Invading his enemies. Exterminating entire groups of people. Getting rid of his adversaries. Adolf Hitler would stop at nothing
to fulfill his dreams of grandeur and to make the Third Reich
an empire of unparalleled power. In June 1944, while the fighting raged
between the German Army and the Allied forces,
a group of British secret agents commanded by the highest
ranking British government officials devised a radical solution
to end the German dictator's reign, as well as the terror in which he had plunged
both Europe and the world. They embarked on one of the Second World War's
most daring missions, killing Adolf Hitler. The operation was meticulously prepared
over many months, Operation Foxley. Assassination was also one of its weapons,
one of its tools, and so it did engage
in assassinating enemy personnel. Operating procedures, details about places,
information about the target, and the identity of the sniper. Everything was placed in a file
kept secret by the British authorities for over 50 years
before it was declassified. There's an impressive amount
of accurate information. His daily routine, the way that's recounted, and the details of the buildings
are just remarkable. You have to find somebody
who's willing to take on, effectively, a suicidal mission. You do need somebody
who also knows how to handle weapons, is intelligent, loyal, and patriotic, and can be completely relied
upon to do the job. If you could get someone positioned there, you could not create
a more ideal situation for an assassination. The idea of being able to get him
would probably be close to 99 percent. Thanks to a thorough investigation
of British archives and British espionage circles, you will discover all of the details
of an assassination plot that could have changed
the course of history. An operation led
by a handful of secret agents who for a few months
held the destiny of Europe and the world in their hands. Among the 11 million documents
carefully kept in the National Archives in London are the remnants
of Great Britain's entire history. Some documents date back
to the 11th century, and all the country's archives are here. In these long corridors lined
with an infinite number of shelves. In one of the building's storage rooms, a rare document that was written
by the British Secret Service during the Second World War can be found. It's a document
that remained completely unknown for more than 50 years. Its name, Operation Foxley. Its 122 pages were typed
with a typewriter in 1944 and have yellowed with time. Inside, there are maps,
plans, drawings, and aerial photos. This file contains all the information
gathered by British agents in order to accomplish their mission,
assassinating Adolf Hitler. Behind the plot, whose existence remained secret
for more than 50 years, the SOE. The British Special Operations Executive,
created in 1940 and dismantled in 1946. SOE was created in the summer of 1940,
just after the fall of France. It's built on the foundations
of two or three other organizations. The two in particular that are important are something called section D
of the Secret Intelligence Service or MI6, and something called MIR,
which was a War Office department. Churchill's instruction to SOE
was to set Europe ablaze, and it was to do that
by encouraging resistance throughout the enemy-occupied territory, and also by carrying out sabotage
that's blowing up bridges, destroying German garrisons, carrying out
daring raids, that kind of thing. SOE begins life in Baker Street,
its headquarters are at 64 Baker Street, but it quickly expands
across much of the surrounding areas. Under the supervision
of its director and board, the SOE was organized into several boards,
groups, departments, and sections. Each section handled a geographic area. For example, sections
F and RF were in charge of France. Section X of Germany and Austria. Officers were recruited
from around the world before being sent on missions. They all prepared in training camps
located mainly in Great Britain. It's broadly two levels
of training if you like. The first level is very much what you could characterize
as being a commando training. It's paramilitary,
it's things like weapons training, lots of physical training,
and how to use explosives. When they've finished that training,
if they pass through that, they then end up at something
called the finishing school. That's where they learn how to operate
as an agent in occupied territory. That's where they learn how
to create a network, how to pass messages between the network,
how to deal with arrest and interrogation, and so on. SOE also had a special research
and development center outside London, where they were responsible
for devising new types of weapons. That's explosives, rockets in some cases, secret weapons,
