All language subtitles for H-B.10of13.Hitlers.Dangerous.Train.Journeys.x264.AC3.MVGroup.org_track6_[eng]

Powell: Adolf Hitler caused
the deaths of 50 million people.

An entire nation
followed him to ruin.

He was hated by those
he persecuted

and even by some of
his own commanders,

yet in 25 years, no one
managed to kill him.

Winston Churchill had
very few bodyguards,

whilst Hitler had thousands.

He needed them.

During his travels
across Europe,

there were over
40 attempts on his life.

Now with access to captured
original SS records,

the producers
of "Churchill's Bodyguard"

can reveal for the first time
in this new series

how fate and a small number
of handpicked bodyguards

helped this evil genius
to cheat death

on so many occasions.

Why did no one manage
to kill Adolf Hitler?

Enough people wanted to,
but as this series shows,

it was not as simple
as it sounds.

Hitler was at his most
vulnerable when traveling,

and his Bodyguard had to take
particular precautions

tailored to each method
of transport used.

His favorite way of traveling
was by road.

He loved luxury cars

and early on in his
political career

settled on the Mercedes-Benz

as his official car.

But cars could be
particularly exposed,

and they were relatively slow.

As Hitler started

nationwide political campaigning
in the early 1930s,

he needed a mode of transport
that could take him further

and faster.

In 1932, he hired aircraft
for a dramatic election campaign

over Germany.

It impressed many people
and won him many votes.

But flying was risky,

and once Hitler became
Chancellor in 1933,

another means of transport
became available --

trains, the official German
government coaches

which the Weimar Republic
had kept available

for the heads of state
and government

and visiting dignitaries.

At first, Hitler used these,

requisitioning trains

from the German national railway
as required,

Expresses equipped
with luxury Pullman coaches

and sleeping cars
for guests and staff.

Their size gave them
a particular advantage.

They could carry
his entire staff

plus his bodyguards.

Hitler quickly
saw their potential

as a mobile headquarters.

But as his march towards war
increased its pace

in the late 1930s,

Hitler ordered a series
of new carriages

for a permanent train to be
called the Fuhrersonderzug,

the Fuhrer's Special Train.

This was an armored monster

which became his mobile
military headquarters.

Heavily defended
with antiaircraft guns,

packed with dedicated
bodyguards,

and equipped with the latest
communications equipment

operated by signals
and intelligence officers.

This train was given
the code name "Amerika".

At the time, it seems that
Hitler did not think

that he might one day
be at war with this nation.

But if anyone doubted
Hitler's intention

to plunge Europe into conflict,

they only had to step onto
Amerika in the summer of 1939.

It was a warlord's stronghold
built on rails.

Inside, he would travel
across the vast expanses

of his European conquests,

from the Atlantic
coast of France

to the depths of
the Russian steppes.

It took him to the battlefronts

and ferried him back to
Berlin or Berchtesgaden

or to his main military
headquarters,

the Wolfsschanze
in East Prussia.

Sometimes the Fuhrer Special
would pass

another type of train,
a train of cattle wagons.

On at least one occasion,
they shared the same station.

Out of the cattle wagons
came the moans of human beings

sent to a concentration
or extermination camp.

Behind the drawn curtains of
the other train sat Hitler,

making plans for more
death and destruction.

After the war had begun,

British intelligence studied
the Fuhrersonderzug

to see whether it would be
possible to kill Hitler on it.

Their secret report,
based on discussions

with several Germans
who had worked on it,

gives the most detailed picture
of how Amerika was made up.

Two locomotives powered it.

Behind them came
an antiaircraft gun carriage

with two four-barreled
20mm guns.

The next coach contained
Hitler's SS-Begleitkommando,

his eight-man close escort of
bodyguards which had served him

since the early days
of the Nazi Party.

They were commanded
by Bruno Gesche,

a giant of a man who had
a weakness for drink

but always remained
loyal to his Führer.

