______By 1944 it was clear that Germany was not going to win World War II. It was equally clear that Adolph Hitler had no intention of surrendering to the Allies and instead planned to take Germany down with him into destruction. A courageous group of German Army officers decided to finally act to remove the dictator.
______The plotters were in the best position of any group to get rid of Adolph Hitler. They had been organized since before the war began and had access to weapons in the totalitarian Third Reich. More importantly, they had access to Germany's war leader.
______Unfortunately, the devil protects his own. In a previous assassination attempt an officer who was to be inspected by Hitler was willing to commit suicide by strapping a bomb to his chest and engaging the Fuhrer in conversation until its timer detonated it. Hitler was in too big of a hurry to stop and look at the uniform the officer was modeling and the man was left with a ticking bomb on his chest that he barely disarmed in time. Another attempt involved a bomb aboard Hitler's personal aircraft. The bomb failed to go off when the change in altitude interfered with the bomb mechanism.
______Oh yeah. That Hitler was a real popular guy.
______Major Count von Stauffenberg, an officer on the staff of the Replacement Army, carried a briefcase bomb into the field headquarters called the Wolf's Lair. If the meeting Stauffenberg had been scheduled to attend had been held in a concrete command bunker as scheduled then the bomb would have killed everyone in the room. However, at the last minute the site was changed to one of the wooden buildings on the grounds and the blast effect would be dissipated.
______Stauffenberg went on nonetheless. He manuevered close to the head of the briefing table where Hitler stood and placed his briefcase underneath the table. He then made an excuse to get out of the room. After he left, one of the generals moved the briefcase out of the way, where there was a thick oak leg between the bomb and the dictator.