silent pistols, and poisons as well. Some of the weapons invented
by and for SOE agents are kept at London's Imperial War Museum. Each was created for specific missions,
such as this one-shot silent pistol, designed to get as close to its target
as possible and kill quietly. Some gadgets invented by the experts
of this very special research laboratory have become legendary. It just looks like a cylinder, but it is a gun
that goes up the agent's sleeve. Using this loop at the top,
this was fixed to a rubberized lanyard, which would go
around the agent's shoulder or neck, and he could suspend this weapon
in the sleeve of a coat and drop it down
when he wanted to shoot it. It's a one-shot weapon relief. You fire it and then you let go of it, so the rubberized cord
pulls it up into your sleeve. It looks like a fountain pen,
but inside it, you could load it
with a 38-caliber cartridge which contains tear gas. This was issued to agents in the hope that they might be able to use it
to escape if they were captured by disorientating
or surprising their captors. You place the cartridge in
and you could cock the weapon by pulling back this plunger at the end. Then, when you want to fire it,
you need to press this button. The existence of these weapons and their perfectly suited design
proves one thing, SOE agents were trained to kill. Assassination was also
one of its weapons, one of its tools, and so it did engage
in assassinating enemy personnel. Yet, during the war's early years, assassinating Adolf Hitler
was not the SOE's priority. To find Operation Foxley's beginnings,
we must go back to June 20th, 1944. That day,
the SOE received a telegram from Algiers. Its sender, an agent stationed in Algeria, passed on information
received from a reliable source indicating that the resistance
was planning to kill Adolf Hitler. At the end of the telegram, the sender clearly asks his bosses if the SOE
should be involved in this project. Before a matter can be taken further,
we require the highest level of decision. In the meantime,
planning proceeds with MAF, but in view of the urgency,
the most immediate reply is required. The source was a French colonel. We don't know who he was. We've never found out his identity,
but he provided the intelligence that Hitler was hiding
in a chateau in Perpignan. In another telegram dated June 22nd, the source even indicates
his plan for the attack. He suggests the chateau
should be bombed quickly as Hitler
is due to leave on Saturday, June 24th. The information
was then immediately transmitted to Major-General Colin Gubbins,
the director of the SOE. Confronted with a plan
that could have such an impact on the war, Gubbins decided to refer it
immediately to General Hastings Ismay, military advisor to Winston Churchill,
Britain's Prime Minister. It may be argued that killing Hitler
would turn him in the eyes of the Germans into a martyr. On the other hand, I feel that his removal would certainly
shorten the war considerably. After consulting
the British Army's Chiefs of Staff, General Ismay informed Winston Churchill
of the planned attack on the Nazi leader. In this letter, dated June 21st, 1944,
he summarized their unanimous opinion. From the strictly military point of view,
it was almost an advantage that Hitler should remain
in control of German strategy. However, from a wider point of view,
the sooner he was got out of the way, the better. Churchill's specific position
on this assassination plot was not disclosed
in the telegram exchange, but it is certain
that the British Prime Minister agreed to let his agents work on the project. Churchill was very interested
in strategy, tactics, and the military. He thought and knew from experience
that you win wars on the battlefield. You defeat the enemy on the battlefield, not by removing individual figures. It's significant
that the plan went up to him in 1944, but Churchill didn't intervene. He doesn't say,
okay, we're not doing that. He lets the plan run. I think it's fair to say that something
like this probably did appeal to his adventurous, romantic spirit. Colin Gubbins
finally decided not to proceed with the French colonel's plan, and the Perpignan attempt
never took place. However, his correspondence
with the closest members of Churchill's cabinet convinced him
how important such a mission was. On June 28th, 1944, he brought together
eight hand-picked SOE members. Among them were Air Vice-Marshal Ritchie,
SOE Air Operations Advisor, and Lieutenant-Colonel Thornley,
Head of Section X, which oversaw operations
in the German territory. This top-secret memo
is the first written proof of the operation's launch,
now called Foxley. The points of view of the agents present
at the meeting are shown in detail. Each of them is identified
by his code name. CD for Colin Gubbins, director of the SOE, X for Lieutenant Colonel Thornley,
