British pay homage to plotter who tried to blow up Hitler in 1944

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2279200,00.html

British pay homage to Hitler plotter

From Roger Boyes in Berlin


ACCOMPANIED by Irish pipers and 70 Royal Dragoon Guards, Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, yesterday became the first British politician to attend a strictly German event: the commemoration of the failed plot to blow up Hitler in 1944.

In the German calendar, the parade in Bendlerblock, Berlin, where the chief anti-Hitler conspirator, Count Claus von Stauffenberg, was shot, is seen as a solemn reminder of the perils of tyranny.

The presence of Mr Browne was a break with more than 60 years of tradition and highlighted new military realities — British and German troops serving shoulder to shoulder in Afghanistan — that have qualitatively changed the Anglo-German relationship.

As Mr Browne addressed more than 200 German army recruits and the assembled British soldiers no one was left in any doubt that it was a sym- bolic moment for the two countries.

Count von Stauffenberg placed a briefcase full of explosives in Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair bunker before dashing back to the Bendlerblock, which now houses the German Defence Ministry, to take control of Germany with a group of fellow officers. The plot failed but the count became a role model for postwar generations.

[Boojatta]

1. If somebody could put a bomb in the same room as Hitler, then

why couldn't he simply pull out a gun and shoot Hitler at close range?

"...Bendlerblock, Berlin, where the chief anti-Hitler conspirator, Count Claus von Stauffenberg, was shot..."
Notice that von Stauffenberg was not put in a James Bond type of trap with a bomb ticking away. He was simply shot.

[theHandpuppet]

2. Well, he was missing quite a few body parts by that time

Including an eye, one hand and several fingers on another.

Here's a bio: http://www.moreorless.au.com/heroes/stauffenberg.html

[Boojatta]

3. The conspirators couldn't find someone who could both get close

to Hitler for a few moments and also aim a gun?