July 20th 1944: Assassination attempt on Hitler
On this day in 1944, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler narrowly survived an assassination attempt in what became known as the July 1944 bomb plot. The plot was led by German Army Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg and several military figures who also planned a military coup d’etat after the assassination. The plan was to place a bomb under the table in a briefcase in a conference room in Hitler’s Prussian Wolf’s Lair headquarters. However, one of the attendees at the meeting moved the case behind the table leg with his foot, thus deflecting the blast from Hitler. The Gestapo arrested at least 7000 people in response to the attack and almost 5000 were executed.