Smithsonian Channel Documentaries
Mission to Murder Hitler
2009 • E4 60m
He was a shining light, a beacon of hope, in the German resistance movement. The bomb he placed at Hitler’s headquarters could have put an end to war and genocide. But like most German army officers, Claus Schenk, Count von Stauffenberg, was at first a fascinated observer of Hitler’s rise and his early military successes. He, too, was carried away by the triumph of the French campaign. It was a long road for this loyal follower of his commander-in-chief to become the man who tried to kill the Fuhrer on 20 July 1944. How did it happen? What turned an ambitious officer from an old aristocratic family into the mastermind of a coup d’etat? What did he know about the crimes committed under the Nazi regime?
