Operation Foxley
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Operation Foxley was a plan drafted during World War II by the British Special Operations Executive to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
Although an assassination attempt was never made, historians believe the most likely date for an attempt would have been July 13, 1944 or July 14, 1944 when Hitler was visiting the Berghof.
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[edit] The plan
The plan was to assassinate Hitler on his morning routine as he walked unprotected to the tea house in the Berghof compound. The scheme called for the British to parachute a two-man team into the area surrounding the compound. The two soldiers were a German-speaking Pole and a sniper. The men would infiltrate the compound and get in place to shoot Hitler.
Security around Hitler was minimal because he felt nothing could touch him. As a result, several attempts had been made to kill him, including one that took place during the planning of this operation by the German officer named Claus von Stauffenberg. However, none of these were successful. Stauffenberg's attempt only injured Hitler. It did, however, have the effect that public appearances of Hitler were greatly reduced, to just one or two every year, thus limiting the opportunities for another attempt.
[edit] Prior plans
One of the first plans was to bomb the train Hitler travelled around in. SOE had ample experience with derailing trains but the plan was dropped because Hitler's schedule was too irregular, with stations being informed of his arrival only minutes beforehand.
Another plan was to poison his tea, to which he was addicted, but this was considered too complicated because of the necessity for an inside man.
[edit] Sniper Attack
Then a sniper was considered. A talk with a German POW who had been part of Hitler's personal guard revealed that at the Berghof, Hitler always took a morning walk, around the same time (after 10) and for the same duration (about 20 minutes). In addition, he wanted to be alone during this walk, leaving him unprotected near some woods, where he was out of sight of sentry posts. To top it off, every time Hitler was at the Berghof, a Nazi flag was put up, which was visible from the nearby town. A sniper was found and briefed and the plan was submitted. An inside man was even found, Heidentaler, the uncle of a captured soldier, Dieser, who was vehemently anti-Nazi, lived in Salzburg, 20 km from the Berghof and regularly visited a shooting range 16 km from the Berghof with likeminded shopkeepers. There had been some resistance against the plan, especially from a superior called Thornley, but he was replaced by a supporter of the plan, Templar, and Churchill was also in favour of it. The sniper and a Polish companion who spoke German were to be dropped by plane and sheltered with Heidentaler, after which they could make the approach disguised as German mountain troops.
The plan was submitted in November 1944, but was never put into practice because there was some controversy over whether it was actually a good idea. Hitler was such a bad strategist that it was believed whoever might follow him up might lead a better war-effort. Also, Germany was almost defeated and if Hitler were assassinated, he would have become a martyr to some, as well as causing speculation that maybe Germany would have won if Hitler had lived. Since the idea was not only to defeat Germany but Nazism in general, that would have been an unfortunate development. However, there were strong advocates on both sides and the plan was not put into practice because no actual decision was reached. By late November Hitler left the Berghof, never to return. He killed himself when the war came to a close on 30 April 1945.
[edit] Literature
- Roger Moorhouse, Killing Hitler, Jonathan Cape, 2006. ISBN 0-224-07121-1
- Operation Foxley - The British Plan to Kill Hitler, Public Record Office, 1998
[edit] Operation Foxley on television
The BBC made a docudrama about the operation, called Killing Hitler (written and directed by Jeremy Lovering), which is a combination of re-enactment with regular voice-overs, historical footage, interviews with various witnesses and a present day analysis.
In the BBC docudrama, a scenario was thought up by the analysts of how it could have ended and what would have happened if the plan had been put into practice in August 1944 and succeeded. That might have ended the war and saved many lives (possibly 10,000,000), notably through German cities like Dresden not having been bombed, the concentration camps closing earlier and Russians not having to fight on at the Eastern Front. However, the analysts agreed that the plan would have probably failed during the approach.