Then there was a carriage for
the staff who ran the train

after which was the bath car,

which was particularly heavy
because of the water it carried.

The next coach was
the heart of the train's

communications system.

This contained the latest
telephone equipment

and a powerful shortwave
radio transmitter.

Next was a carriage
for Hitler's secretaries,

processing the hundreds of memos

that arrived and left
the train at each stop.

Martin Bormann had
a coach to himself.

His title was Hitler's
private secretary,

but he was much more than that.

In addition to controlling

who had access to Hitler,
he supervised his finances.

In the middle of the train
was a dining car and kitchen.

It had a fresh water tank

that was considered
a particular target

by potential saboteurs
considering poison.

Next came a carriage
for Hitler's adjutants,

his military assistants,

drawn from each branch
of the armed forces.

The most senior
was Rudolf Schmundt,

a career officer who ended up
becoming a general.

Hitler also had
personal adjutants,

such as Otto Gunsche,

a former member
of his closest bodyguard,

the SS-Begleitkommando.

Then came the Fuhrer's
saloon car

with his sleeping quarters. It

was a Pullman-style coach,
elegantly decorated,

but avoiding the luxury
that Hitler so detested,

especially in
a military context.

More carriages followed,

containing cabins for
Hitler's senior guests,

including his top generals.

Then came a car
with space for baggage

and an auxiliary power plant.

At the end of the train

was another armored
antiaircraft carriage.

The train usually had
about 14 carriages,

but extra accommodation
could be added when necessary.

The train would carry Hitler
many thousands of miles

through often hostile territory,

but there was one thing his
bodyguard on board

could not keep him safe from --
an accident.

Only one is known
to have happened,

and Hans Bewilogua,
the supervisor of the train,

later described it.

[Man speaking German]

Interpreter: About five hundred
meters away from one station,

there was a sharp bend.

Suddenly, there was
a terrible noise and we braked.

We jumped down
to see what happened.

The bath wagon, which weighed
81 tons, had derailed.

Overnight, the coach
was put back on the tracks.

During all of this activity,

Göring graced us
with his presence,

and bought crates
of beer for the engineers.

And we had to put up with
his endless stupid advice.

Powell: The Begleitkommando
bodyguards on board

were not the only protection.

The Fuhrer Special
did not travel by itself.

A separate train traveled
in advance of it

with the code name "Kleinasien,"

and a third train
traveled behind it

with the code name "Asien."

These trains carried the men

and equipment of
Hitler's Begleit Battalion,

the elite military unit detailed
to protect his headquarters.

Whenever Hitler left his train
to visit a location

near the front or
in occupied territory,

he was accompanied
by a motorized escort

manned by the Fuhrer
Begleit Battalion.

This included armored cars
and motorcycle troops

with heavy machine guns
and other heavy weapons.

The convoy they formed
was nicknamed

the "Grey Column"
after the drab military color

the Mercedes six-wheelers
were painted.

To breach
the Special's defenses,

you would need a small army --

tanks, aircraft,
anti-armor weapons.

But Hitler's best defense
was uncertainty.

Assassins never knew exactly
where he would be.

Before Hitler traveled,

decoy trains would set off
across Germany.

Frequently, to confuse
potential assassins,

he changed his mind
at the last moment

and traveled by air or road.

Wherever the special train
stopped

to act as a headquarters,
Condor aircraft

captained by Hitler's
personal pilot, Hans Baur,

would be stationed
at a nearby airfield

in case the Fuhrer needed
to make an unexpected trip.

All this uncertainty wrecked
the carefully managed timetables

of the German rail road,

but the Third Reich
was now devoted

to protecting its Fuhrer,

and nothing was allowed
to interfere with that.

When Hitler traveled by train,

the disruption was enormous.

He believed that
unpredictability

was the key to avoiding
assassination,

and insisted that his train
routes remain secret.

[Whistle blows]

But this meant that timetables

had to be altered
at the very last moment.

