All language subtitles for H-B.11of13.Attempts.to.Kill.Hitler.at.the.Wolfs.Lair.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 hand-picked 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.

Even when an attempt was
meticulously planned

and the plotters had access
to the dictator's

innermost sanctum,
luck played a crucial role.

On July 14, 1944,
Hitler flew into

the Wolf's Lair
at Rastenburg.

He was just days away

from the most dangerous
attempt on his life.

The Wolfsschanze
was the most famous

of Hitler's military
headquarters.

The location in East Prussia,
now Poland,

was specially selected by Hitler
because it was

surrounded by forest
and marshes --

a perfect wilderness area
to hide a military headquarters.

Hundreds of heavily armed
bodyguards and elite troops

patrolled the perimeter.

Massive concrete bunkers,

whose remains can still
be seen today,

protected Hitler
from bombing raids.

Yet it was not an enemy
from the outside

that came closest
to killing the Fuhrer,

but a trusted member from
within his own ranks.

That was the only way
Hitler could be cornered

in his Wolf's Lair.

Work first started on Hitler's
ultimate stronghold

in the autumn of 1940.

During the Blitzkrieg

in France,
Hitler had used temporary HQs.

But even while the battle

to subdue Britain
was at its height,

he was looking ahead.

The defining struggle
of the Third Reich would be

with the Soviet Union,
and the Fuhrer

needed a permanent base
in the east.

Hitler's top construction expert
was 49-year-old Fritz Todt.

A former pilot in World War I,

he oversaw Hitler's
biggest building projects,

including the massive Westwall,
or Siegfried Line,

on the border with France.

Todt visited the chosen site
in November 1940.

Because of the nearby swamps

and the high level of water
beneath the soil,

he ascertained that bunkers

could not be sunk
beneath the ground.

But the surrounding forest
did afford excellent cover.

When laborers started to
clear the area,

artificial trees were erected,

along with camouflage netting,
to ensure that no enemy

aerial photography
could capture

signs of work.

The building site was given
the code-name

of Askania Chemical Works.

This explained the need
for the construction

of roads and a railway line.

Barracks for the bodyguard
were built,

and, in an inner sanctum,

brick and concrete bunkers
for Hitler and his generals.

As the headquarters rose
out of the wilderness,

preparations for
Operation Barbarossa,

the invasion of
the Soviet Union,

were underway.

A titanic force
of three million men

was armed and transported
to the east.

Then, three great thrusts

plunged deep into
the Soviet Union.

On June 22, 1941,

just two days after launching
Operation Barbarossa,

the Fuhrer arrived
at his new Wolf's Lair

by train from Berlin.

[Crowd cheering ]

Hitler chose the name
of his headquarters

because early in
his political career,

Herr Wolf had been his secret
name for hiding from the police.

He was delighted
when real wolves

were spotted in the vicinity
of the headquarters.

He identified closely with
the predatory beasts.

The Wolf's Lair became Hitler's

main military headquarters
for the next four years.

He spent months on end
inside the dingy bunkers,

staring at maps and shouting
at his generals

when they brought him bad news.

His rooms were air-conditioned,

but the fetid swamp air
was humid.

The noise of the ventilation
system constantly annoyed him.

Man: "I feel like a prisoner
in these bunkers.

"I need space to think.

"When I was young,
I dreamed of vast, open spaces.

"Here, I have to pace
around the card room

to get some ideas."

Powell: The Wolf's Lair was
the most highly protected

of all his headquarters.

More of his bodyguards were
concentrated there

than anywhere else.

A security zone

stretching several miles
around it

was patrolled by the troops

of the army's
Fuhrer Begleit Battalion.

The 2 1/2 square-mile
main complex

was surrounded
with a minefield

and a formidable
barbed-wire fence.

A road and railway line
ran east-west through this,

with a checkpoint at each end.

And another road ran south
through a checkpoint

towards the airfield,
about three miles away.

Inside this outer fence
were two more security zones,

each with barbed-wire fences
and checkpoints.

The first, also on both sides
of the railway,

contained the barracks
and living quarters

for the Begleit Battalion
and HQ staff.

The second, concentrated
north of the railway,

was Hitler's inner zone,

with his briefing hut,
bunker, and accommodation

for his top military commanders
and adjutants.

Within this inner zone,

the Begleitkommando
and RSD bodyguards were

responsible for the Fuhrer’s
personal protection.

