On the 20th July 1944, a bomb hidden in a briefcase exploded under a large table over which Adolf Hitler was examining maps of  the Eastern Front. The man who had planted the device, Claus von Stauffenberg, had left just before the explosion to initiate the operation that he hoped would lead to the overthrow of the Nazi regime. The plan failed, and Hitler would survive for another 9 months before his suicide on 30th April 1945.

Was this the closest Hitler came to death? What about the November 8, 1939 when Georg Elser so very nearly succeeded where Stauffenberg would fail more than four years later. And what about Allied attempts - Operation Foxley by the British, and then the very strange idea from the American OSS? Roger covers all these in the first part of our series on the 80th anniversary of the July plot.

Part Two continues on Saturday with Valkyrie, the 2008 film starring Tom Cruise.

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Killing Hitler: The Third Reich and the Plots Against the Fuhrer

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13 Minutes

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