Wednesday, July 19, 2006
This Day in WWII History
On this day in 1944, nearly a hundred German officers plotted to kill Adolf Hitler and stage a coup. Colonel Klaus von Stauffenberg (who had been wounded in Russia and only had two fingers remaining), left a briefcase concealing a time bomb at Hitler's feet during a meeting at the Wolf's Lair in Rastenburg, East Prussia (now Gierloz, Poland). Apparently someone moved the briefcase to behind the stout support for the map table. The bomb killed 4 people, but not Hitler. In Berlin, conspirators took over, believing Hitler was dead. By midnight, they and von Stauffenberg had been shot or (according to legend) garrotted with wire (and filmed).
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 12:04 AM 