It caused havoc throughout
the German rail network,

as regular trains were
held back or diverted.

Journeys begun at short notice

worked best on familiar routes,
such as Berlin to Munich,

where a two-hour warning was
thought to be sufficient.

Sometimes the Fuhrer Special

would run without
Hitler on board,

the ghost trains adding another
level of uncertainty.

When the Fuhrer Special
was running in Germany,

locomotives carrying
local train managers

were told to run
15 minutes ahead of it.

Their nerve-wrecking job
was to test the track

and attract any danger
intended for the Fuhrer.

SS security guards inspected
entire sections of track,

searching for mines
or any kinds of bomb.

Generally, Hitler enjoyed
his train journeys.

He felt relaxed and very secure.

In the first
two years of the war,

when his train stopped
at a station,

Hitler would wave to people
from his Pullman car,

sometimes even
lowering the window

to shake their hands
or receive gifts.

These occasions must have
given the bodyguard

near heart failure,
since any of the packages

could have contained a bomb.

But for the moment,

their Fuhrer was the most
popular man in Germany.

For his first
military campaign --

the invasion of Poland that
began World War II --

Hitler used the Special Train

to visit the front.

It acted as a mobile
fortress and HQ,

closely guarded
wherever it stopped

by the Begleit Battalion.

And from this base,

the Grey Column
would take Hitler

out to watch
his troops in action

and meet his senior commanders.

In May and June 1940,
as German armies swept

into Holland,
Belgium, and France,

the Special Train was again used

to take Hitler to view
his advancing troops.

This time, a series
of field headquarters

had been established,
but the train was always on hand

to provide secure accommodation
when necessary.

And it was shortly after
the brilliant Blitzkrieg victory

that Hitler used
his special train

for several important journeys.

On July 6, 1940, he left
his forward HQ,

code named Tannenberg

near Freudenstadt
deep in the Black Forest,

to travel back to Berlin for
an official victory celebration.

Once again, it was an anxious
time for the bodyguard,

for this time there was
no secret about Hitler's route.

The track was lined
with adoring crowds.

And at many stations,
the train stopped

so the Fuhrer could be touched
by his loyal subjects

and receive their homage.

In Berlin,

fresh opportunities
for assassins awaited.

The SS and Berlin police
had planned as best they could,

but no one could have
anticipated the greeting

which awaited
the conquering hero.

Girls of the Hitler Mädchen

had been up since dawn

strewing the parade route
with flowers.

The crowd of more
than a million people

came close to overwhelming
the guards trying to control it.

Hitler was met at
the Anhalter Station

by his top military
commanders...

and then driven slowly over
the carpet of flowers

to the Reich Chancellery.

There an immense crowd
had filled

the Wilhelmsplatz,

and Hitler
and his senior commanders

appeared repeatedly
on the balcony.

[Crowd cheering ]

Three months later,

on October 23, 1940,

the Sonderzug took Hitler

on a diplomatic mission
from Berlin to Hendaye,

the most southwesterly town
in France,

for a meeting
with the Spanish dictator

General Francisco Franco.

Hitler was anxious to lure Spain

into the war against
Britain so as to block

his sole remaining enemy’s
supply route

through the straits of Gibraltar
to the Middle East,

and if possible,
capture the rock itself.

The wily Caudillo greeted
the Fuhrer effusively,

listened closely
to his arguments,

but avoided being drawn
into the war.

As he returned from this
unsuccessful mission,

Hitler stopped his train in
the unoccupied zone of France

to meet Marshal Philippe Petain,

head of the nominally
independent French government

in Vichy.

A few weeks later,

Hitler again used the train
as his traveling hotel

to go to Florence and confer
with his new ally.

Mussolini had brought
Italy into the war

as soon as the runaway German
victory in France

had made Hitler
seem unstoppable.

This time, the bodyguard
had to rely on

the Italian Secret Service
and police

for the protection
of their Führer.