and ADA for Air Vice-Marshal Ritchie. In this memo, it seems clear
that the participants disagreed. Thornley was particularly
against launching the operation. X said that personally,
he was opposed to Foxley, as he believed the German strategy
and their conduct of the war might be improved
if Foxley were successful. Ritchie is very pro-assassination,
and very pro-Foxley. He wants to go with this. However, what's interesting
is that they tend to go with Ritchie, even though Thornley is a German expert,
but he's also a younger man. He's a junior ranking officer. On the other hand, you have Ritchie,
who doesn't know much about Germany, but he's a high-ranking officer
and he's quite senior in the staff. The meeting's minutes make it clear
that Ritchie was ready to take action and plan
the German dictator's assassination. It was essential
to obtain as soon as possible, all the available intelligence,
including whereabouts, movements,
the immediate entourage, et cetera. Despite Thornless reluctance, the preliminary investigation
into assassinating Adolf Hitler was entrusted to an SOE official
whose codename was L/BX. He was a major H.B. Court. His name appears
in some telegrams in the Foxley file, but the British Secret Service
never published a photograph of this agent. He was serving as an intelligence officer
in the Intelligence Department and a special subsection
of the Intelligence Department of SOE, but we know very little else. The first question L/BX had to answer
was where to carry out the mission. Between his visits all over Europe,
his public appearances, and his stays
in his many headquarters in Germany, Hitler was in constant movement. Above all, he was known
for being virtually untouchable. There were a couple of things that account
for the unkillability of Hitler. One of them is that his schedule and his reaction
to things was very erratic. Sometimes he arrived late,
sometimes he left early, and sometimes he arrived early. Things that were planned
for a certain amount of time were suddenly shortened. It was very difficult, I think,
to plan something too far in advance. Between 1921 and 1944, he was the target
of more than 20 assassination attempts and survived all types of plots. He sometimes escaped death simply by a fortunate change
of incredible circumstances. His assailant's pistol jammed,
a bomb exploded a few minutes too late or was too weak and only injured him. The guy was just lucky. Though Hitler claimed to be immortal, he was not ready to trust
that his luck would hold. For his protection, he surrounded himself with a security detail
specially trained to thwart attacks. Hitler's security system
began in the early 1920s with these stormtroopers, and they were basically
during these beer hall speeches, he had this contingent of ruffians
who would take care of him. Out of that then evolved this elite corps,
which was the SS, the Schutzstaffel. We know that that became
a state unto itself, a huge apparatus. However, there was a corps of guards who were assigned
to Hitler himself as personal bodyguards. When Hitler would go any place,
it would be inspected in advance. When he would arrive, there would be people posted everywhere
to make sure that there wasn't a sniper, that there wasn't a bomb planted
or something. It was a very thorough operation
that was in place to protect him. Although Hitler could drive
in an open car like that and it looked very easy,
it was very carefully orchestrated, and very carefully controlled. To kill Hitler, SOE agents
decided to focus their efforts on Bavaria in southern Germany,
specifically on the Obersalzberg mountain. Hitler had built his house,
the Berghof, there, and it was where he regularly spent time
with his mistress, Eva Braun. Starting in the 1930s, the area
had been transformed into a gigantic, highly secure compound. Adolf Hitler once said, I spent my most pleasant times here
and conceived my great ideas. This was the place of reference for him. He spent, in fact,
as little time in Berlin as he could. Once you were inside the Führer's house, this closed security zone around Hitler, Hitler lived a more relaxed existence. The SOE believed that Hitler
was more relaxed in his Bavarian house, and thus more vulnerable
than during his official appearances. L/BX began to collect information
about the Obersalzberg compound. His goal was to find a breach
in the security system set up around the Führer's house. He was taking that information
from other departments and other agencies, particularly from MI6
or the Secret Intelligence Service, SIS. He's getting information
from pre-war press reports, but also from prisoners of war. This photo, for example, shows a German soldier
standing a few meters from Hitler as he inspected the troops. Above him, the letters P.W.