One of their major
security problems

was that there was
always building work

going on at the Wolf's Lair --

new offices and accommodation
for the increasing numbers

of people stationed there.

And then, at the beginning
of 1944,

a major new building program
began to convert

the brick-and-concrete bunkers
of the Fuhrer and his elite

into massive
concrete-and-steel shelters.

The original bunkers
were covered with

a four-meter thick shell
of steel and concrete,

and Hitler insisted on
a three-meter thick

layer of gravel between
the layers of concrete

to absorb any bomb blasts.

These new bunkers
were completely windowless,

and Otto Gunsche,
Hitler's personal adjutant,

who had been one of the early
SS Begleitkommando bodyguards,

describes how
claustrophobic they felt.

Man: "it was a real maze
inside the bunker.

"You reached the rooms by
passing through air locks

"in the corridor.

"They were sealed
by armor-plated doors.

"The corridors zigzagged
all the way

"to Hitler's office
and bedroom.

"Pipes brought in oxygen
from the outside

"because Hitler didn't want
the oxygen tanks

inside the bunker
in case they exploded."

Powell: Inside these rings of
bodyguards and fortifications,

Hitler should have
felt secure.

But while the outer defenses
of Hitler's HQ

seemed impossible to penetrate,

and his bodyguard
screened everyone

entering the Wolf's Lair
to work,

it was from within his
most-trusted inner circle

that Hitler had most to fear.

There was one danger which
obsessed Hitler all the time

he was at the Wolf's Lair
and which he continually

urged his bodyguard
to be on its guard against --

an assault
from the air.

He had only himself to blame,
for he had been the first

to come up with
the idea of attacking

a seemingly impregnable fortress
from above.

At Eben-Emael,
on the Belgian border,

concrete-and-steel
gun emplacements

could defeat any
land-based assault.

But in May 1940,
Hitler sent in

his elite paratroopers
in gliders.

Landing on top of the shelters,
they blasted them open

with explosives.

It was a terrifying
demonstration

of how a surprise air attack

could overcome
an impregnable fortress,

and Hitler never forgot it.

At the Wolf's Lair,

anti-aircraft guns
were installed

all round the complex

to defeat just such
an airborne assault.

Camouflage was an important part
of the air defenses.

Roofs of bunkers were painted
in camouflage schemes,

while netting with Bakelite
leaves covered most buildings.

The fake leaves were changed
to suit the different seasons.

But by 1944, another sort
of aerial attack

had begun to haunt Hitler --
a raid, using the long-range

heavy bombers the Allies
were developing.

In 1943, US and British bombers
mounted raids

which damaged
the massive concrete

U-boat pens at French ports
on the Atlantic coast.

The brick-and-concrete bunkers
at the Wolf's Lair

could not withstand
such attacks,

and in February 1944,
a building program began

to encase them entirely
in thick steel and concrete.

Whether these new bunkers

would have kept Hitler safe
from the massive

deep-penetration Tallboy
and Grand Slam bombs

which the British were now
developing will never be known,

because the Allies never chose
to attack the Wolf's Lair.

Although everything
had been done

to disguise Hitler's HQ
from the air,

the Allies certainly knew
exactly where it was.

By the spring of 1944,
Allen Dulles,

the US spymaster
in Switzerland,

had passed on precise details
of its location.

And this is confirmed
by a message

from General Eisenhower’s
headquarters,

recently uncovered

in the British National Archives
in London.

Dated October 7, 1944,

this refers to information
pinpointing the Wolf's Lair

found on a dead German officer.

So if the Allies knew the exact
location of the Wolf's Lair,

why didn't they bomb it
and kill Hitler?

The cynical answer is that
by this stage of the war,

many Allied commanders
considered Hitler

more useful alive than dead.

His military judgment
had deserted him

and he was driving his troops
to defeat.

As a result, no serious
Allied air raid

was launched against
the Wolf's Lair.

Instead, the declining situation
for Germany meant that

Hitler's own generals were
far keener on seeing him dead.

With him out of the way,
they hoped to reach

some kind of agreement
with the Allies

before their country
was obliterated.

1943 was the year
of disasters for Hitler.

At Stalingrad, an entire German
army surrendered to the Soviets.

During the summer of 1943,
Hitler tried

to regain the offensive.