The crowds were immense

and could easily have
contained an assassin,

but once again the trip passed
off without incident.

In December 1940,

Hitler decided that he wanted
to celebrate Christmas

with his troops in France.

He had been a front-line soldier

on the Western Front
for much of World War I,

and military company
was like family for him.

On December 22,

Hitler flew from Berlin
to southern Belgium

where he joined
his Special Train.

For the next four days,
the Grey Column took him

to visit his troops
in the Pas-de-Calais area

and bask in their adulation.

Christmas Day was spent

at a Luftwaffe base where
the Fuhrer lunched with a unit

commanded by the leading
ace Adolf Galland.

The Special Train acted
as his hotel and command post,

stationed by a tunnel
near Renaix.

Throughout the war, tunnels made
perfect air raid shelters

for the Fuhrer Special.

At this stage,
with the RAF still rebuilding

after its losses
in the Battle of Britain,

the Germans had air supremacy,

and there was little threat.

But within a year,

using its new
longer-range aircraft,

such as the Mosquito
fighter-bomber,

the RAF began sweeps

across occupied Europe

to shoot up anything
that moved on rail or road.

The Special Train would have
been at considerable risk,

but by then, Hitler's interest
had shifted far to the east,

and he barely ever visited
the west again.

This Christmas holiday
ended on December 27th,

when Hitler flew back to Berlin.

The bodyguard must have breathed
a sigh of relief

to get him back on safer ground.

He was in the capital
for just one day

before flying down
to his private retreat

at Berchtesgaden.

This now became the planning
center for the greatest,

most crucial,
and most destructive

military adventure
of his career,

the invasion of Russia.

It was a decision which
would not only imperil

all Hitler's achievements
so far,

but introduce a whole new

scale of threats
to his personal safety,

which his bodyguard
would have to confront.

And one of the most
immediate attempts

would involve a deadly attack
on the Special Train.

On the June 22, 1941,

Hitler sent three massive
German armies --

three million men
and over three thousand tanks --

to invade the Soviet Union.

Operation Barbarossa had begun.

The next day, Hitler stepped
onto the Fuhrer Special

at the Anhalter Bahnhof
in Berlin

at 12:30 in the afternoon.

He was going
to the Eastern Front.

Traveling overnight,
he arrived for the first time

at the Wolf's Lair, his military
headquarters near Rastenburg

in present-day Poland.

The Wolf's Lair now became

Hitler's principal base

during his titanic struggle
with Russia.

The speed of his armies'
early advance

and the immense distances
to be covered

meant that Hitler
now used aircraft

as his main method
of getting to the front

for conferences
with his commanders.

But the Fuhrer Special remained
his usual method of transport

between the Wolf's Lair
and Berlin.

This presented his bodyguard
with a particular problem.

The trip meant passing through
part of occupied Poland.

The Nazis were enforcing
a savagely harsh regime

in the conquered land,
and Polish resistance fighters

saw the railway
as a good target.

In the autumn of 1941,

Polish agents got word
that Hitler was traveling

from Rastenburg
to Berlin by train.

[Whistle blows]

When the Special left
Königsberg,

they swung into action.

Several 12-kilogram
explosive charges

were laid alongside
the track just 20 minutes

before the Fuhrer Special
was expected to pass by.

The explosives would be ignited
by radio control

from a transmitter held just
400 meters from the line.

Usually, throughout Germany
and Nazi conquered territories,

trains ceded priority
to the Hitler Special.

The Polish saboteurs knew this.

They also knew
that a bodyguard train

might also travel ahead
of the main train.

But on this one occasion,

Hitler's train was held back

while another train -- nothing
to do with his Special --

hurtled onwards.

It was this train
that hit the explosives

as they were detonated
by the Poles.

The train was derailed

and 430 Germans
were killed in the crash.

Amazingly, Hitler had avoided
the train bomb by pure chance.

But it set his
many enemies thinking.

