During Adolph Hitler’s despicable reign of murder and madness, there were more than 40 plots within the Nazi party to kill him, all of which failed miserably. Some were plausible, while others were ridiculous. Here are some you can read about and judge for yourself.

High-ranking Wehrmacht officers in the German military were behind these attempts to destroy Hitler. While initially they backed him as their charismatic leader, they began to see a murderous maniac whose madness was leading Germany to the brink of disaster. It is believed at least one of the motives behind these plots was the quest for peace between the United States and Britain.

George Elser, 1939

36-year-old German army officer, Col Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg implented a plot to kill hitler on Nov. 8, 1939. (BBC)

One of the earliest plots to kill Hitler occurred on November 8, 1939 when George Elser assembled and planted a bomb that was set to go off inside a pillar a few feet away from where Hitler was to be standing while making his annual speech at a Munich beer hall. Unfortunately, Hitler left the premises before the bomb, whose ticking timers were carefully muffled in cork casing, went off. Elser fled to Switzerland and was arrested. His confession led to his execution.

The Porn Plan

A ridiculous plot to kill Hitler involved dropping pornographic magazines on his home. Giphy

American soldiers initiated this absurd plot to kill Hitler. The OSS had secretly been monitoring Hitler’s activities and discovered, for some reason, Hitler was afraid of German pornography. The idea was to bomb his home with as much pornographic material as they could find in the hopes he would either die of a nervous breakdown or go mad. What was wrong with these soldiers is anyone’s guess, but high-ranking military officials rejected this idea on the grounds it was the soldiers who were mad and their plan was insane.

The Hormone Plot

The hormone plot to kill Hitler involved putting estrogen into his food. First Things

British spies came up with this idea to make Hitler less aggressive by smuggling estrogen into his food so his moustache would fall off and his voice, which was his most powerful weapon, would become soft and squeaky. At the time, there had been much research into the importance of sex hormones. The benefit of using them was they were tasteless and the people who tasted Hitler’s food before he did would notice nothing. The plan included bribing Hitler’s gardener who nurtured of all the herbs with which Hitler’s chef prepared his meals. He was paid to spray the herbs with an estrogen compound, but he decided to use the money to get drunk instead.

The July 20th Plot, and Operation Valkyrie, 1944

Claus von Stauffenberg’s plot to kill Hitler involved a suitcase bomb. HearthPwn

This plot to kill Hitler also intended to cause an ensuing coup d’etat (Operation Valkyrie), involved high-ranking German officials and the chief of the German Replacement Army, Claus von Stauffenberg. He planted a bomb in a suitcase and placed it under a table where Hitler would be sitting while attending a conference. Hitler was seated there but he was studying a map of the eastern front and summoned Colonel Brandt to come to his side, which he did, but the brief case was in the way, so he moved it further away.

The bomb went off and Hitler was wounded, but he was far from dead. Four others, however, lay on the floor, lifeless from the blast. The coup failed because the plan was contingent on knowing Hitler was dead. Since he survived, it couldn’t be put into action. Stauffenberg was executed and when Hitler realized how far-reaching the conspiracy was, he began to systematically eliminate everyone involved. More than 7,000 Germans were arrested, almost 5,000 of whom died excruciating slow deaths by execution. They were all hung with piano wire extended from meat hooks and their deaths were filmed and later exhibited.

With so many plots to kill Hitler, it is amazing they all failed. The course of history might have been different if even one had succeeded. Alas, their failure subjected the world to one of the cruelest, most evil and murderous tyrants of the twentieth century.

Do you think the Holocaust would have continued in the Nazi regime if Hitler had been killed? Why do you think all of these attempts to kill Hitler failed?

Additional image: MeMeCenter

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