Valkyrie Fails: Hitler Survives Assassination Bomb
Claus von Stauffenberg placed a briefcase bomb under a conference table at Hitler's Wolf's Lair headquarters in East Prussia on July 20, 1944. The explosion killed four people, but Hitler survived with only a perforated eardrum, minor burns, and temporarily paralyzed right arm. A heavy oak table leg had deflected the blast. Stauffenberg, watching the explosion from outside, assumed Hitler was dead and flew to Berlin to execute Operation Valkyrie, a plan to seize government buildings and arrest SS leaders. By midnight, the plot had collapsed. Stauffenberg was shot in the courtyard of the War Ministry. Over the following months, the Gestapo arrested roughly 7,000 people and executed nearly 5,000.
July 20, 1944
82 years ago
Key Figures & Places
Adolf Hitler
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July 20 plot
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Claus von Stauffenberg
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an assassination attempt
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World War II
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Adolf Hitler
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20 July plot
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Claus von Stauffenberg
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Guarida del Lobo
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Wehrmacht
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Le 20 Juillet
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Unternehmen Walküre
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Nazism
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Assassination
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