But as Nazi
and Soviet armies clashed

on the battlefield
near Kursk,

it was the Germans
that were outfought.

By the early months of 1944,
Soviet forces were

advancing on a broad front

across the Ukraine
towards Eastern Europe.

This redoubled Hitler's fear

that a division
of Soviet paratroops

might be dropped
on the Wolf's Lair.

He practiced
throwing hand grenades

and carried a Walther PPK pistol
in a secret pocket.

But he and his bodyguard were
obsessed by the wrong threat.

The enemy was already
within the gate,

and only one thing

was holding it back.

Many German officers

who now wanted Hitler gone
were grappling with

a crisis of conscience.

[Speaking German]

From 1934, every member

of the armed forces
had had to swear

a personal oath to defend
and obey Adolf Hitler.

And most, like Luftwaffe Captain
Karl Boehm-Tettelbach,

took this extremely seriously.

[Speaking German]

This accompanied my whole life
till the very end.

I mean, oath is oath.

There is no doubt that
I can't break the oath,

or otherwise I would
commit suicide

if I planned something else.

But this is very serious,
the oath for a soldier.

Powell: But by 1943,
some officers had concluded

that the behavior
of Hitler and the Nazis

absolved them
from their oath.

Highly-decorated veterans

like Captain Axel von dem
Bussche-Streithorst

were driven not just by
concern that Hitler

was leading their nation
to a catastrophic defeat,

but because they were
appalled and disgusted

by the crimes being committed
on the Eastern Front.

[Gunfire]

Von dem Bussche witnessed

a mass execution of Jews
in the Ukraine.

SS soldiers forced them
into a pit and shot them

at pointblank range --
5,000 in one day.

Bussche was sickened
by the slaughter

and later said that he wished
he'd gone with the Jews

and died with them.

By January 1944,

he was ready to turn himself
into a suicide bomber.

Chosen to demonstrate
new uniforms

and weapons to Hitler
at the Wolf's Lair,

von dem Bussche planned to
trigger a grenade in his pocket.

He would then grab Hitler

and let the bomb
blow them both to pieces.

Once again, Hitler's
uncanny luck saved him.

The display was canceled.

Bussche returned to
the battlefront,

where he lost a leg
in action.

But Bussche was only one
isolated example

of a growing feeling that
Hitler must be disposed of.

There were other forces
moving to kill him,

and soon these would carry out

the single most deadly attempt
to assassinate him.

It would occur during the period
when the bunkers

at the Wolf's Lair were being
rebuilt, and the influx

of hundreds of laborers
had put Hitler's bodyguard's

security arrangements
under particular strain.

But it would not be outsiders
who would be responsible,

and once again,
it would be Hitler's luck

that would save him.

The Wolf's Lair,
July 20, 1944 --

senior officers gathered
at the temporary

wooden conference hut
being used for briefings

while the usual building
was bomb-proofed.

At 12:25 PM, Hitler arrived.

He ordered the windows
of the hut to be opened

because of the summer heat.

Inside, the officers gathered
around a long oak map-table.

Hitler leaned across it
to study the maps.

On his left were
Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel,

Chief of the Armed Forces
High Command,

General Alfred Jodl,
Army Chief of Staff,

and his deputy,
Walter Warlimont

On his right were
General Adolf Heusinger,

chief of army operations,

his chief of staff,
Colonel Heinz Brandt,

and Luftwaffe General
Gunther Korten.

General Rudolf Schmundt,
Hitler's chief adjutant,

stood at the right-hand end
of the table,

alongside stenographer
Heinrich Berger.

Another officer
was ushered in --

the chief of staff of
the Reinforcement Army,

a distinguished combat veteran

who had lost an arm
and an eye --

37-year-old Colonel Claus
Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg.

Stauffenberg moved in between
Heusinger and Brandt

to Hitler's right
and placed his briefcase

against the solid
wooden table leg

about six feet away
from the Führer.

General Heusinger
continued with the briefing.

Then Stauffenberg said that
he must make a telephone call

and left the room.

He left his briefcase behind.

As he moved back,
Brandt moved it

to the other side of
the table leg from Hitler.

At 12:40 PM,

as Stauffenberg walked
towards his staff car,

the conference hut
exploded behind him.

Hitler was blown backwards
but survived.

Those to his left --

Keitel, Jodl, and Warlimont --

were only slightly injured,

as was General Heusinger
on his immediate right.

