Day one: Luck of the Devil | Hitler's circle | No surrender

Luck of the devil

Hitler, with Mussolini, inspects the damage done to his headquarters by the bomb of July 20, 1944
Photograph: Imperial War Museum

Like many young officers, Claus von Stauffenberg was initially attracted by aspects of National Socialism – not least its renewed emphasis on the value of strong armed forces – but he rejected anti-Semitism and the mounting barbarity of the regime appalled him. When he turned irredeemably against Hitler in the late spring of 1942, it was under the influence of incontrovertible eye-witness reports of massacres of Ukrainian Jews by SS men. In late 1943, Stauffenberg deliberated with Henning von Tresckow, who had already led three attempts to kill Hitler. Tresckow concluded that only an assassination attempt in Führer Headquarters could get round the unpredictability of Hitler's schedule and the tight security precautions surrounding him. The difficulty was to find someone prepared to carry out the attempt who had reason to be in Hitler's close proximity in Führer Headquarters.

One prospect was Captain Axel von dem Bussche, whose courage in action had won him the Iron Cross. Witnessing a mass-shooting of thousands of Jews in the Ukraine in October 1942 had been a searing experience for Bussche, and opened him to any prospect of doing away with Hitler and his regime. Approached by Stauffenberg, he was prepared to sacrifice his own life by springing on Hitler with a detonated grenade while the Führer was visiting a display of new uniforms.

Bad luck dogged the plans. One such uniform display, in December 1943, had to be cancelled when the train carrying the new uniforms was hit in an air-raid and the uniforms destroyed. Before Bussche could be brought back for another attempt, he was badly wounded on the eastern front in January 1944, losing a leg and dropping out of consideration for Stauffenberg's plans.

Yet another chance arose when Rittmeister von Breitenbuch, orderly to Field-Marshal Busch and already initiated in plans to eliminate Hitler, had the opportunity to accompany Busch to a military briefing at the Berghof on 11 March 1944. Breitenbuch had declared himself ready to shoot Hitler in the head. His Browning pistol was in his trouser pocket and ready to fire as soon as he came close to Hitler. But on this occasion, orderlies were not permitted in the briefing. Luck was still on Hitler's side.

A last opportunity presented itself. On 1 July 1944, now promoted to colonel, Stauffenberg was provided with what had been hitherto lacking: access to Hitler at military briefings related to the home army. He no longer needed to look for someone to carry out the assassination. He could do it himself. This last attempt would take place during his next visit to Führer Headquarters, in the briefing scheduled for 20 July.

After a two-hour flight from Berlin, Stauffenberg and his adjutant, Lieutenant Werner von Haeften, landed at Rastenburg at 10.15 a.m. As soon as a pre-briefing meeting with Keitel was over, Stauffenberg asked where he could freshen up and change his shirt. It was a hot day, and an unremarkable request; but he needed to hurry. Haeften, carrying the briefcase containing the bomb, met him in the corridor. As soon as they were in the toilet, they began hastily to set the time-fuses in two explosive devices and to place them in Stauffenberg's briefcase. Stauffenberg set the first charge. The bomb could go off any time after quarter of an hour, given the hot and stuffy conditions, and would explode within half an hour at most.

Outside, Keitel was getting impatient. Sergeant-Major Werner Vogel was sent to tell Stauffenberg to hurry along. Vogel found Stauffenberg and Haeften busy with some object. On being told to hurry, Stauffenberg brusquely replied that he was on his way. Vogel waited by the open door. Stauffenberg hastily closed his briefcase. There was no chance of setting the time-fuse for the second device. Haeften stuffed this, along with sundry papers, in his own bag. It was a decisive moment. Had the second device, even without the charge being set, been placed in Stauffenberg's bad along with the first, it would have been detonated by the explosion, more than doubling the effect. Almost certainly, in such an event, no one would have survived.

Pleading his hearing disability, Stauffenberg had requested a place as close as possible to the Führer. Room was found for him on Hitler's right, towards the end of the table.

Stauffenberg's briefcase was placed under the table, against the outside of the solid right-hand table-leg.

No sooner had he arrived in the room, than Stauffenberg made an excuse to leave it. Once outside he hurried to the Wehrmacht adjutants' building, where he and Haeften were to meet the car that had been organised to rush them to the airfield. At that moment, they heard a deafening explosion from the direction of the barracks.

By 1.15 p.m. they were on their way back to Berlin. They were convinced that no one could have survived the explosion; that Hitler was dead. Had they been able to plant the bomb in a concrete bunker, instead of in the wooden hut where the early-afternoon conferences were regularly held, they would have been right.

Hitler was bent over the heavy oaken table, propped up on his elbow, chin in his hand, studying air reconnaissance positions on a map, when the bomb went off – with a flash of blue and yellow flame and an ear-splitting explosion. Windows and doors blew out. Clouds of thick smoke billowed up. Flying glass splinters, pieces of wood, and showers of paper and other debris flew in all directions. Parts of the wrecked hut were aflame. For a time there was pandemonium.

Twenty-four persons had been in the briefing hut at the time of the explosion. Some were hurtled to the floor or blown across the room. Others had hair or clothes in flames. There were cries of help. Human shapes stumbled around – concussed, part-blinded, ear-drums shattered – in the smoke and debris, desperately seeking to get out of the ruins of the hut.

Eleven of those who had suffered the worst injuries were rushed to the field hospital, just over two miles away. The stenographer, Dr Heinrich Berger, who had taken the full blast of the bomb, had both legs blown off and died later that afternoon. Colonel Heinz Brandt, who was connected with the conspiracy, lost a leg and died the next day, as did General Günther Korten, chief of the Luftwaffe's general staff, stabbed by a spear of wood. Hitler's Wehrmacht adjutant, Major-General Rudolf Schmundt, lost an eye and a leg, and suffered serious facial burns, eventually succumbing in hospital some weeks later. Of those in the barrack-hut, only Keitel and Hitler avoided concussion; and Keitel alone escaped burst ear-drums.

Hitler had, remarkably, survived with no more than superficial injuries. After the initial shock of the blast, he established that he was all in one piece and could move. Then he made for the door through the wreckage, beating flames from his trousers and putting out his singed hair on the back of his head as he went. He bumped into Keitel, who embraced him, weeping and crying out: 'My Führer, you are alive, you are alive'. Keitel helped Hitler, his uniform jacket torn, his black trousers and beneath them long white underwear in shreds, out of the building. But he was able to walk without difficulty. He immediately returned to his bunker. Dr Morell was summoned urgently. Hitler had a swollen and painful right arm, which he could barely lift, swellings and abrasions on his left arm, burns and blisters on his hands and legs (which were also full of wood splinters), and cuts to his forehead. But those, alongside the burst eardrums, were the worst injuries he had suffered. When Linge, his valet, panic-stricken, rushed in, Hitler was composed, and with a grim smile on his face said: 'Linge, someone has tried to kill me'.