for prisoner of war, indicate that this soldier
was taken prisoner by the English after being stationed at the Berghof. This was apparently a valuable source
of information for SOE officials. The intelligence data
was collected in various forms. Some of it
was the climate, topography of areas where the operation could take place. For example, in Salzburg,
they were interested in the terrain. How hard would that be? How can you move people around
in the terrain? As we inspect the files pages, we find the plans for the ground floor
of the Berghof, Hitler's personal home, drawings of German uniforms, but also speculation
about the Führer's health. It's a colossal amount of information,
with some extremely precise details. The fog machine there
could envelop the entire mountain. They knew about the bunkers that existed, even the location of his personal bunker,
which was there. There's an impressive amount
of accurate information, his daily routine, the way it's recounted, and the details
of the buildings are just remarkable. L/BX's investigation
was certainly meticulous, but it relied on information
that was sometimes obsolete, lacking in precision,
or even totally wrong. One was the floor plan for the Berghof,
and this is rather surprising. It shows the reception hall and then it shows Hitler's study
with a wall separating it from the door. The study was one floor up,
the reception area was completely open, and the British intelligence
should have known this because Chamberlain was in that room. There were public photographs
of what the space looked like. In some ways,
they had a very granular analysis of the layout of the Berghof but missed some things that,
if you're trying to assassinate someone, we're actually pretty fundamental to know. Despite his shortcomings
in his investigation, L/BX had to devise
several possible ways to kill Hitler. Therefore, he explored different avenues. One option involved taking advantage
of his many train trips in the region. Hitler often used his personal train
to travel from Munich, Berlin, or Leipzig. The train had 14 cars,
one of which was reserved for him. About 100 people worked on it, including about 20 entirely dedicated
to the dictator's security. On his way to Berghof, Hitler frequently stopped
at Kleissheim Castle, a Nazi command post
located west of Salzburg in Austria. On these trips, his train stopped
at a small, isolated station. A car picked him up
and took him to the castle, and then brought him back
when he was ready to leave. The British agents identified
two different places where they dropped Hitler off. The idea is that he'd have
either an individual or a party, and SOE team who'd be hiding in the woods and would be able to assassinate Hitler
as he's making the journey from the car to the train. In this scenario, shooters would use
a portable anti-tank weapon called a PIAT. This weapon, which was replaced
by the bazooka after the war, had been used by British soldiers
since April 1943. Although designed to have a maximum range
of 300 meters, in fact, the weapon was only considered effective
on targets just 100 meters away. Extremely cumbersome,
it had to be operated by two soldiers, and its firing rate of two shots
per minute made it very impractical in a combat zone. The kinds of weapons they're using, particularly with PIAT, this very crude,
it's not a precision weapon, it would be very difficult
to hit a target, certainly at 250 or 300 meters
with a weapon like that. The weapon's lack of precision
made the operation very iffy. The option of attacking Hitler on his way
back from Kleissheim Castle was abandoned by the SOE. Another idea
to get to Adolf Hitler on his train was to poison the water on board
so that he died while drinking his tea. British agents managed to obtain
an extremely precise plan for the fifth train car
where the dictator took his meals. Here, you can see the location
of the cupboards, tables, lamps, wine cellar, and kitchen. The plan also shows the tank
for the potable water used for cooking. Located above a sliding door, this 100-liter tank
was filled from the top. However, this option involves
several unknowns. You have the problem of actually
getting it in the water supply. We know that a number of French women
were employed to clean the train, so maybe there was a possibility
to infiltrate it that way, but it's not clear. How would you infiltrate
this working party? How would you get on top
of the train to do it and so on? They had to presume that Hitler,
for example, was using the train water
to eat and to drink, when really he was more likely
to perhaps have bottled water and that's much more hard to target. This is sealed bottles of water. How SOE hoped to get poison
inside a sealed bottle of water is perhaps harder to imagine. Employing an anti-tank weapon, poisoning, the Foxley file
reveals a long list of plots to assassinate Hitler on his train. Some of the options
do not seem well thought out, such as derailing the Führer's train. The most favorable point for derailing
