Deep inside the Wolf's Lair on July 20, 1944, Claus von Stauffenberg stood in a washroom with three working fingers, crushing a copper tube of acid to arm a bomb. This episode examines how a conservative aristocrat and career officer crossed the line into high treason after Stalingrad and the undeniable evidence of the Holocaust, and how he and Henning von Tresckow rewrote Operation Valkyrie, a protocol Hitler himself approved to protect the regime, into a plan to arrest the SS and seize Berlin using the Reserve Army.

We break down why Stauffenberg had to be both assassin and coup leader, the chemical delay fuse that gave him 10 to 15 minutes, the guard's knock that left half the explosive unarmed, and Colonel Heinz Brandt nudging the briefcase behind a thick oak table leg. When the bomb detonated at 12:42, Hitler walked away with singed tr ...