and an outer concrete shell,

and the space in between was filled with sand

to absorb the shock of the heaviest bombs.

If these structures were to experience a direct hit

from the Grand Slam bomb, they would be OK.

However, that energy needs to go somewhere, so that first impact

will propagate through that 3.5-metre-thick concrete roof,

blowing all sorts of bits off it as it creates a path

down to the half-metre-thick sand layer

that helps dissipate some more of that energy

and eventually down into the original concrete roof.

By then it's very manageable.

A lot of that energy has dissipated out through the concrete

and the interior space is maintained and safe.

By 20th of September, 1943, security at the Wolf's Lair

is tightened with the creation of an inner zone within Sperrkreis I

called Sperrkreis A or IA.

Access to Sperrkreis A is strictly limited to individuals

directly serving Hitler or those with offices there,

each issued special passes for regular entry.

The Fuhrerbunker is transformed into a fortress

with a complex series of passages.

Roofs are fortified to a thickness of seven metres of concrete

and these bunkers are also windowless for added security.

Any sort of opening in a structure can be a point of vulnerability.

Think about a window or a door. By choosing to eliminate those,

you're really building an even stronger secure space.

Pipes are also installed to bring in natural oxygen from outside

because Hitler is worried that this internal oxygen being piped

through the rooms could lead to some sort of an explosion.

Should an enemy gas attack force a complete seal,

this artificial supply becomes his only lifeline.

Fearing the threat of a bombing, he insists his oxygen canisters

reside in a hidden ditch outside.

Hitler also installed anti-aircraft radar

that could detect enemy aircraft up to 96km away,

so even as the Soviets advance, Hitler is digging in

and not accepting that his vision of a German-dominated Eastern Europe

may be on the wane.

Hitler's bunker becomes almost a physical manifestation

of what's happening in his mind -

that he's becoming increasingly paranoid,

sealing himself off from the rest of the world,

holing himself up in this cramped, small space,

surrounded by this labyrinthine maze of holes and passages.

September, 1944.

The Red Army closes in.

The Wolf's Lair stockpiles weapons alongside reinforcements of tanks

and armoured vehicles.

Hitler was really hunkering down in the Wolf's Lair

and, sure, he was increasingly cocooned and paranoid,

but also he was increasingly under threat by Allied advances,

so it does make some sense that he would feel the need

to have increased protections and fortifications

at a time when the war wasn't going the way he thought it should

and the prospect of an enemy attack on his position

was more and more realistic.

A colossal fortress of concrete and steel emerges at the Wolf's Lair,

Hitler's new bunker, dwarfing all others in the complex.

This behemoth stretches 36 metres in each direction

and reaches 18 metres tall.

Overhead, an ominous double-layered ceiling eight metres thick

hangs like a constant threat.

His personal fortress is anchored into the earth with a foundation

that penetrates eight metres into the ground.

There is a tonne of extra concrete.

These bunkers are incredibly strong

and that was important to Hitler.

The longer the war drags on,

the deeper Hitler retreats into seclusion.

The insular society within the Wolf's Lair

shields its inhabitants from the harsh realities outside.

Bad news seldom breaches the barbed wire

and those who dare to deliver it are dismissed

as lacking a global perspective or labelled defeatist.

The Wolf's Lair is actually where Hitler spends most of his time

in the later years of the war, so it begins to feel

less like a temporary refuge and more like his full-time home.

Being in that bunker highlights the fact

that he is incapable of really leading his people

and that his reality is crumbling around him.

Despite all the physical protections,

the base's greatest defence is its hidden location, or so they think.

The Allies know the geographical location of the Wolfsschanze

thanks to their intelligence

and communications interception services.

However, only the heaviest bombers stripped down to their bare elements

could reach East Prussia.

The logistical nightmare cripples the plan.

A direct assault from the air fades into a tantalising

but impossible task.

They hesitate dropping a bomb on it primarily because

they don't know if Hitler is going to actually be there.

It's like attacking anything pre-emptively.

You have to be sure of your target,

otherwise you're intelligence might be compromised.

Raids on other Nazi targets in eastern Germany

cause heavy air crew losses and any attempt to bomb

the Wolfsschanze faces strong resistance.

Summer, 1944.

As Hitler's paranoia intensifies,

his daily life at the Wolf's Lair becomes a fortress of suspicion.

Despite the thick walls and tight security,

things are not going well.

Dissent brews among those closest to him,

plotting in the shadows of his most fortified headquarters.

We can see that there are kind of these grumblings

in terms of Hitler's leadership

and also the poor decisions that he's making.

Hitler is fantasising in a bunker while his ministers

have to shuffle back and forth between paradise

and the inferno that Germany is becoming.

I think at that point in time many military officials

have probably started questioning, well, what's the endgame here,

and, when it comes to an end, what is Germany's position going to be?

The tide of war has turned and fingers point squarely at Hitler,

the architect of their nation's ruin.

