July the 20th, 1944, were in East Prussia at the Wolf's Lair, and it's a hot day stifling.

Here in the forest, at his remote campaign headquarters, the Fuhrer has made a concession

to the weather. Today's military conference is being staged in a wooden cabin in the

mountains. It's not a big space, about 30 feet by 15, but with the windows open, they

can generate some breeze. At 12.42pm, the big beasts of the Wehrmacht file in and gather

around the map table. Faces along, solid, however you sugarcoat it, and Hitler has a very

sweet tooth. The war on the eastern front is a disaster. General Heusinger has soon

in full flow, detailing tank movements, troop mobilisations, looking for positives, clutching

at straws, and suddenly. Outside, a hundred yards away, Colonel

Klaus von Stauffenberg watches the cabin go up in a fireball. He gives a nod to his

aid, who's ready at the wheel of their staff car. They must get the hell out of there, out

of the compound. The bomb they've planted has successfully detonated. They have just

killed Adolf Hitler. From Noiser, this is the Hitler story, and this is real dictators.

A few months earlier, in mid-1944, Hitler exists in a state of delusion and denial, despite

his efforts to prop up Mussolini, Rome has fallen. Italy, now a constitutional monarchy,

has signed an armistice with the Allies. Other Axis cohorts, the Romanians, the Hungarians,

the Bulgarians, the Finns, have little stomach for a protracted fight. In private senior figures

and generals have been urging their fury to seek peace before Germany herself is destroyed.

In the last 12 months, the Wehrmacht has suffered 1.7 million military casualties. Over four

million since the war began. Losses like this are unsustainable. And then comes a new and dramatic

development. When we left Hitler in the last episode on the morning of June the 6th, 1944,

he was at his alpine home, the Berghof, fast asleep in bed. He'd retired in the early hours with

...