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In November 1939, Georg Elser, acting alone, planted an immense bomb in the Beer Hall cellar in Munich. Using two high-precision clocks, he timed it to explode at the midpoint of Hitler’s annual speech commemorating the Beer Hall Putsch. 

Hitler attended as planned, and spoke from the podium just in front of the bomb – but then left early to oversee his planned attack on France.

In April 1940, Hitler rapidly seized Denmark and Norway.

Then, on 10 May 1940, like a thunderbolt, the German Wehrmacht struck in the west, simultaneously attacking the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. That same day, Churchill became Prime Minister of Britain. 

The Allies did not suspect that the main route of attack would be through the Ardennes, leaving their forces trapped north of the German armoured columns. At Dunkirk, far more troops were extricated than had been expected, but it was still a disaster and France capitulated soon after. In this campaign Claus von Stauffenberg served as quartermaster for the Sixth German armoured division.

The subsequent Battle of Britain was a failure for the German Luftwaffe, and plans to invade were quietly shelved in favour of a far more ambitious project – the invasion of the Soviet Union, launched on 22 June 1941. 

By October that year, with German troops at the gates of Moscow, Goebbels announced to assembled foreign correspondents in Berlin that the German advance had ‘brought the war to a close’.

During the campaign in Russia, Claus von Stauffenberg came to know two of the key conspirators against Hitler – Henning von Tresckow and Fabian von Schlabrendorff. They would work towards the elimination of Hitler and the Nazis. 

Confronted by Nazi atrocities, Stauffenberg began to compile a dossier of war crimes committed by the SS. Then he approached senior generals, one after another, urging them to act against Hitler.

Having made life very uncomfortable for himself by stirring up opposition to the Nazis, Claus von Stauffenberg sought a posting to Africa, where once again he was engaged in active combat.

Written and narrated by Brian Walters

Original music, editing and sound design by the amazing Sam Loy

Episode Transcript

A full transcript of the episode is available here

Read the book TREASON

You can read more about Claus von Stauffenberg and the German resistance to Hitler, in the book Treason by Brian Walters.

For those with iPads, Treason is available as an interactive Apple Book here.

The hard copy can be bought here.

If you live out of Australia, the hard copy is best purchased from Blurb.

There is also a Kindle version.

Resources

For a list of the creative commons music and sound effects used in this episode, head here.

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By all means contact me, Brian

TREASON: Claus von Stauffenberg and the plot to kill Hitler