Episode Highlights
Episode 1: How Hitler's Bodyguard Worked
Highlights
• From the early days, Hitler’s personal security involved concentric circles: an eight-man SS Begleitkommando (Escort Command) at the core, a regiment of elite SS troops (the Leibstandarte, or “bodyguard,” SS Adolf Hitler) to protect his residences and offices, and the Führerschutzkommando (Führer Protection Command), which evolved into the Reichssicherheitsdienst (Reich Security Service, or RSD), responsible for overall security and advance work.
• Besides encouraging rivalries among his various security services, Hitler relied on irregular habits and unexpected schedule changes to foil assassination attempts.
Question to Consider
The constant jockeying for favor among rival units might have encouraged absolute loyalty to Hitler. But what risks did thismanagement style entail?Episode 2: Early Attempts on Hitler's Life
Highlights
• Both the black-clad SS led by Heinrich Himmler and the brownshirted SA (Sturmabteilung, or “storm detachment”) led by Ernst Röhm had their roots in the street fighters recruited during Hitler’s years as a political rabble-rouser after World War I.
• After the failed Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, Hitler intended to use democracy to further his ambitions and learned the importance of loyal bodyguards.
• Emil Maurice’s affair with Hitler’s niece (and alleged mistress) Angela “Geli” Raubal may have contributed to her purported suicide, which nearly derailed Hitler’s political career.
Question to Consider
In your opinion, what drove the tensions within the Hitler-Röhm- Himmler triangle, and how did each man’s motives affect the development of the Nazi Party?Episode 3: Kill the New Chancellor
Highlights
• Death threats against Hitler after he became chancellor prompted a crackdown on ultra-leftist forces within Germany.
• In the survival-of-the-fittest struggle between Himmler’s SS, Röhm’s SA, and Hermann Göring’s Gestapo, Himmler invented assassination conspiracies to curry Hitler’s favor.
Question to Consider
Why did Hitler fear a lone gunman most?Episode 4: Night of the Long Knives
Highlights
• On June 30, 1934, Hitler arrested and eventually executed more than 85 of his political opponents, including Ernst Röhm.
• Although the SA devolved into a largely ceremonial unit under Röhm’s successor, Viktor Lutze, disgruntled former SA members actually increased the pool of Hitler’s potential assassins.
Question to Consider
Was the bloody purge of June 30th inevitable, or could it have been avoided had Hitler not called Röhm back from Bolivia in 1930?Episode 5: Jewish and Émigré Attempts to Kill Hitler
Highlights
• Many plots against Hitler originated with disaffected Germans in exile, such as former Nazi Otto Strasser, who set up the opposition Schwarze Front (Black Front) and later fled to Switzerland.
• In addition to lone Jewish gunmen, a Paris-based Jewish group may have plotted to assassinate Hitler.
• Working with a British officer during the Spanish Civil War, Soviet agents hatched a plot to kill Hitler that was later abandoned.
Question to Consider
What do you think of the suggestion that a Jewish emigration organization offered to spy on the Parisbased conspirators in exchange for looser restrictions on the number of German Jews who could relocate to Palestine?Episode 6: Kill Hitler Before War Starts
Highlights
• As Hitler moved to acquire Austria and the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, British Col. F. Noel Mason-Macfarlane proposed assassinating Hitler; ultimately, the British government dismissed the scheme as “unsportsmanlike.”
• Some German generals considered shooting Hitler in the run-up to war but backed off for lack of clear support from Britain and France.
Question to Consider
In your opinion, when—if ever—is assassination acceptable as a political tool?Episode 7: Bombs and Paranoia
Highlights
• On the anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch, Johann Georg Elser planted a bomb near the podium where Hitler would speak; when it exploded, however, Hitler had already left.
• Desperate to prove British involvement in the Elser bombing, Nazi counterintelligence officers engineered a sting to snatch British agents, which eventually exposed the British intelligence network in Europe.
Question to Consider
Why did the normally cautious and paranoid Hitler venture into the newly conquered Polish territory, trusting only local police for security?Episode 8: Dangerous Car Journeys
Highlights
• An automobile fanatic, Hitler loved touring crowds in open-top Mercedes-Benzes. Despite the cars’ heavy armor and other security features, this habit made him especially vulnerable, and his bodyguards knew it.
Question to Consider
How do the security procedures in Hitler’s motorcades compare with those used for world leaders today?Episode 9: Flights Into Danger
Highlights
• On several wartime flights, Hitler narrowly avoided capture or assassination— largely by luck.
Question to Consider
How might Hitler have reacted had he known of his own officers’ attempts to kill him in the air?Episode 10: Hitler's Dangerous Train Journeys
Highlights
• Polish Resistance fighters and the British Special Operations Executive targeted Hitler’s heavily armored train, the Führer- Sonderzug, in assassination plots.
• Some British strategists opposed killing Hitler—not only because assassination would turn him into a martyr, but also because he proved so inept at conducting the war.
Question to Consider
As explained in the program, Operation Foxley provoked a lively debate within British intelligence over the real-world merits of killing Hitler. In practical terms, would you have argued for or against assassination?Episode 11: Attempts to Kill Hitler at the Wolf's Lair
Highlights
• Heavily camouflaged and fortified, Hitler’s eastern military headquarters was the site of at least four failed or aborted assassination attempts—including Claus von Stauffenberg’s July 1944 bombing, from which Hitler emerged with minor injuries.
Question to Consider
How might history have changed if the July Plot had succeeded?Episode 12: Nearly Assassinated at the Berghof
Highlights
• A few would-be assassins targeted Hitler at his Alpine retreat, most notably military aide Eberhard von Breitenbuch, who tried to bring a pistol into a March 1944 conference but was denied admittance.
• Analyzing weaknesses in the Berghof’s defenses, the British Special Operations Executive considered sending a sniper armed with a rifle or a bazooka, ambushing Hitler’s car, or launching an airborne assault.
Question to Consider
Which of the options to assassinate Hitler at the Berghof do you believe had the best chance of succeeding?Episode 13: Poison Gas Plot in the Bunker
Highlights
• After the war, architect Albert Speer claimed to have hatched a plot to kill Hitler and other Nazi leaders by flooding the Berlin bunker with nerve gas through its ventilation system.
• In the final stages of the war, Heinrich Himmler made contact with the Allies in a last, desperate attempt to save himself; his overtures were rejected, and he eventually committed suicide.