Suddenly, the Fuhrer
seemed vulnerable

on his armored Special.

Among those who were prompted
to look at the challenge

of getting round
the many defenses

of Hitler's mobile fortress

was Britain's Special Operations
Executive -- SOE.

This organization had been set
up, as Winston Churchill put it,

"to set Europe ablaze"

by supporting
resistance movements

across Nazi-occupied Europe.

Because of Hitler's
extraordinarily complex

and widespread
security measures,

Germany was considered
largely impregnable.

The control of the SS
and the Gestapo

was too great
for British-backed agents

to carry out operations
inside its borders.

But in May 1942,

this attitude began to change.

SOE-trained Czech agents were
sent to kill Reinhard Heydrich,

the brutal deputy
Reich Protector

of Bohemia and Moravia.

His official residence
was in Hradcany Castle

in the center of Prague,

but his family lived
at Panenske Brezany

on the outskirts of the city.

Every morning,
Heydrich drove to his office

in an open-topped Mercedes

with only his driver
to accompany him.

His route never varied.

Heydrich believed that the Nazis

had completely cowed
the Czech population,

and he had nothing
to fear from them.

At 10:35 A.M.

on May 27,1942

this overconfidence
proved fatal.

The car roared down a hill
in the suburb of Liben,

and slowed
to take a sharp bend.

It was then, as the car was
virtually at a standstill,

that two men stepped forward,
one just ahead of the car.

Foolishly Heydrich's driver
stopped the car.

The men were British-trained
Czech agents,

Jan Kubis

and Jozef Gabcik.

Gabcik pointed a Sten submachine
gun at Heydrich, but it jammed.

Kubis then threw

an armor-piercing bomb at
the back of the Mercedes.

It exploded, spraying shrapnel

and fragments of the car
through the air.

Heydrich was stunned
by the explosion

but managed to stagger
out of the car.

Heydrich was rushed to hospital,

and it appeared
as if he would survive.

But splinters from the bomb

had embedded themselves
inside him.

Seven days later,
he died from blood poisoning.

Hitler was shaken
and enraged by the attack

and ordered savage reprisals,

including the killing
of over 5,000 civilians.

It was an appallingly costly
operation for the Czechs

but proved that top Nazis
could be reached,

and that this might
include Hitler.

In spring 1944,

as German forces
in occupied Europe

prepared to face
an Allied invasion,

SOE ratcheted up the tension

by mounting a coordinated
assassination offensive.

Code named Operation Ratweek,

this targeted senior Nazis
throughout Norway,

Denmark, France,
and the Netherlands.

Few details have ever emerged

about this operation,

but at least a dozen
SS and other officers

were killed in France.

SOE even had a new weapon
designed for the task --

a silenced 9mm automatic gun
called the Welrod,

which could be easily
dismantled and hidden.

The success of
these assassinations

now encouraged SOE
to consider aiming

for the greatest
wartime target of all.

And SOE's director
of operations,

Brigadier Colin Gubbins,

sent a request to
Britain's war' cabinet

for guidance as
to whether proposals

to assassinate Hitler
should be considered.

A cautious reply came back.

"The chiefs of staff
were unanimous that,

"from the military
point of view,

"it was almost an advantage

"that Hitler should remain in
control of German strategy,

"having regard to
the blunders he has made,

"but on the wider point of view,

the sooner he was got out
of the way the better."

So Gubbins initiated
Operation Foxley,

an examination of every
possible way of killing Hitler.

His researchers spoke to many
German prisoners of war

who had worked for Hitler.

Major General
Sir Stewart Menzies,

chief of the Secret Service,

provided information
on Hitler's movements

and methods of transport.

As they began work,

the SOE planners faced one
particular problem,

that many Allied decision makers

were strongly opposed
to killing Hitler.

The chiefs of staff had touched
on the military reason --

that Hitler's
operational blundering

made him worth more to
the Allies alive than dead.