But those further down the table
on the right --

Colonel Brandt, the man who
had moved the briefcase,

Korten, Schmundt,
and Berger --

all died immediately
or shortly afterwards.

Many years later, in 1963,

General Warlimont
described the scene.

Warlimont: Hitler was lying on
the big, oaken conference table

with almost the whole of his
length when the bomb exploded.

I myself must have blacked out,

though only for a fraction
of a second.

When I came round again,
I saw --

my first look naturally
went to Hitler --

that he turned away
from the conference table

and went to the door
right behind him,

supported by
Field Marshal Keitel.

He of course looked
somewhat worried,

but didn't speak a word,

and apart from that,

I remember that his hair
was somewhat on fire

and particularly that his
trousers were stripped

almost in the whole length
from foot to hip.

Powell: Immediately, everyone
blamed the foreign laborers

working on the site,
but Hitler wasn't so sure.

What was certain was that
he had survived

his closest assassination
attempt ever,

and that yet again,

his survival was
down to pure chance,

not the actions
of his bodyguard.

Colonel Brandt's action
in moving the briefcase

to the opposite side of
the heavy wooden table leg

meant that this had
deflected much of the blast.

The open windows of
the conference hut,

plus its flimsy construction,

had diffused the blast
of the explosion.

If the bomb had exploded inside
Hitler's usual concrete bunker,

everyone would have been
torn apart by the shock wave.

Apart from splinters
in his legs,

perforated eardrums,
and a sprained right arm,

Hitler was unscathed.

By that afternoon,
he was well enough to greet

the deposed Italian dictator,
Benito Mussolini.

As Hitler showed him
the shattered conference hut,

he crowed,

"More proof that fate has
selected me for my mission,"

and claimed that
he was immortal.

Within minutes of the explosion,

all checkpoints were alerted,
and the Begleit Battalion

sealed off the area.

A communications blackout
was imposed,

and Begleitkommando
and RSD bodyguards

searched for
further bombs.

But Stauffenberg
and his assistant,

Werner von Haeften,

had already got past
two checkpoints.

At the first barrier, the guards
had heard the explosion,

but Stauffenberg showed
them valid passes

and was allowed through.

At the second barrier,

Stauffenberg's car was halted,
but he got out

and telephoned one of
the headquarters' officers,

who then gave him
permission to proceed.

From there, Stauffehberg's car
drove through the Gorlitz forest

to Rastenburg airfield.

By 1:15 PM,
it was reported that

Stauffenberg and Haeften
had flown to Berlin.

And by mid-afternoon,
events in Berlin made it clear

that the bomb had been part of
a wider coup attempt.

Stauffenberg re-appeared
at the War Ministry

in the Bendlerstrasse.

His boss,
General Friedrich Fromm,

the commander of
the Reinforcement Army,

who had known of the coup
attempt but refused to join it

until Hitler was dead,
was detained,

while his deputy,
General Friedrich Olbricht,

proclaimed a state of emergency
with the code-word Valkyrie.

Key points in the capital
were to be seized by soldiers,

supposedly to guard against
a revolt by thousands

of slave workers.

32-year-old Major Otto Remer,

commander of the elite
Grossdeutschland Regiment,

was told to seal off
the government quarter

around the Wilhelmstrasse,

including
the Propaganda Ministry,

and to take Propaganda Minister
Josef Goebbels into custody.

[Speaking German]

Remer was an ardent Nazi.

The orders didn't quite
convince him.

He refused to believe
that Hitler was dead.

Goebbels didn't
believe it, either.

He managed to get through
to the Wolf's Lair

and spoke to the Führer.

He then handed the receiver to
Remer, who heard Hitler's voice.

[Speaking German]

Man: "Major Remer,
can you hear me?

"Do you recognize my voice?

"They tried to kill me,
but I am alive.

You are to restore order
in Berlin for me."

Powell: With his
crack troops behind him,

Remer turned the Propaganda
Ministry into a command post.

He informed all
military units in Berlin

they were under his control.

Goebbels then broadcast the news
that Hitler had survived

an assassination attempt.

Confirmation that Hitler
was still alive

and part of the army
had remained loyal to him

completely undercut
the coup attempt.

As his fellow conspirator,
Hans Gisevius, later described,

Stauffenberg worked heroically
to rally supporters.

