Where does loyalty leave off and conscience begin?     

Specifically: If you’re a bodyguard for a man you know represents a genuine threat to democracy, what are your obligations to defend him? Should you be as willing to “take a bullet” for him as for someone you truly admire?

Members of Adolf Hitler’s bodyguard faced no such qualms. Right up to the bitter end, with Russian forces only blocks from the Fuhrerbunker, they manned their posts, ready to die for the man who had led them—and Germany—into the ultimate catastrophe. 

They made Hitler a closely-guarded target.

He was surrounded by fanatical bodyguards who were expert marksmen. He often wore a bulletproof vest and a cap lined with three pounds of laminated steel.

But his single greatest protection—he claimed—was an instinct for danger. He would suddenly change his schedule—to drop in where he was least expected. Or suddenly depart an event where he was expected to stay a long time.

Adolf Hitler

It wasn’t Hitler’s bodyguards who posed a threat to his life. It was the colonels and generals of the German General Staff. 

On August 20, 1934, members of the German army, navy and air force were required to swear the “Law On The Allegiance of Civil Servants and Soldiers of the Armed Forces.” 

Whereas members of the armed forces had previously sworn loyalty to Germany, the new law required them to swear an oath of loyalty to Hitler personally.

In coming years, this would prove a deadly trap for many German officers—forcing them to choose between betraying a sacred oath and remaining loyal to a man who was clearly driving Germany to ruin.

For those officers who could not abide Germany’s coming destruction, the choice was simple: Hitler had to go.

A series of assassination attempts were made against Hitler. All of them involved time-bombs. And all of the would-be assassins were members of the German General Staff. 

In one case, a bomb secretly stashed aboard Hitler’s plane failed to explode. In another, an officer who had a bomb strapped to himself unexpectedly found his scheduled meeting with Hitler called off. He had to rush into a bathroom to defuse the bomb before it exploded.

Hitler came closest to death on July 20, 1944.

Colonel Claus Schenk von Stuaffenberg was the driving force in a plot to assassinate Hitler with a time bomb. 

Claus von Stauffenberg

He had served with the Wehrmacht in Poland (1939), France (1940) and the Soviet Union (1941). While serving in Tunisa, he was seriously wounded on April 7, 1943, when Allied fighters strafed his vehicle. He lost his left eye, right hand and two fingers of his left hand after surgery.

For most of his fellow officers, the motive was craven: The “happy time” of German victories was over. Germany was losing the war it had unleashed on the world in 1939—and now they feared the worst.

This was especially true now that the numerically superior forces of the Soviet Union had gone onto the offensive. 

The Wehrmacht in Russia

The Wehrmacht and Schutzstaffel (SS) had killed millions of Russians. Many had died in combat. Others had been murdered as captives. Still more had been allowed to die by starvation and exposure to the notorious Russian winter.

For Stauffenberg, there was another reason: His disgust at the horrors he had seen committed by his fellow Wehrmacht soldiers upon defenseless POW’s and civilians in Russia.

Thus, Stauffenberg—more than many Germans—knew firsthand the vengeance his country could expect if the “Thousand-Year Reich” fell. Something must be done, he believed, to prove to the world that not all Germans—even members of the Wehrmacht—were criminals.

Most of the conspirators wanted to arrest Hitler and surrender to British and American forces—well before the much-feared Russians gained a toehold in Germany. Stauffenberg didn’t want to arrest Hitler; he wanted to kill him. A live Hitler might eventually be rescued by his Nazi colleagues.

Stauffenberg intended to carry his bomb—hidden in a briefcase—into a “Hitler conference” room packed with military officers. Rigged with a time-fuse, it would be left there while he found an excuse to leave. After the explosion, he would phone one of his fellow conspirators with the news. 

Stauffenberg intended to direct the new government that would replace that of the Nazis—and open peace talks with the British and Americans. With Hitler dead, the coup—“Operation Valkyrie”—would be on.

Anti-Nazi conspirators would seize control of key posts of the government. They would inform the British and Americans of Germany’s willingness to surrender. Provided, of course, that the vengeance-seeking Russians did not have a say in its postwar future.

On July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg appeared at Hitler’s well-guarded military headquarters in East Prussia. Like all his other outposts, Hitler had named it—appropriately enough—“Wolf’s Lair.”

Stauffenberg entered the large, concrete building while the conference was in session. He placed his yellow briefcase next to Hitler—who was standing with his generals at a heavy oaken table. Then he excused himself to take an “urgent” phone call.

At 12:42 p.m. on July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg’s briefcase bomb erupted.