and destroying Hitler's train is a tunnel. In Germany, not only is the track itself
relatively free from military patrols, but neither bridges nor tunnels
are so heavily guarded as in the occupied territory. A sabotage party disguised as von polizei,
with one member in mufti as a Gestapo man, should be able to take over,
lay their charges, and destroy the train in the tunnel. Some of L/BX's other proposals
even seem completely crazy. An attempt might also be made
to derail the train as it passed through a station
by throwing under its wheels a suitcase filled with explosives. For this, the train would have to pass
on a track adjacent to the platform on which the operative was standing, and the operative be prepared
to take the consequences. How on earth
you would get an agent as close as that because the train stations
would have been closely guarded? Also, you have to find somebody
who's willing to take on, effectively, a suicidal mission, and also, he's got to somehow arm
this bomb before he throws it. An agent under extreme pressure in those kinds of circumstances
is unlikely to succeed, I think so. There were so many different elements
and so many complications. As I said, even the unpredictability
of Hitler scheduling the itinerary, so many elements,
so many security-related issues that I would not have bet
on that happening. After several weeks of investigation,
the SOE agents have to face facts. Their plots to kill Hitler
on his train are unconvincing. They begin to favor a second way, killing the Führer
while he's staying at his Berghof home. An air raid is quickly dismissed. The idea of bombing over Salzburg
would have just been pure folly because first of all, you had this enormous
underground infrastructure of bunkers and bomb shelters,
and it was literally an entire city, and there were air raid alarms
that would go off well in advance and everyone would have gone there. The idea of thinking
that you could kill Hitler by bombing him and the Berghof was just impossible. The SOE concentrated on what seemed
to be Hitler's only vulnerability. The moment he completely
let his guard down. His morning walk between his Berghof
and the small tea room located a few hundred meters below. According to local SOE sources, this country stroll was something
of a ritual for the dictator. Thus, from the middle of March 1944, before which date
the snow was too thick, Hitler went to the tea house
nearly every day. He would probably be up at 9:00
or 10:00 and then come down because he gets his hair trimmed and then walks out down the driveway
to cross the street. Then the path would begin
to the most modern townhouse, and it was about a 15-20 minute stroll. Hitler wanted this private,
reflective time for himself. He wanted to feel free. Most of the photographs show him, accompanied by a couple
of his intimate associates. They would walk along, but there's never
a gaggle of SS men with him. They were supposed
to always keep at a distance and be invisible to him because he just
wanted that sense of freedom. It was the one place in the world where he had that sense
of freedom and openness. L/BX focused much of his research
on this two-kilometer, 20-minute walk. The idea here was to shoot him
with a sniper or two snipers. Now, to get people in, to get agents into Germany
would be very difficult. This is southern Germany, so perhaps they could be infiltrated
overland, perhaps from Austria, Switzerland, or other countries
surrounding Germany. Another option would be
to drop them indirectly by parachute. The plan was to disguise the sniper
as a German soldier wearing a Gebirgsjäger uniform. This uniform, reserved for mountain troops,
was worn by all the Obersalzberg soldiers, including the SS and the RSD,
the Führer's personal security detail. The weapon selected to assassinate Hitler had to be part
of the German Army's arsenal. They chose a Mauser sniper rifle
with a telescopic sight. The officer would also be equipped
with hand grenades to defend himself
in the event he needed to escape. Once in position, the sniper needed to follow the path
that the SOE agents had carefully plotted. Approach from the LaRosa bark through the woods
to the wire fence near the point at which the concrete
bypass cuts the route, followed by Hitler in his walk. The sniper's route
gave him access to the fence surrounding the Nazi-occupied area. His objective was to position himself
as close as possible to the Führer's path. From this point on, the timing was tight. The officer had to pass
through the fence after 10:00 a.m. to avoid the RSD patrol that preceded
Adolf Hitler during his walk. L/BX had carefully gathered information
about this fence's height, size, and distance between the poles. Mesh wire, 200 to 220 centimeters high. Steel tubes at intervals
of three to five meters. Three to four strands of barbed wire. They planned for the agent
to carry specially designed wire cutters to be able to cut a hole in the fence. Once inside the zone, the shooter
