One hot morning in 1944, in an office in East Prussia where German officials were discussing war tactics, a briefcase was placed near the feet of Adolf Hitler.
It was there to kill him.
Laden with explosives, the briefcase detonated as intended.
But the events that followed the explosion culminated in a gruesome departure from the plan.
From favoured leader to 'recklessly' losing the war
There had been earlier attempts to assassinate Hitler.
Many high-ranking German officers thought he was "recklessly setting Germany on a path of war that she wasn't ready for", historian Nigel Jones tells ABC RN's An Object in Time.
No assassination attempt had worked. The Nazi dictator was well protected and highly cautious, aware he had enemies everywhere.
In 1939 when World War II broke out, Hitler was firmly in power and making significant wins, dominating all of Europe, from France to Moscow.
But by 1943 the tides of war had turned and Hitler was facing defeat.
"The longer the war went on and the more desperate the situation got for Germany, then the number of plots increased," says Jones, the author of Countdown to Valkyrie: the July Plot to Assassinate Hitler.
The plots included those formed within the military elite, where there were officers who had supported Hitler and his ambitions in 1933 when he was elected leader of Germany, and only later became uncomfortable with his methods.
They wanted to reclaim their country but they also wanted to make a point to the world and to fellow Germans that there was a conservative resistance, says Robert Gerwarth, professor of modern history at University College Dublin.
Assassinating Hitler would send just that message.
Sending a message to the world
By July 1944, Germany was being besieged by the Soviets to the east and the Allies to the west.
It was increasingly clear that Hitler was losing the war, which raised the question as to whether an assassination attempt against him still made sense.
The renegade officers were resolute.
Their reasoning, Professor Gerwarth explains, was, "even if the push fails, we will have made it very clear to the world that there was a resistance to Hitler within Germany".
It was time to act. However, getting to the most powerful man in Germany carried huge risk.
In order to kill him, someone would have to be willing to essentially sacrifice his or her life, trying to shoot him at close quarters," Professor Gerwarth says.
A group of resistors, comprised of high-ranking aristocratic officials, came up with another idea.
What if an apparently loyal officer, with a briefcase for a weapon, could get close to Hitler?
Major General Henning von Tresckow, one of the most senior figures in the plot, put up his hand.
But when Tresckow was deployed to the Eastern Front to fight the Soviets, the plotters turned to another man: Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg.
"Stauffenberg [wa]sn't afraid of danger," Erika Briesacher, associate professor in history at Boston's Worcester State University, says.
"He lost his eye, his left hand and all but two fingers on his right hand fighting for the Reich in North Africa."
And, as Chief of Staff of the Reserve Army, he was required to give reports to Hitler on the progress of troops, so he had regular access to the Führer.
A perfect explosion
On July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg attended a meeting with Hitler and other officers in the bunker of the heavily guarded Eastern Front headquarters in Rastenburg, East Prussia.
He carried with him two bombs, hidden inside his briefcase.
He'd made it to the room without being searched. Now he needed to get the fuses into the bombs, return them to the briefcase and get it as close to Hitler as possible.
He went to the bathroom, saying he needed to change his shirt. There, he started setting up the bombs, but his injuries slowed him down.
"There wasn't enough time to put the fuse into both of the bombs, so there was only one in his briefcase, which he brought into the meeting room," Professor Gerwarth says.
Stauffenberg, who was seated close to Hitler, placed the briefcase on the floor under the table, then excused himself again and left.
Then came the roar.
The explosion blew out the meeting room's windows and removed a large chunk of its concrete roof.
"Several people were blown through the windows," Jones says.
The plan had been executed almost perfectly — except the briefcase didn't stay where Stauffenberg had put it.
"The person who moves to Stauffenberg's seat essentially pushes the briefcase back," Dr Briesacher says.
It was now against the leg of the heavy oak table, which "absorbs most of the impact of the bomb", she says.
Furthermore, the windows, which had been opened to temper the July heat, lessened the force.
Four people were killed "but Hitler escaped pretty much with just ear damage", Dr Briesacher says.
Stauffenberg knew none of this.
He was focused on getting past security, who had orders that, in the event of an alarm — now ringing — no-one should enter or leave the headquarters.
"[Stauffenberg] literally bluffed his way out," Jones says.
"He said, 'I've got special orders. I've got to get on the plane for Berlin. You've got to let me through'. And they let him through … then he sped to the airport and jumped on his plane."
He then set the next phase of the plan in motion: to eliminate Hitler's supporters in every branch of the military and the police, in order to take control of Germany and exit the war.
Mass executions; a dictator still in power
Launching the coup into motion, in the belief that Hitler was dead, was a fatal error, and not just for Stauffenberg.
Plotters revealed themselves all around Europe as they put coup plans into action, including in Berlin, Prague, Vienna and Paris.
"In occupied Paris, all the SS had been arrested by the army, by the plotters," Jones says.
"The coup only failed when it became clear that Hitler would survive."
That night, Hitler's voice rang out over the radio. He, and his reign, lived on.
The plotters were forced to release the SS, and the coup was quashed.
Stauffenberg and other key conspirators took refuge in the headquarters of the German Army in Berlin.
Hitler's loyalists quickly tracked them down.
"[Stauffenberg] was immediately taken down to the courtyard with his three leading comrades and shot by firing squad on the spot that night," Jones says.
"It was rather good for him … because the remaining conspirators who were rounded up were badly tortured and in the end were hanged."
Hundreds were executed.
"The price paid for the failure of the coup by the plotters was terrible," he says.
'Totally convinced we did the right thing'
The briefcase assassination plot failed, but for Tresckow, one of the key conspirators, the attempt hadn't been entirely in vain.
Tresckow killed himself before Hitler could capture him, leaving behind a letter in which he wrote, "The whole world will vilify us now. But I'm still totally convinced that we did the right thing".
"Hitler is the arch enemy, not only of Germany, but of the world. When, in a few hours' time, I go before God to account for what I have done and left undone, I know I will be able to justify what I did in the struggle against Hitler," he wrote.
Yet even if Hitler had been killed, would the conspirators have been able to claim victory?
By July 1944, millions of people had already been murdered by Nazis.
Eliminating Hitler could not bring them back.
"It's questionable what success looks like," Dr Briesacher says, "where the only answer seems to be a violent one".
"I don't know what it would have meant to be successful in this plot."
By the time you're putting a bomb in a briefcase to eliminate one of the most dangerous leaders the world has known, perhaps it's already too late.
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