On March 2, 2008, at the age of 90, Phillip Friherr von Boeselager had passed away. He was an officer in the German military that was known for trying to assassinate Adolf Hitler, the leader of Nazi Germany. During 1943 and 1944, Boeselager attempted to kill Hitler two times. But, both attempts to get rid of Hitler had failed.
Back in 1943, he and his brother were two of eight officers that planned to kill both Hitler and Heinrich Himmler. Himmler was the head of the German Secret Service. The assassination attempt was planned on March 13 of this year when the two of them during a visit. However, that plan never came to fruition.
Himmler did not show up. The conspirators including Boeselager had dropped their plan to off Adolf Hitler. To them, it was instrumental that Himmler would attend the visit as well. They felt that if only Hitler and not both he and Himmler were killed, things would get more chaotic. The conspirators were afraid that there would be an internal fight for power between the SS and the German Army. In short, they were deterred at the notion that Germany would go through a lot of violent in-fighting with the possible creation of factions.
According to Boselager, he was the one designated to shoot Hitler. He still had the pistol that was going to be used in that assassination attempt. In that foiled assassination attempt, the number of conspirators were only a small group. This was only eight officers.
That number paled to comparison of in the second assassination attempt during 1944. 8 officers back in 1943 did not compare to the 200 that would be involved in the second attempt the following year. Instead of shooting Hitler, the conspirators would attempt to blow him into pieces. This has great significance due to the number of people and the method of assassination.
On July 20, 1994, they would try to blow Hitler up. Conspirators would end up putting a bomb under Hitler’s table. This was more of an operation than a simple attempt to kill Hitler. In this regard, this was designated to be a machine with many cogs. If one cog went bad, the whole machine is dead.
The main cog would be Hitler’s attempted assassination. Boeselager would once again be the one designated to kill Hitler. The first time, it would have been by a gun. This time, it was Boselager that would plant the bomb under Hitler’s table. Blowing Hitler up was the main cog in gear.
The cog connected to that main cog could be Boeselager along with 1,200 soldiers would take over Berlin. From there, they would place top members of the regime under arrest. But, the operation never came to be. While Boeselager planted the explosives, it was placed in a briefcase.
It could be considered sheer luck that Hitler survived. The briefcase was placed somewhere else by another officer. Instead of Hitler dying, the conspirators would be arrested, gathered up, and executed.
He feared for his life. So far, nobody went after him. Boeselager would be known for attempting to kill Hitler, failing, and living to tell about it. He died of natural causes. Before his death, Boeselager was the only surviving member of that group of conspirators.
It was a sheer stroke of luck that Hitler survived the explosion. If Hitler was killed, Boeselager would go down in history as the person responsible for the assassination. However, it would be unknown how and in what way the course of World War II would be affected if the assassination had actually gone through.
All it took was for an officer to move the briefcase to a different part of the table. If the officer didn’t move the briefcase, Hilter would surely have been killed. This is one of the times in which one small action could alter the events of history. It makes one wonder what every little thing we do shapes the course of our lives.