But there was also
a political consideration --

that if Hitler were killed
too obviously by Allied action,

the Nazi party
would be left in power.

Some planners suggested

that it would be best to make
the assassination look

as if it had originated
inside Germany.

Otherwise, there was the risk of
turning Hitler into a martyr.

That was the last thing
Churchill or any of the Allies

wanted at this
late stage of the war.

The hunt was on to find ways
of making Hitler's death

look as if it had resulted
from a German plot,

and soon his train began to seem

one of the most likely
possibilities.

As Operation Foxley,

the British plot to kill
Adolf Hitler,

got under way,
the SOE planners

seemed swiftly to have rejected
the idea of an attack

on either his East Prussian HQ
at Rastenburg

or the Reich Chancellery
in Berlin.

They were too far away
and too heavily guarded.

Soon, the focus was on attacking
him either at the Berghof,

his residence in Bavaria,
or while he was on his train.

Strafing

or bombing the train were
briefly considered but rejected

because of the difficulty
of pinning down

precisely where it would be

and whether Hitler
would be on it.

Also, these methods
of killing Hitler

would risk making him
look like a martyr

who had been killed
by enemy action.

So SOE agents looked
for more subtle ways

of infiltrating
the Fuhrer’s defenses,

and bizarrely,
one area of interest

became Hitler's eating habits.

He was a notoriously
fussy vegetarian

and suffered from stomach
complaints

throughout his career.

His food was tasted by his
personal doctor, Theo Morell,

to check that it was not
too salty or spicy.

And Morell frequently
had to treat the Fuhrer

for what he described as
"colossal flatulence.'

By 1944,
all food and drink deliveries

to Hitler's residences
and his train

were supervised
by Martin Bormann,

his personal secretary.

And SOE began to look for ways
of poisoning these.

A full study was made
of the Fuhrer Special.

By then its code name had
been changed from Amerika --

not surprisingly --

to the more Germanic
"Brandenburg".

Key information came
from a German prisoner of war

who had worked on the Special.

He confirmed that,
while traveling,

Hitler was permanently
accompanied

by his Begleitkommando
close protection squad.

And the total number of staff
and extra bodyguards

on the train was
reckoned to about 100.

When the train was at rest
in a railway siding,

armed railway police guarded it,

working under the jurisdiction
of Captain Hans Rattenhuber,

chief of the Reich's Security
Service or RSD.

When the train was acting
as a mobile HQ,

it was surrounded by men

of the Fuhrer Begleit Battalion.

It was a formidable ring
of steel to break through.

But the main problem with
getting at Hitler's Special

remained the unpredictability

insisted on by Hitler.

The main German train controller

was given warning of Hitler's
route only 12 hours

before a journey.

Local stations were usually
told just 30 minutes

before the Special
passed through.

The SOE's informant

mentioned that in Austria,
Hitler's homeland,

security generally seemed
to be less strict,

and this began to suggest

a weak point
in Hitler's defenses.

The Fuhrer Special
was frequently serviced

and resupplied
at Salzburg in Austria,

the nearest major station
to Berchtesgaden.

And the staff at the station
were given advance warning

that the Special
would be arriving

so that special
security precautions

could be put in force.

Railway personnel
used several cafes.

It should not be difficult
for agents to discover

when the Fuhrer Special
was in town.

And even though the RSD
or Begleit Battalion

guarded it closely,
resistance groups

in occupied Europe had shown
that marshalling yards

could be breached
and bombs attached to trains.

There were also opportunities
to get at the train.

Over 100,000 foreign workers

had been brought
to work in Salzburg.

And many were used
at Salzburg station

as cleaners and laborers.

Hitler's Special
was usually cleaned

by members of
the Begleit Battalion,

but SOE's informant reported
that one time at least,

the train used by
Joachim von Ribbentrop,

Hitler's Foreign Minister,

had been cleaned
by French women,

a surprising lapse in security
which might be repeated.