Over the past year, there have been at least 40 attempts on his life,

but Hitler's ironclad security and a sliver of luck

have carried him through.

A small number of high-ranking members of the German Armed Forces

decide they are going to assassinate Hitler

and try and take over the German government.

If you were a member of the Nazi elite and you were planning

an attack on Hitler, you also had to contend with all of the perimeters,

all of the security zones, all of the things that protected Hitler

from anything that could cause him harm, injury or death.

Wishing to see the end of Hitler and his regime was one thing,

but achieving it was another.

Fortunately, a mechanism already exists

for temporarily seizing key government agencies -

Operation Valkyrie - originally designed by the German military

to counter internal revolts or takeover attempts.

This plan tasks the reserve army in Berlin

with immediately occupying and securing

all government buildings and communication installations.

It also establishes emergency military control

over civilian authorities.

Operation Valkyrie was simply a code word ordered by a general,

and they start arresting high-ranking officials

on the presumption that they're traitors.

The point of the coup was not only to kill Adolf Hitler,

it was also to take control of the German state

and the German military away from the Nazi Party.

What motivated them to attempt an assassination was really

the feeling that Hitler was going to lead Germany into defeat and ruin.

Hitler seems untouchable.

The conspirators would need to pick a static location for their attack.

The isolated headquarters, where Hitler has already spent

long stretches of time, could be their best shot.

The Wolf's Lair becomes an ideal location for a number of reasons.

First of all, they know that Hitler's there,

so the target is physically in the complex.

Second of all, they have access to Hitler in that complex

through one of the conspirators.

Third, the isolation of the Wolf's Lair will probably give them

much-needed time to successfully overthrow the Nazi leadership.

A young officer, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg,

emerges as the unlikely champion.

Fate intervenes in 1944, granting Stauffenberg a coveted role -

Chief of Staff.

This new-found access to Hitler offers the chance

to rewrite history with a single explosive act.

That summer, a golden opportunity presents itself

when Stauffenberg receives a personal invitation

to meet with the Fuhrer himself.

This could be the moment the conspirators have been waiting for -

a moment that could change the course of the entire war.

The stakes are high for the success or failure of this operation.

If the coup is successful, that's an additional year of Hitler's rule,

of Hitler's destruction of Germany, of Hitler's ongoing

industrial genocide that could have been stopped in its tracks.

And if the plotters fail, that means certain death for all of them.

July 20th, 1944.

A lone figure, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg,

36 years old and burdened with the nation's fate,

arrives at the Wolf's Lair.

He carries with him a deadly secret -

a briefcase that holds the key to a desperate gamble -

the assassination of Adolf Hitler.

Each of the explosives that Stauffenberg planned to use

in the assassination included a chemical starter

with a ten-minute delay.

So Stauffenberg is called to the Wolf's Lair

and he arrives with two bombs. He is able to activate one of them

but he doesn't have time to activate the second one.

Just before the meeting, Stauffenberg catches word

that the location has been changed at the last minute.

Because it's a warm summer day, the original location of the meeting

is changed to a different room that has better ventilation,

so we're no longer in, sort of, this concrete bunker,

we're actually in a regular room with windows and a wooden frame.

The table at which they're meeting doesn't have legs.

It has these thick, wooden oak bulkheads that support the table.

Stauffenberg puts the briefcase under the table.

The guy who's next to Hitler keeps bumping into the briefcase

at his feet, so he takes the briefcase and moves it

to the other side of the bulkhead.

Two minutes later, at 12:42, Hitler leans in,

tracing a path on a map spread out on the table.

Suddenly, a blinding flash follows a deafening roar

as the room shakes from the surprise explosion.

The explosive device devastates the conference interior.

Broken chairs, shattered glass,

and scattered paper is all that remains.

A crater approximately 1.5 metres across

is left in the place where the briefcase once sat.

24 men are caught in the blast.

In that suspended moment,

the future of the Fuhrer and Germany hangs in limbo.

The best-case scenario for the conspirators

is that they kill Hitler and they successfully carry out a coup

that leaves them in control of Germany.

Von Stauffenberg has prearranged for a phone call

so that he's called away from the meeting room,

and, as he's taking the call, the bomb detonates.

The explosion echoes in Stauffenberg's ears

as he races for the exit.

Luckily for him, the guards at the airfield

have not yet been notified of the attack

and his car is able to pass through unchallenged.

Stauffenberg gets back to Berlin

and assumes that Hitler has been killed

and he puts in place the rest of the Valkyrie protocol.

The inferno clears, revealing a scene of devastation.

One man was instantly killed and others cling to life.

But amidst the carnage, a figure emerges -

Hitler, shaken but alive.

His injuries are minor.

The bomb, a monstrous gamble, has failed.

The bomb goes off, of course the bulkhead saves Hitler.

There's a famous photo of one of Hitler's staff

holding Hitler's pants. Hitler's pants are shredded.

They don't believe the original plot.