Gisevius: I saw him
as he arrived,

and it was a performance you
will never forget in your life.

He rushed from one room
to the other,

and you heard
the telephones ring.

There was a permanent ringing
from Paris,

from Königsberg, from Vienna,
wherever you like.

Powell: But realizing the coup

was all but over
and the War Ministry surrounded

by troops loyal to Hitler,
Fromm jumped off the fence

and turned on von Stauffenberg
and other key plotters.

They were arrested,

and Fromm summarily
condemned them to death.

At around midnight,
Stauffenberg, Olbricht,

Haeften,
and Colonel Mertz von Quirnheim

were marched into the Ministry
courtyard and shot.

Just before he died,
Stauffenberg shouted,

"Long live our sacred Germany!"

At 1:00 in the morning,
Hitler broadcast

from the Wolf's Lair
to the German nation.

Man: "My German comrades,

"I am unhurt.

"A small group of ambitious

"and stupid officers

"have tried to eliminate me
and my high command.

"Colonel Count Stauffenberg
planted a bomb

"right next to me.

"I have some minor bruises
and burns.

"The circle of conspirators
who tried to kill me

"is small and has
nothing in common

"with the wider spirit
of the German armed forces.

"It is a criminal gang.

"This affair will be
settled in the manner

to which National Socialists
are accustomed."

Powell: He meant that
blood would flow

throughout the Third Reich.

But when Hitler said it was
a small criminal gang,

he was wrong.

As the Nazis dug deeper,

they discovered
a level of opposition

that was far wider
than had been expected.

War heroes and military men
of impeccable reputation

were implicated --

even a former chief
of Hitler's bodyguards.

It was profoundly shocking
for Hitler,

and would change forever
his attitude

to those people around him.

The day after Hitler
nearly died

in the bomb blast
at the Wolf's Lair,

the arrests began.

The SS was determined
to root out

every vestige of opposition
to Hitler

inside the German army.

And, in truth,

the extent of the military
plotting should have been

no surprise
to Hitler's bodyguard.

Over a year earlier,

the Gestapo had begun closing in
on the leaders

of the abortive
1938 Generals' Plot

to overthrow Hitler
if he ordered

an invasion of Czechoslovakia.

General Hans Oster,
deputy head of the Abwehr,

the military intelligence
service,

and General Ludwig Beck,
the former army chief of staff,

had continued
to encourage opposition.

But Hitler's lightning victories
in the west

had meant that there was
little immediate taste

for direct action.

That all changed
with Stalingrad.

Officers on the Eastern Front,

led by General
Henning von Tresckow,

the senior operations officer
of Army Group Center,

made several attempts to
assassinate Hitler,

all of which were thwarted
by the Fuhrer's

extraordinary luck.

Tresckow was encouraged
both by Oster

and his boss,
Admiral Wilhelm Canaris.

But in April 1943,

the Gestapo arrested
one of Oster's staff

for aiding Jews
to escape from Germany.

Oster became a suspect.

He was placed under
house arrest

and then banned from associating
with the Abwehr.

With Oster and Beck now under
constant surveillance,

the leadership of
anti-Nazi opposition

had to pass to other hands.

And the most important of these

was a charismatic young colonel,

Claus Schenk Graf
von Stauffenberg

Stauffenberg was from an old
aristocratic family in Swabia.

He had joined the army in 1926

and swiftly been recognized as
an exceptionally able officer.

Initially impressed
by Hitler's determination

to restore Germany's prestige,
Stauffenberg soon became

disillusioned by the Nazis'
brutal ideology.

In 1938, he had learnt of
the Generals' Plot

to overthrow Hitler,
and in 1940,

he was assigned to
the General Staff,

working under one of its
leaders -- General Franz Halder.

The two men discussed the need
to get rid of Hitler

before he led Germany
to total ruin.

Like so many other
German officers,

it was Stauffenberg's experience
of the crimes

being committed
on the Eastern Front

that convinced him

that his oath to Hitler

was null and void.

And while recuperating
from losing an arm and an eye

after being strafed by
Allied aircraft in Tunisia,

he made up his mind to turn

from talk to action.

His opportunity came when,
in September 1943,

he was assigned to the staff
of General Hans Olbricht,

the deputy head of

the Reinforcement Army
in Berlin.

The Reinforcement Army

was responsible for
training and supplying

recruits for
the fighting forces

and also for maintaining
security within Berlin.