had to move closer to Hitler's path so that the distance
between the gun and its target was between 100 and 200 meters. This is probably
not the most perfect weapon for the job, but in terms of its accuracy, it also has a very large muzzle flash
when it's fired, which is not perfect
for this sort of clandestine operation, but it had to fit the disguise and at the range that they were intending
to shoot at Hitler, which was supposed
to be between 1 and 200 meters, then it was perfectly accurate enough. Once the sniper was in position,
the firing distance would be ideal. By the time
his target approached slowly on the path, the British agent
would have enough time to aim, fire, and kill Adolf Hitler. If you could get someone positioned there, you could not create
a more ideal situation for an assassination. You have this open meadow with this path
with absolutely no protection, and no place to run. I think the idea of a sniper
embedded in the trees there and having Hitler moving
at this strolling pace with at most two,
three, or four people around him in conversation
or lagging behind, whatever, the idea of being able to get him would be probably close to 99 percent. However, in the SOE,
as this assassination plot takes shape, two main obstacles
stand in the way of the mission's success. The first is getting the shooter
into enemy territory. Infiltrating agents in Germany
is always difficult. One of the key problems
that the X section faces is that it has no connections with the internal resistance
there is in Germany. It has to rely often
on parachuting agents blind, so they're not being received
by a reception committee on the ground. It basically means
they could end up pretty much anywhere. Or if they're infiltrated by land, clearly they've got to have a story,
a disguise, a false identity. These are questions that the files
do not go into great detail about. These kinds of details
would have had to have been worked out further down the line. The second obstacle
was a crucial lack of information concerning a key area on the route,
the woods near the Larose Bark River, where the sniper was supposed
to enter the security zone. Probably the one factor that the British intelligence
couldn't know, but would absolutely be vital
to the success of the operation was the degree
to which the woods were patrolled, because once you're in there,
the woods are so dense, there's so much underbrush
that the capacity to embed someone and have them hiding
there and not be seen is very good. However, the question is,
were these woods being patrolled by dogs, and if so, how often? This comes down to the fact that it wasn't really how good
the SS officers were, the SS guards were,
and how good their dogs were. It's an unknown factor,
but in the real world, when you're up there, this could have been
a make-it-or-break-it thing. L/BX knew that the sniper could fail. In the event the shooter missed his target
or arrived too late, he imagined a plan B. He suggested
that a second team of two agents hide in the woods near the tea room. They would take advantage of the diversion
caused by the first sniper's attempt to attack Hitler in his car, as he was evacuated
from the tea room to the Berghof. The mission was highly risky
but achievable. A crucial question remained:
who would be chosen to assassinate Hitler? Given the difficulty of infiltrating
the resistance on German territory, the SOE considered recruiting agents
from Eastern European countries. Choice and assembly
of a team of assassins. No easy matter, but Poles, Russians
and Czechs provide the best field. There's a relatively small number
of people to draw on, and of course,
they've got to have the right quality, so they've got
to have the right temperament and they've got to have
obviously the ability to pass as a German. At the same time, you do need somebody
who can not just speak the language but knows how to handle weapons,
is intelligent, and is loyal, patriotic, and can be completely
relied upon to do the job. Within section X, SOE agents were clear. First and foremost,
they need an outstanding marksman. He would have to be a first-class marksman
even before special training. On March 16th, 1945, another agent with the codename
AD/X sent a telegram to New York. It seems that the SOE had finally found
an agent for the mission. His name, Captain Edmund Haley Bennett,
a British officer stationed in Washington. For your private information, we are considering using this man
for a high-priority assassination task, which would require his lying low
in Germany for a considerable period, collecting the necessary intelligence
to enable him to do the job. This document,
written by an SOE analyst in 1945 and declassified in November 2014, is the information on Edmund Bennett
concerning his potential recruitment. These few lines
give two valuable indications about his abilities. IO means intelligence officer. In Washington, Bennett was already
employed as an intelligence agent. His specialty tells us even more.