A bomb in a suitcase, it wouldn't destroy that concrete.

It wouldn't make that thing collapse.

However, it is going to contain that force in a constrained area,

it has nowhere to go, and would cause dramatic impact.

The wood structure is so fragile in comparison,

that explosive force just blows the whole thing up,

and that plays a big role in why this attempt failed.

The fact that only one of the bombs had been armed

probably also saved Hitler's life.

I mean, thank God they failed, because in July 1944,

you had competent generals take over the war,

we might have lost that war.

Hitler being left alive was the best break we might have had.

It just destroys his world

because he's created the most secure, safe bunker,

and yet the handful of people who are let in

are the ones who try to kill him, and this is why he goes out

and kills thousands of people afterwards - because he is furious.

News of his survival reaches General Friedrich Fromm,

commander of the reserve army.

Originally a supporter of the July plot,

he turns on his fellow conspirators

to hide his involvement and spare his own life.

The coup attempt only lasts about seven hours

and collapses at midnight.

Around 12:30am, Count Claus von Stauffenberg is arrested,

sentenced to death, and executed immediately.

And that's one of the rare times you hear Hitler.

Hitler gets on the radio to prove that he's still alive,

with that distinct voice of his.

Approximately 700 people are arrested

and around 180 people are brutally executed

for their role, or alleged role, in the assassination attempt on Hitler.

Hitler's inner circle tightens and his army is now deemed a liability.

His already powerful headquarters is ordered to be made even stronger.

The walls are thickened, an anti-tank gun bristles

and machinegun nests are installed.

Soon, the SS arrives with an array of weapons.

The failed assassination breeds paranoia,

transforming the once confident Wolfsschanze

into a monument of fear.

It highlights the fact that Hitler is not invincible

and the Wolf's Lair isn't impenetrable.

Hitler needs to give it a positive spin

and so he says he survived the assassination attempt

and that probably makes him even more

the right man to lead Germany in this effort.

This is not uncommon for megalomaniacal leaders

who survive an assassination attempt.

They see the very fact of their survival as proof

that it's their destiny to see their vision

and their mission through to completion.

In late 1944, the situation for the Nazis grows increasingly dire.

The successful Allied invasion of Normandy

and the Soviet Red Army's relentless push from the east

severely diminished Germany's control over occupied territories.

At the time of the assassination attempt,

the Soviets are just 140km from the Wolfsschanze complex.

As the Red Army advances into East Prussia,

air raid warnings become almost daily occurrences at Wolf's Lair,

marking the site's decline from a strategic hub

to a place of palpable urgency and desperation.

The inevitability of the Soviet capture becomes apparent,

signalling the fall of Wolfsschanze.

In November 1944, construction was finally completed

on the Wolf's Lair, but the concrete hardly had time to set

before Hitler had to flee because the Soviet Red Army

was only 16km away.

Hitler orders the Wolf's Lair to be demolished

before the Red Army can actually get there.

The destruction of the Wolf's Lair

was codenamed "Blowing Up The Island"

and was intended to prevent any use of this Nazi bastion

by the Russians as they came across.

They needed eight tonnes of dynamite to blow up one of these bunkers

and, in that explosion, chunks of concrete

would rocket up to 20 metres in the air.

It's said that the blast caused cracks through the ice

of a nearby lake and blew roof tiles off the houses in nearby villages.

The destruction was another attempt to control Germany's fate.

They destroyed it themselves.

They got rid of any evidence of any foul doing themselves.

They got rid of the legacy themselves.

On January 27th, 1945, a once unimaginable scene unfolds

when the Red Army enters the Wolfsschanze headquarters

without firing a single shot.

The capture of the Wolf's Lair is an important domino

in the fall of Hitler and his regime.

The fact that this place that he had spent most of his time

while he was conducting the war, he is no longer there,

and it's in the hands of his mortal enemy.

As Berlin is being destroyed all around them,

Hitler is plotting for what would come next.

What do they leave behind? Who should take charge?

What should the fate of the German people and the German state be?

It's all delusion because the only thing that could come next

was unconditional surrender.

On April 30th, 1945, facing defeat in Berlin,

Hitler ends his life by shooting himself in the head.

The Nazi regime breaks down.

It's incapable of continuing without him.

In the months that follow, Nazi Germany capitulates,

culminating in its unconditional surrender on May 7th, 1945.

After the war, Soviet authorities embark on the arduous task

of clearing land mines around the area.

It takes a decade before they can successfully clear

all 54,000 land mines that had been carefully planted

around the perimeter.

Hitler saw himself as the architect of a Thousand-Year Reich

and these buildings that he had constructed

were intended to stand the test of time.

While most of this site was demolished or destroyed,

we can still see in that central security zone

remnants of Hitler's bunker.

The great irony about the assassination attempt on Hitler

is the Wolf's Lair had been set up to protect him

from any and all threats but, in the end, the threat comes from within.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media