Water was taken by hose at
Salzburg from hydrants

into the freshwater tank
in the dining car.

There seemed a real possibility
that an agent

could be infiltrated to poison
Hitler's drinking water.

SOE labs had developed
a slow-acting poison,

code named "I" which was
tasteless and odorless.

Its presence could
not be detected

in either coffee or tea.

And the assassins at SOE

knew Hitler never drank alcohol,

much preferring
cups of tea with milk.

The poison would kill him
over about six days.

The blackout at
the marshalling yard

would help cover the operation

as agents contaminated
the train's water supply.

An alternative weak point
was identified by SOE --

a railway siding at Klessheim,

where Hitler usually
disembarked for the Berghof.

The siding was surrounded
by thick woods

which would provide
good cover for a sniper

armed with
a high-velocity rifle.

The main problem
was that a barracks

of the Fuhrer Begleit Battalion
was nearby,

and it frequently patrolled
the woods.

The plans for Operation Foxley
were beginning to come together,

but the plotters still faced
two problems.

Would they be able to make
Hitler’s assassination

look as if it had been carried
out by renegade officers?

And would they be able
to get to Hitler

before his own errors brought
his regime crashing down?

July 20, 1944.

A bomb devastated
the conference hut

at Hitler's Eastern Front HQ,
the Wolf's Lair at Rastenburg.

Hitler stumbled out only
slightly wounded.

Inside, six senior officers
lay dead or dying.

The most serious attempt
by German officers

to get rid of their Fuhrer
had narrowly failed.

News of the attempt reverberated
across the English Channel,

where Britain's SOE was deep
into Operation Foxley,

an investigation of ways

that Hitler might
be assassinated.

One of the planners'
key objectives

was to make any attempt look as
if it came from within Germany

so as to prevent Hitler
being seen as a martyr.

Scores of senior officers
had been swiftly executed

or purged in the subsequent
Nazi show trials,

but were there more who might be
implicated in another attempt?

Some German prisoners of war
were willing to volunteer

for a mission to kill Hitler.

But what was the genuine feeling

in the German army following
the Stauffenberg attempt?

To find out,

British intelligence
interrogated the German generals

in their custody at a special
center set up near London.

Aware that the Germans
would not necessarily tell

the truth in
a formal interrogation,

their rooms were bugged.

German-speaking stool pigeons

lulled the prisoners
into a false sense of security

and asked them questions
about the war,

and any indiscreet responses
were recorded.

General Dietrich von Choltitz
was army commander of Paris

when he was captured
in August 1944.

Soon afterwards,

the interrogation center
officers overheard him

admit to knowing Stauffenberg
and his associates.

Man: "The general atmosphere
among the top military leaders

"was that it was time
for a change.

"There was not a single general
who did not want it.

"They all knew that events
could not go on

"as they were.

"There was no great surprise
when we heard of it.

It was expected."

Powell: Choltitz was
then asked if he thought

there might be another
attempt on Hitler's life.

Man: "I would put my hand in
the fire and swear to it.

Fate must remove this man."

Powell: Choltitz was not alone.

Numerous other captured
German officers

voiced similar views

in these secret recordings.

It was enough to convince
the planners of Operation Foxley

that any attempt on Hitler,
so long as it was discreet,

would almost certainly be blamed
on people within his own ranks.

But events now moved too fast

for Operation Foxley
and its poisoned water plan.

On the Eastern Front,

the relentless advance
of the Soviet Union

was grinding down what remained
of the German army.

In western Europe,
following their breakout

from Normandy,
the Allies were advancing

towards the German border.

On July 14th,

Hitler had left Berchtesgaden

in the Special Train
for Rastenburg.

He would never return.

And SOE would never have
the opportunity

to put any of its plans
into action.

From July to November 1944,
Hitler spent most of his time

at his Wolf's Lair headquarters
at Rastenburg.

There, he would stare
at his maps

and rage at his generals
for not fighting hard enough.

