By some freak, the main force of the explosion was directed away from Hitler. Four people were killed
CLAUS von Stauffenberg thought he’d pulled off the perfect coup when he placed a powerful bomb at the heart of the Wolf’s Lair, Adolf Hitler’s impregnable headquarters in Rastenburg. The disillusioned Nazi officer placed a suitcase carrying the explosives in the East Prussia conference room where the Führer held court with senior staff every day to direct wartime operations.
It was July 20, 1944, and Stauffenberg was a key figure in OperationValkyrie, the plot to kill Hitler, replace the SS and Nazi leadership and allow the Wehrmacht to take power in Germany.
To escape the carnage, the aristocratic turncoat slipped away shortly before the bomb detonated at 12.43pm, wrecking the room.
Astonishingly, the bold assassination plot failed, leaving Hitler virtually unscathed despite killing four other people.
At this crucial time, Hitler trusted very few people but he did confide in his masseur after the attempt on his life.
Said to have been named A J Weinert, the man’s views of the event have never been published in Britain. Years after the end of the Second World War, Weinert gave a series of interviews to German-born Wolfe Frank, an interpreter at the Nuremberg war trials of leading Nazis.
Frank’s vivid accounts of the conversations have been published in a new book, The Undercover Nazi Hunter, and provide a fresh perspective on Hitler’s reaction to the assassination attempt, which if it had succeeded would world history.
During one long interview, Weinert said “He [Stauffenberg] simply plonked the briefcase containing the bomb down on a chair in Hitler’s conference room, and beat it. What happened next was miraculously lucky for Adolf.
“He somehow pushed the chair with the loaded briefcase on it under the heavy conference table and stood behind the chair while talking to the assembled group.
“At the moment the bomb exploded, Hitler’s hand was outstretched over the table, making a gesture. The top of the table was blown upward, against his arm, which was badly sprained and bruised. But that was just about his only injury.
“By some freak, the main force of the explosion was directed away from Hitler and blew the legs off some of the people who were standing on the other side of the table. Four people were killed in the explosion.
“I saw Adolf less than five minutes after it happened. His trousers hung in shreds. In fact, all the horizontal threads seemed to have been blown away, leaving only the vertical ones hanging down.
“He controlled himself pretty well, I must admit, under the circumstances. He sat on the couch and laughed and laughed for quite a long time. And he kept slapping his thigh with his uninjured arm as he laughed.
“All his entourage crowded around to tell him he had been saved by an act of God. He seemed to believe it.”
He added: “I must say I haven’t much respect for the people who bungled that affair. If you plan to pull off something like that, you should go ahead boldly, prepared to go down the drain yourself.”
Stauffenberg – portrayed by Tom Cruise in the movieValkyrie – and an accomplice were tracked down in Berlin and shot that evening as Hitler reinforced his grip on his army and
have changed
James Murray
its high command. The German aristocrat wasn’t necessarily an idealist or anti-Nazi, as he has been portrayed by Hollywood. Rather he had in mind the salvation of Germany by committed military men such as himself and an end to corruption and maladministration by Hitler’s coterie.
Weinert remained with Hitler until the closing days of the war as the Russian troops and Allied forces raced towards the Führer’s