The Night Germany’s Army Nearly Nearly Ended the War

On 20 July 1944, a group of German Army officers set off a bomb inside Hitler's military headquarters, then used the Reserve Army to seize control of Berlin. Soldiers moved on the government quarter, the Gestapo was arrested in Paris, and for a few hours it looked like the Nazi regime was finished. Then one phone call flipped the entire operation. This is the story of Operation Valkyrie, from the moment Claus von Stauffenberg armed a British-made bomb with three fingers on his only hand, to the midnight court-martial in the Bendlerblock courtyard where the conspirators were shot. The bomb at the Wolf's Lair, the flight back to Berlin, the commander held at gunpoint, and the battalion major who took a call from a dead man who wasn't dead. The whole thing lasted about eight hours, and it came down to a briefcase and a phone call.