By November, with Soviet troops
on the border of East Prussia,

Hitler was forced
to leave Rastenburg.

On November 20th,
he flew to Berlin,

not daring to take
his Special Train

through what remained
of occupied Poland.

He would never return to
the Eastern Front again.

But Hitler still had
one final hand to play.

He had convinced himself that,

if only he could fight
the Americans and the British

to a standstill
in western Europe,

he might be able to achieve
a peace treaty

that would secure his regime.

So his armies

on the Belgian border
were secretly reinforced.

Operation Winter Storm
was planned

to split the U.S.
and British forces,

capture Antwerp,

and force the Western Allies
to negotiate.

With the German forces heavily
outnumbered and short of fuel,

it was a forlorn hope,

as everyone except Hitler
understood.

Nevertheless,
on December 11, 1944,

Hitler took the Sonderzug
to a forward HQ

so as to supervise the coming
battle in person.

It would be
the last major outing

for his mobile headquarters

and its Begleit Battalion
bodyguard.

As the train rattled through
the dark German forests,

the Fuhrer knew this would be

his final chance
to save himself.

When his train stopped
at stations,

the curtains in
his carriage stayed drawn.

He no longer wished
to see his people.

He no longer wished to see
the destruction

he had brought to his country.

It was a dangerous journey.

The German air force
no longer controlled the sky

over its country.

Allied fighters and bombers
roamed at will...

attacking any German trains
they spotted.

It was only marginally safer
to travel by train than by air.

Hitler's Western headquarters
was code named Adlerhorst,

the Eagle's Eyrie,

and was located near
Bad Nauheim.

On December 16th,

German tanks
and soldiers burst through

the fog-shrouded hills
and forests of the Ardennes,

taking the U.S. troops
completely by surprise.

Many of them were expecting
a quiet Christmas.

It turned into an inferno.

Appropriately,
Hitler's closest bodyguards

were heavily involved

in this last desperate assault.

Sepp Dietrich commanded
a complete SS Panzer army,

which included the men

of the original
Leibstandarte regiment.

As this SS elite surged forward,
Hitler's bodyguard

again showed its utter
ruthlessness

in the defense of its Führer.

A U.S. unit of about 100 men
was captured near Malmedy.

Rather than being sent back
as prisoners,

the Americans were herded
into a snowy field

and machine-gunned.

A few survived to tell the tale.

At his trial after the war,

Dietrich denied all knowledge
of this terrible atrocity,

but received a life sentence
for his complicity.

By January 1945,

the offensive in the Ardennes
had run out of steam.

The Americans and British soon
pushed the Germans back.

Hitler boarded his train
on January 15, 1945,

and fled back to Berlin.

He would not be needing
the Fuhrer Special ever again.

The war was effectively over
for Hitler,

and he spent the last months
of the conflict

in his bunker deep beneath
the Reich Chancellery.

Some die-hard Nazis
hoped they could form

a bastion in southern Germany.

There, they would establish
an alpine redoubt

that would be
so costly to subdue

that the Allies would be
forced to negotiate.

To this end,

a group of officers
requisitioned the Fuhrer Special

and rode south into Austria.

The train's last stop
was in the Carinthian mountains

at Mallnitz.

But the alpine redoubt
was a mirage

and the train and the officers
on it soon captured

by advancing American forces.

Hitler's Pullman coach,

where he had planned
his warmongering,

was blown up.

The Allies did not want it
to become a shrine

for die-hard Nazis
after the war.

The Sonderzug,

Hitler's special
headquarters train,

had been instrumental

in enabling the warlord
to exercise personal control

over his armies
as they swept across Europe

and deep into the Soviet Union.

It had taken him on some
of his most triumphant journeys

and brought him back from some
of his most critical defeats.

For his bodyguard,

it had been the mobile fortress
in which they had been able

to keep their Fuhrer safe
from his enemies

even when his world was
collapsing in ruins around him.

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