Stauffenberg soon discovered
that Olbricht

was a senior member
of the resistance,

and through him,
met all the main conspirators.

He impressed them with
his organizational skill,

and soon became the linchpin
of a new plot.

The plotters immediately
faced a problem --

killing Hitler
would not be enough.

To overthrow the Nazi regime,
they would need

substantial armed forces
to defeat Himmler's SS

and its military arm,
the Waffen-SS.

This had grown hugely

from the 120-man bodyguard unit
founded in 1933

to guard Hitler's residences

into a parallel army
of more than one million men,

ruthless and dedicated
to its Fuhrer

and his regime.

Olbricht and Stauffenberg's
solution was ingenious --

they would use
Operation Valkyrie,

the contingency plan

for the Reinforcement Army
to put down a mass uprising

by the hundreds of thousands
of foreign slave workers

in and around Berlin.

Once Valkyrie was announced,

thousands of reserve soldiers
would move into action

and secure all government
and Nazi Party buildings.

The plotters'
other major problem

was how to get to Hitler.

He now rarely left
the heavily-guarded Wolf's Lair

or his residence
at Berchtesgaden.

This was solved
on June 1, 1944,

when Stauffenberg was
promoted to chief of staff

of General Fromm,
the overall commander

of the Reinforcement Army.

Stauffenberg's new position
gave him direct access

to conferences with Hitler.

It was ideal.

He also sounded out Fromm
about the plot.

Fromm declined to
support it openly,

but was not shocked
by the idea

and let the plotters
get on with it.

Five days later,

the Allied troops
stormed ashore in Normandy.

The plotters knew that

they must act quickly if Germany
was to have any chance

of negotiating
an honorable peace

and avoiding total defeat.

They also knew
that the Gestapo

was steadily
homing in on them.

Twice during early July,

Stauffenberg traveled
to Berchtesgaden

for conferences with Hitler.

On both occasions,

he managed to carry a bomb
into the meeting room.

But the plotters had decided

that he should only
explode it if Himmler

as well as Hitler
was present,

and on both occasions,
the SS chief was missing.

The next time would not
be at Berchtesgaden,

for unexpectedly, on July 13th,

Hitler decided to move to
the Wolf's Lair, even though

the reinforcement of his bunkers
had not been completed.

But luck seemed on
the side of the plotters.

The next day,
General Fromm was ordered

to come with
his chief-of-staff

for a conference
with Hitler.

On the morning of
July 15, 1944,

Stauffenberg and Fromm

flew into the Wolf's Lair

and were photographed
being greeted by Hitler.

Stauffenberg was
carrying his bomb,

and just before going
into the conference,

he phoned Olbricht.

Valkyrie was triggered.

Almost immediately,

the Reinforcement Army
began to move into Berlin.

Then Hitler's uncanny luck
intervened again.

He cut the meeting short.

Frantic phone calls followed,

and Olbricht was told
to call off Valkyrie.

It was a false alarm.

Five days later,
it would be for real.

By midnight on July 20, 1944,

Stauffenberg's bomb plot
had failed.

Hitler was alive
and hungry for revenge.

Stauffenberg and three other
leading plotters were executed

in the courtyard
of the Ministry of War.

General Beck, who had been
the plotter's choice

to succeed Hitler,
was allowed to shoot himself.

Fromm, who had turned on
Stauffenberg and Olbricht

in an attempt to cover up his
knowledge of the plot,

was relieved of his duties
and later shot for cowardice.

Over the next few days,

more than 6,000 suspects
were arrested,

at least 50 of them officers
of the general staff,

including Field Marshal
Erwin von Witzleben,

who would have become
the plotter's army chief.

From August, many were
displayed at show-trials

presided over by the notorious
judge Roland Freisler.

The once-proud generals

were humiliated by being
paraded in civilian clothes.

They were not
even allowed belts

to keep up
their trousers.

[Man speaking German]

Freisler tried to shout
the accused into submission,

but many had
their say in court,

even though the verdicts
were a foregone conclusion.

Many of the conspirators were
hanged at Ploetzensee Prison

in a particularly
grisly way --

by thin wire from meat hooks.

The executions were filmed
for Hitler's entertainment.

Some sources say
that as many as

4,000 people were killed.

It was the biggest purge

in Nazi Germany since
the Night of the Long Knives.

