Okla-homey
7/20/2007, 07:25 AM
July 20, 1944 : Assassination plot against Hitler fails
http://aycu18.webshots.com/image/20777/2004946733380209248_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004946733380209248)
63 years ago, on this day in 1944, Hitler cheats death as a bomb planted in a briefcase goes off, but fails to kill him.
High German officials had made up their minds that Hitler must die. He was leading Germany in a suicidal war on two fronts, and assassination was the only way to stop him. A coup d'etat would follow, and a new government in Berlin would save Germany from complete destruction at the hands of the Allies. That was the plan.
http://aycu33.webshots.com/image/22672/2004924267589897558_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004924267589897558)
von Stauffenberg. The fact the plot was partially orchestrated by the member of the pre-war German nobility made Hitler even less trusting of the German hoi-poloi. Hitler already had an inferiority complex bigger than Dallas from his days as a struggling artist when people of von Stauffenberg's class looked down their aquiline noses at the Austrian-born dweeb.
This was the reality: Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, chief of the army reserve, had been given the task of planting a bomb during a conference that was to be held at Berchtesgaden, but was later moved to Hitler's "Wolf's Lair," a command post/bunker complex at Rastenburg, Prussia.
http://aycu33.webshots.com/image/22272/2004908141586875238_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004908141586875238)
http://aycu21.webshots.com/image/22100/2004913837288555596_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004913837288555596)
Remains of the complex still exist. You can get a sense of the size of one of the bunkers by comparing it to the door at the bottom. The nazi's tried to blow up the joint on their way out in 1945, but they build great bunkers. They couldn't manage to level them.
Stauffenberg planted the explosive in a briefcase, which he placed under a table, then left quickly. Hitler was studying a map of the Eastern front as Colonel Heinz Brandt, trying to get a better look at the map, moved the briefcase out of place, farther away from where the Fuhrer was standing.
http://aycu25.webshots.com/image/22224/2004965928011252160_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004965928011252160)
Lay-out of the room.
At 12:42 p.m. the bomb went off. When the smoke cleared, Hitler was wounded, charred, and even suffered the temporary paralysis of one arm-but he was very much alive. (He was even well enough to keep an appointment with Benito Mussolini that very afternoon. He gave Il Duce a tour of the bomb site.) Four others present died from their wounds.
http://aycu25.webshots.com/image/22184/2000235019883848854_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2000235019883848854)
Adolf: "Check it out Benito! They tried to assplode me right here but I'm still kickin'!"
Benito: "Dude!, this maproom is trashed! I believe I'd be plannin' to pop a cap in some mofos over this!"
As the bomb went off, Stauffenberg was making his way to Berlin to carry out Operation Valkyrie, the overthrow of the central government. In Berlin, he and co-conspirator General Olbricht arrested the commander of the reserve army, General Ernst Fromm, and began issuing orders for the commandeering of various government buildings. And then the news came through from Herman Goering-Hitler was alive.
http://aycu31.webshots.com/image/22190/2000272394552906109_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2000272394552906109)
Lard-a$$ Hermann Goering and henchmen survey the site of the attempted Hitler-killing.
Fromm, released from custody under the assumption he would nevertheless join the effort to throw Hitler out of office, turned on the conspirators. Stauffenberg and Olbricht were shot that same day. Once Hitler figured out the extent of the conspiracy (it reached all the way to occupied France), he began the systematic liquidation of his enemies.
http://aycu26.webshots.com/image/23225/2004915330785654228_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004915330785654228)
von Stauffenberg is fondly remembered in today's Germany. Hitler? Not so much.
More than 7,000 Germans would be arrested (including evangelical pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer), and up to 5,000 would wind up dead-either brutally and tortuously executed...or as "suicides." :rolleyes:
As a result, Hitler, Himmler, and Goering took an even firmer grip on Germany and its war machine.
Hitler became convinced that fate had spared him-"I regard this as a confirmation of the task imposed upon me by Providence"-and that "nothing is going to happen to me.... [T]he great cause which I serve will be brought through its present perils and...everything can be brought to a good end."
