Posted on 07/21/2024 1:45:24 AM PDT by know.your.why
Germany is paying tribute to Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, a high-ranking soldier in the Third Reich who came close to assassinating Adolf Hitler. The assassination attempt, which took place exactly 80 years ago, ultimately failed.
(Excerpt) Read more at dw.com ...
My understanding is von Stauffenberg arrived with two 1kg blocks of plastic explosives and two chemical-mechanical pencil detonators.
Due to limitations imposed by his war wounds, von Stauffenberg didn't have enough time to arm both detonators. So, he put the armed block of explosive in his briefcase and gave the unarmed block to his aid.
I've long suspected the need to arm both blocks was a mistaken belief by von Stauffenberg.
The two detonators could never fire at the same instant.
Simply having the unarmed block in the briefcase next to the armed block would have resulted in the armed block triggering the unarmed block.
“The assassination attempt, which took place exactly 80 years ago, ultimately failed.“
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Did it “ultimately fail”, or did it just “fail?”
Some things don’t need a modifier.
Had the July 20 conspirators succeeded, they would have removed the Nazis from power, and then tried for a peace treaty. So far, so good.
However, they only wanted to negotiate with the West. In that, they were naive. No way would the US and the UK abandon their wartime ally the USSR.
The conspirators also expected to keep territories Hitler had taken in the east, namely Czechoslovakia and Poland. Again, their thinking was incredibly naive.
With Hitler or without Hitler, Germany was finished. But I suppose a new and competent leader would have dragged things out more.
Yup. Hitler had awoken his own sleeping giant in the east. Cupid stunt. Stalin was determined to bathe in German blood and most felt like he deserved that revenge. Americans were glamorous to Germans. Russians...not so much.
Some say it wasn’t a big deal it failed because the war “only” had another year or less anyway.
These people never looked up causality figures for the last year of the European war.
Apparently, that day, without Stauffenberg, prior knowledge, the meeting was moved from the underground bunker, where it was held regularly, to a wooden barrack on the ground.
The explosive strength was designed for the bunker.
The barrack just blew apart, releasing most of the explosive energy harmlessly into the air.
Somebody was killed, and Hitler lot his new pants.
Yeah, plus originally, they were supposed to be in the Fuhler Bunker, and I think because it was so hot, moved to the wooden briefing building next door. That allowed the blast to vent out and not off the walls of the concrete walls inside the Bunker.
Even if they had surrendered to the Western allies, the Soviet steamroller would have just kept coming and Patton might have got the confrontation he desired.
> Even if they had surrendered to the Western allies, the Soviet steamroller would have just kept coming… <
I agree. The Red Army in 1944 was tough, experienced, and well-led.
If Patton had gotten his way, the US and the UK probably would have beaten the Red Army, mainly due to the west’s air power. But it would have been a bloody mess - something the American public never would have stood for.
Patton was a genius in armored warfare. But in many other ways he was an idiot.
Correct. Did Stauffenberg know about sympathetic detonation? Probably, as it is elementary as to how most explosives work.
You are both correct. History, at the points of decision, so often turns on small details.
Plus we now had nukes to play with.
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