Wolf's Lair - Assassination Attempt

Assassination Attempt

The Wolf's Lair was the location of the 20 July plot to kill Hitler. During the period of reconstruction of the Führer Bunker in the summer of 1944, the daily strategy meetings were moved to the little building known as the Lager barrack, where staff officer Claus von Stauffenberg carried a bomb hidden in a briefcase into the meeting room and placed it just a few feet away from Hitler. At 12:43 pm the bomb devastated the interior of the building but left Hitler only slightly injured. However, four others died from their wounds a few days later. The force of the blast was diminished because, Hitler called the meeting slightly earlier than expected at the last minute leaving Stauffenberg enough time to arm one of the two bombs he had prepared. However Stauffenberg may have had the time to arm both bombs if it wasn't for a war injury on his hand, preventing him from working at a faster rate; and a staff officer unknowingly moved the briefcase on the opposite side of a thick wooden table leg from where von Stauffenberg had placed it, probably saving Hitler's life. It is believed that had the bomb exploded in the massive concrete Führer Bunker as originally intended, everyone in the structure including Hitler would have been killed, altough in the Mythbusters episode "Operation Valkyrie", it was determined that an explosion in an enclosed bunker could have been survivable, after a Rupture disc set for 100psi failed to burst in a controlled explosion.