He was wrong.
http://aycu26.webshots.com/image/23225/2004910197088127707_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004910197088127707)
http://aycu18.webshots.com/image/20777/2004946733380209248_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004946733380209248)
63 years ago, on this day in 1944, Hitler cheats death as a bomb planted in a briefcase goes off, but fails to kill him.
High German officials had made up their minds that Hitler must die. He was leading Germany in a suicidal war on two fronts, and assassination was the only way to stop him. A coup d'etat would follow, and a new government in Berlin would save Germany from complete destruction at the hands of the Allies. That was the plan.
http://aycu33.webshots.com/image/22672/2004924267589897558_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004924267589897558)
von Stauffenberg. The fact the plot was partially orchestrated by the member of the pre-war German nobility made Hitler even less trusting of the German hoi-poloi. Hitler already had an inferiority complex bigger than Dallas from his days as a struggling artist when people of von Stauffenberg's class looked down their aquiline noses at the Austrian-born dweeb.
This was the reality: Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, chief of the army reserve, had been given the task of planting a bomb during a conference that was to be held at Berchtesgaden, but was later moved to Hitler's "Wolf's Lair," a command post/bunker complex at Rastenburg, Prussia.
http://aycu33.webshots.com/image/22272/2004908141586875238_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004908141586875238)
http://aycu21.webshots.com/image/22100/2004913837288555596_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004913837288555596)
Remains of the complex still exist. You can get a sense of the size of one of the bunkers by comparing it to the door at the bottom. The nazi's tried to blow up the joint on their way out in 1945, but they build great bunkers. They couldn't manage to level them.
Stauffenberg planted the explosive in a briefcase, which he placed under a table, then left quickly. Hitler was studying a map of the Eastern front as Colonel Heinz Brandt, trying to get a better look at the map, moved the briefcase out of place, farther away from where the Fuhrer was standing.
http://aycu25.webshots.com/image/22224/2004965928011252160_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004965928011252160)
Lay-out of the room.
At 12:42 p.m. the bomb went off. When the smoke cleared, Hitler was wounded, charred, and even suffered the temporary paralysis of one arm-but he was very much alive. (He was even well enough to keep an appointment with Benito Mussolini that very afternoon. He gave Il Duce a tour of the bomb site.) Four others present died from their wounds.
http://aycu25.webshots.com/image/22184/2000235019883848854_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2000235019883848854)
Adolf: "Check it out Benito! They tried to assplode me right here but I'm still kickin'!"
Benito: "Dude!, this maproom is trashed! I believe I'd be plannin' to pop a cap in some mofos over this!"
As the bomb went off, Stauffenberg was making his way to Berlin to carry out Operation Valkyrie, the overthrow of the central government. In Berlin, he and co-conspirator General Olbricht arrested the commander of the reserve army, General Ernst Fromm, and began issuing orders for the commandeering of various government buildings. And then the news came through from Herman Goering-Hitler was alive.
http://aycu31.webshots.com/image/22190/2000272394552906109_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2000272394552906109)
Lard-a$$ Hermann Goering and henchmen survey the site of the attempted Hitler-killing.
Fromm, released from custody under the assumption he would nevertheless join the effort to throw Hitler out of office, turned on the conspirators. Stauffenberg and Olbricht were shot that same day. Once Hitler figured out the extent of the conspiracy (it reached all the way to occupied France), he began the systematic liquidation of his enemies.
http://aycu26.webshots.com/image/23225/2004915330785654228_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004915330785654228)
von Stauffenberg is fondly remembered in today's Germany. Hitler? Not so much.
More than 7,000 Germans would be arrested (including evangelical pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer), and up to 5,000 would wind up dead-either brutally and tortuously executed...or as "suicides." :rolleyes:
As a result, Hitler, Himmler, and Goering took an even firmer grip on Germany and its war machine.
Hitler became convinced that fate had spared him-"I regard this as a confirmation of the task imposed upon me by Providence"-and that "nothing is going to happen to me.... [T]he great cause which I serve will be brought through its present perils and...everything can be brought to a good end."
He was wrong.
http://aycu26.webshots.com/image/23225/2004910197088127707_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004910197088127707)