SA means small arms. This includes pistols and guns. Bennett was 25 years old in 1944. He was a young Englishman
who came from Manchester. Before the war,
he'd worked in the textile industry, and he spent two years working
in Germany for a German textile firm. He could speak fluent German. During the war,
he joined the army very early on, and he'd fought as a soldier as well
and been badly wounded in North Africa. The SOE had to first ensure
that he was not a threat to the state. The abbreviation PTC
means passed through the cards. This shows the date on which the SOE
launched its usual background check in MI5's files. Six days later,
the acronym NT for No Trace meant that there was nothing
negative on his background. His application
could therefore be considered. The first meeting between Captain Bennett and the SEO officer
in charge of recruiting him took place in Washington in March 1945. On March 22nd, a telegram sent to London seemed to confirm that the recruitment
for the Foxley mission was on track. Far from being discouraged
by my intimidations of the possible toughness
of the assignment, showed even greater keenness. He, however,
wishes to make one stipulation, which is that
he will not find himself out of a job on completion of the assignment or if the German war ends
before the operation takes place. Since his present interesting and specialized employment
is good for the duration of both wars. He would like to get
a permanent clandestine job and says be happy
to live in Germany after the war. However, on March 26th, four days after the telegram
confirmed Bennett's interest, the SOE headquarters
sent a final message to the United States to let their liaison officer know
that in the end, the young Englishman
would not be recruited for the mission. Under present circumstances, do not feel justified
in applying for this officer. May revert later. They thought of a different option. They thought
that somebody else was more suitable. It's difficult to tell, the files don't
tell you precisely why he wasn't used. It's almost certain, bear in mind this
is a late March or early April of 1945, five or six weeks away from the death
of Hitler and the end of the war, I think it's becoming clear
to SOE officers in action that they're really running out of time,
and there simply isn't the time. If this guy would need training,
for example, that would have taken
a few weeks at the very least. The events of the war, and the advance of the allies into Germany
are overtaking SOE's planning. Among all the documents
kept in the National Archives, the March 26th, 1945 telegram indicating that Captain Bennett
would not be recruited is one of the last records
concerning Operation Foxley. At this time, Churchill was already convinced
that the Allied victory over Nazi Germany was only a matter of time. In this context, the risks involved
in assassinating Adolf Hitler outweighed the benefits
for the British Army. By February of 1945, the game was over. They knew Nazi Germany had been defeated. It was a matter of time, and time meaning just a matter
of months before it would be over. Churchill, though, was a believer
of winning wars on the battlefield, so I think he probably thought
it was important to defeat Germany comprehensively on the battlefield
and see them defeated, the German army was defeated, not defeated
because their commander had been removed, but shown to the German population
to have been defeated on the battlefield, and that there was no way
that the German army could have won. You understand
the British deliberations on this, which is we don't want to take out Hitler because he's such a disaster
as a military ruler. We want him to bring Germany
to the quickest end possible. The other deliberation being,
we don't want to turn him into a martyr. Those are good considerations. However, what they couldn't have known is that you had this entire machinery
of the Holocaust killing as many people per day
as they were. Imagine, had Hitler been assassinated
in the summer of 1944 or even earlier, a million or even more humans
would have been spared from this catastrophe
we call the Holocaust. Unbalance, would I've liked
to have seen Operation Foxley go ahead? Absolutely, better in 42 or even 41, but at least 44. By February of 45,
frankly, it was irrelevant. Operation Foxley
would never be carried out. Hitler committed suicide
in Berlin on April 30th, 1945, in his bunker
next to his mistress, Eva Braun. One year after the Allied victory,
the SOE was dismantled and all the elements relating
to the British plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler were classified as top secret
until the end of the 20th century. Even today, many mysteries remain
concerning Operation Foxley. Who was Major H.B. Court, the analyst in charge
of the investigation? Would Captain Bennett
have managed to kill Hitler during his daily walk to the tea room? Above all, who made the decision
to cancel the mission definitively? These questions
will remain unanswered forever.
