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Abstract

This British newsreel reports on the failed July 20, 1944 assassination attempt on Hitler’s life at his eastern headquarters, known as The Wolf’s Lair. The conspiracy was planned from within the upper echelons of the military but included many others, and its failure led to the arrest and execution of thousands. This newsreel begins with clips from the German coverage that was aired in order to show the extent of the traitorous damage to the meeting room and to offer evidence that Hitler had survived and was still in control of the country and the war effort. He is seen visiting members of his entourage who had been wounded in the attempt in hospital and meeting Mussolini at a train station. Toward the end of the clip, the audience sees the deployment of auxiliary troops, known as the Volkssturm. Boys and men between the ages of 16 and 60 were called up starting in the fall of 1944 to defend German towns as the Allies advanced toward Berlin. Untrained and ill-equipped, many would die in the last months of the conflict.

Aftermath of the Failed Assassination Attempt on Hitler (1944)

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/… perhaps that was one reason why they attempted to kill their beloved Führer in 1944. This is the wreckage of the room in which the attempt was made. A few hours later, Hitler was greeting his new dependent, the ex-Duce.

/Göring was there, too. And that wounded arm we were told was sustained in the bomb explosion, which accounted for the large number of wounded Nazis here in hospital. But many people are now asking whether this man, here seen visiting them, is really the original Adolf Hitler. Whether the man who excused his long silence in that ineffectual New Year broadcast was really the German Führer speaking.

/Note Himmler and Goebbels.

/Meanwhile, the German people for the most part still fight grimly, suffering mangling, agony, and death. Nothing could be more significant of the march of events than what these pictures show. In almost the same month when Britain was disbanding her home guard, the Nazis were forced to organize the German equivalent. After five years of bloody war, the German people are called upon to defend their own soil.  

Source: Imperial War Museums