The trials dragged on

into the next year,

when an Allied air raid
hit the courtroom.

A piece of the building
fell on Freisler

and killed him.

Henning von Tresckow,
the man behind

so many assassination attempts
on Hitler during 1943,

avoided immediate arrest

because he was still serving
on the Eastern Front.

But he took a grenade
and killed himself.

As the Gestapo

investigated further,
Paris emerged as the other

center of the plot.

The German military governor
of France,

General Carl-Heinrich
von Stulpnagel,

had supported it,
and planned to use his troops

to neutralize key SS and Gestapo
headquarters in Paris

as soon as Valkyrie
was announced.

[Speaking German]

From January 1944,
Field Marshal Ervwin Rommel

had commanded
the German army in France.

Since his great success
in north Africa,

the Desert Fox had been
a hero of the Third Reich.

The Stauffenberg conspirators
worked hard to get him on board.

The Allied invasion of France

finally convinced him
that the war was lost,

and he tacitly joined in.

Rommel indicated in confidence
that if Hitler

were assassinated,
he would enter into

peace negotiations
with the Allies.

Stulpnagel would then order
all German troops

to evacuate France and withdraw

to the Siegfried Line
in Germany.

But on July 17th,
Rommel was severely injured

when his car was shot up
by a British fighter.

On the day of the bomb plot,

he was in hospital
and played no part in events.

But in Paris,
Stulpnagel moved as planned

against the SS and Gestapo,
even though the messages

coming through from Berlin

were confused.

By 10:30 PM,
his well-organized troops

had imprisoned over
1,000 SS officers.

It was a remarkably
effective operation

and showed how successful
the coup might have been

all over the Third Reich.

But the news that
Hitler was still alive

encouraged forces
loyal to the regime.

The next morning,
Stulpnagel had to admit defeat.

He attempted suicide,

but only succeeded
in blinding himself.

Nursed back to health,
he was then executed.

As the Gestapo
investigated further into

the French connection
with Stauffenberg's plot,

they discovered the most
shocking link.

The name of Rommel,

thought to have been
the loyalest of the loyal,

kept coming up.

Finally, on October 14th,
two SS officers

arrived at Rommel's
home in Ulm.

They gave him a choice --
either he could

go on trial for his part
in the plot and face disgrace,

or he could commit suicide,

retain his honored position
in the Third Reich,

and save his family
from retaliation.

Rommel was driven away from
his house and took poison.

Even Hitler's favorite general,

and the man who first led
his elite bodyguard battalion,

had turned against the Führer.

Nazi propagandists said

he died from his wounds,

and he was given
a grandiose funeral.

Gunther von Kluge,

Rommel's successor in France,
was also implicated in the plot

and committed suicide
when ordered back to Germany.

The plot was a profound blow
to Hitler

and led to massive changes
to his security.

No one, however senior,
was to be trusted again.

Everyone entering his presence
was now checked and searched.

Belatedly, his bodyguard
at the Wolf's Lair

realized that the real threat
was no longer from outside,

but could come from deep within
hitherto trusted ranks.

One of the few soldiers Hitler
could trust was Otto Remer,

the man who had foiled
Operation Valkyrie

because he was convinced
that Hitler was not dead.

Remer was now
promoted to colonel

and put in charge of
the Fuhrer Begleit Regiment,

an expansion of
the Fuhrer Begleit Battalion

originally commanded
by Rommel.

But even the fanatical loyalty
of men like Remer

could not stop
the inevitable.

By the beginning of November,
the Red Army had reached

the border of East Prussia
and was within 80 miles

of the Wolf's Lair.

On the 20th, Hitler left
his lair for the last time

and flew to Berlin.

The bunkers of the Wolfsschanze
were prepared for demolition.

And in January,
just after the Soviets

launched their great offensive

which was to take them
to the gates of Berlin,

they were blown up.

Today, the ruins can still be
seen deep in the Polish forest.

They remain a monument to
the megalomaniac dream

of creating a massive empire
in the East

which finally destroyed
Hitler's Reich.

And also to the fact that
nowhere, however well-guarded,

could the hated dictator
be completely secure.

As events showed, even at his
favorite personal residence,

the Berghof,
in the Bavarian alps,

the place where Hitler
should have felt most safe,

he was surprisingly vulnerable,
and once again,

the threats would come
not just from outside,

but from those he trusted most.

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