The two had married in the Fuhrer Bunker less than forty-eight hours before their suicides. Although Hitler’s underground lair has inspired much speculation since the war ended, strangely very little is known about it. Its location is unmarked. Its actual dimensions uncertain. ibid.
A surprising amount of the structure has survived. ibid.
Adolf Hitler had reason to fear for his life. There were people trying to kill him. Not only the armies of the Allied forces but conspirators from within Nazi Germany. Even military men. A brave few tried to assassinate him. They almost succeeded. Unsolved History: Killing Hitler, Discovery 2004
In a secret command centre in German east Prussia an attempt was made to assassinate Adolf Hitler in July of 1944. It failed. Had the Nazi dictator been killed, the Second World War might have ended nearly ten months earlier. The man who planted the bomb was Wehrmacht Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. A wounded war hero von Stauffenberg had lost a hand and an eye the year before in a British strafing attack on his vehicle in North Africa. The thirty-six-year-old Colonel loathed Hitler. He thought the Nazis were destroying Germany. ibid.
Had the bomb not been moved, the table leg would not have served as a shield. The explosive impact on Hitler would have increased by a factor of three ... Had the bomb not been moved Adolf Hitler would have died ... Had both charges been put in the briefcase, both would have exploded, killing Adolf Hitler. ibid.
World War II was only brought to a close when Adolf Hitler finally shot himself. Just two bullets. Days that Shook the World s1e2: Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and the Death of Hitler, BBC 2003
Hitler’s refusal to allow his troops to surrender means that at least 20,000 people are dying every day the fighting continues. ibid.
Only one radio now links the bunker to the outside world. ibid.
20th July 1944: Allied forces have turned the tide against Nazi Germany in northern France ... Meanwhile, a plot is afoot to get rid of Hitler. The man who started it all. The next twenty-four hours will determine the fate of Germany and the fate of the world. Tomorrow morning this man, Claus von Stauffenberg, has a face to face meeting with the man he calls the Anti-Christ. The Nazi supreme commander Adolf Hitler who he intends to kill in order to free Germany from tyranny. Days that Shook the World s2e5: Conspiracy to Kill, BBC 2004
The Wolf’s Lair is where he [Hitler] meets with his high command. He has no idea that some of these men are plotting to kill him. Stauffenberg is not acting alone. He is part of a conspiracy involving hundreds of senior officers. They intend not only to kill Hitler but also to overthrow the Third Reich. ibid.
They are keeping other members of Hitler’s elite waiting. They now have to prime enough explosives to kill everyone in the room. First they have to build the intricate fuse system. The compressed spring held by a retaining wire is joined to a vial of acid. ibid.
All twenty-four people in the room were blown off their feet. Four were killed outright or die later from their wounds. Two pounds of plastic explosives had exploded less than a yard from Hitler ... But Hitler is not among the fatalities. ibid.
Back at the Wolf’s Lair the hunt has begun to find the assassin. The net is closing in on Stauffenberg. All over Germany the coup has crumbled. Troops that Stauffenberg hoped to mobilise never left their barracks. ibid.
April 1983 The Sunday Times, London: Hugh Trevor-Roper is Britain’s most celebrated historian. Days that Shook the World s3e3: Diaries of Adolf Hitler
The newspaper’s presses downstairs will be printing the biggest scoop the paper has ever had: the publication of the diaries of Adolf Hitler written across the whole period of the Fuhrer’s reign. ibid.
Trevor-Roper is the leading authority on Hitler and the Third Reich. ibid.
The new owner of Times Newspapers Rupert Murdoch entered a bidding war to buy the rights to the diaries. ibid.
Nazi memorabilia ... the number of forgeries is vast and uncontrolled. ibid.
No surviving Nazi had ever mentioned Hitler keeping a diary. ibid.
He [Trevor-Roper] decides to make a clean break and tell the world his fears. ibid.
The paper in the diaries was laced with a chemical whitener that had not existed before 1955 ... The ink was not more than twelve months old. ibid.
As the end of World War II drew near, Hitler’s Germany was not only waging a war on separate fronts but from within the Third Reich. (Nazis: Hitler & Assassinations: Hitler) The Plot to Kill Hitler 1990 starring Brad Davis & Madolyn Smith Osborne & Ian Richardson & Kenneth Colley & Michael Byrne & Rupert Graves & Helmut Lohner & Jonathan Hyde et al, director Lawrence Schiller, caption
Killing Hitler is not an act of passion. Killing Hitler is an act of reason. ibid. von Stauffenberg
Sooner or later we will all be held accountable for what this man has done. ibid.
20th July 1944: the attempt to kill Hitler. One man prepared to act to change the world. Stauffenberg: The True Story, PBS 2016
Some of the blast pressure escaped through the open windows. If Stauffenberg had kept the second charge in the case, everyone in the room would have been killed including Hitler. The heavy table leg diverted the explosion. ibid.
More men were killed on the front lines in the next nine months than in the previous five years. ibid.
I always try to defend Stauffenberg. He was absolutely the only one who could carry out the putsch. The old generals who took part in it were sorry figures. Reinhard Spitzy, diplomat
Adolf Hitler caused the deaths of fifty 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 twenty-five years no-one managed to kill him. Hitler’s Bodyguard: Jewish and Emigre Attempt to Kill Hitler, 2008
Winston Churchill had very few bodyguards while Hitler had thousands. He needed them. During his travels across Europe there were over forty attempts on his life. ibid.
Fearing that the SA was becoming uncontrollable, Hitler summoned Ernst Rohm. ibid.
The Night of the Long Knives: Hitler liquidated Ernst Rohm and other senior leaders of the SA. And took the opportunity to get rid of other enemies of the regime. ibid.
1933: Driving through Munich one evening Hitler became aware of a car following his own. ibid.
The next serious attempts on Hitler’s life came from Otto Strasser’s Black Front. ibid.
Adolf Hitler: I will be a prophet today. If Jewish finance, inside and outside Europe, succeeds in plunging the world into war, then the result will not be victory for Bolshevism and Jewry. ibid.
Hitler celebrated his easy annex of Austria with a trip to Italy. Hitler’s Bodyguard: Kill Hitler before the War Starts
The formidable Czech border defences which had been betrayed without a shot being fired were gloated over. The following March, Hitler broke his supposed deal with Chamberlain. The German army invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia, and there was little the international community could do. ibid.
Fate and a small number of handpicked bodyguards helped this evil genius to cheat death on so many occasions. Hitler’s Bodyguard: Bombs and Paranoia
Rommel started his formidable WWII career as a chief of Hitler’s bodyguard. ibid.
His hats were armoured with a steel lining. ibid.
Beer Hall: at 9.20 p.m. a massive bomb tore the podium apart; it exploded from inside the column holding the Swastika flag behind where Hitler had been speaking ... He had missed death by a matter of minutes. ibid.
Hitler loved cars and particularly Mercedes ... He moved in a heavily armed convoy of giant six-wheeled Mercedes G4s. Hitler’s Bodyguard: Dangerous Car Journeys
He would invariably sit in front next to his driver. ibid.
Hitler’s irregular habits remained his best defence against attack. ibid.
Hitler was fascinated by the possibilities of flight. Hitler’s Bodyguard: Hitler’s Aircraft and Flights of Fear
Secretly he rebuilt his country’s Air force. ibid.
A personal air fleet for Hitler that consisted of almost fifty aircraft. ibid.
[Hans] Baur served Hitler for thirteen years as his chief pilot. ibid.