After coming within inches of death in the plot of 1944, Hitler became a raving, deluded old man
Hitler in the aftermath of the July 20 plot in 1944 Credit: Keystone/Hulton Archive
By Peter Caddick-Adams
Peter Caddick-Adams is an academic historian, author and broadcaster who specialises in military history.
Published 07 July 2026
It was at 12.42 that the briefcase exploded. The date was Thursday, July 20, 1944, and the location was Adolf Hitler’s headquarters in East Prussia. This time, the plotters hoping to remove the Führer thought they had succeeded.
However, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg’s bomb was unwittingly moved by a staff officer to rest against a leg of the oak conference table. There it exploded, killing or wounding 24.
But Hitler, sheltered by the table leg, was merely peppered with splinters. It was the last of more than 40 attempts on Hitler’s life, all foiled by the subject’s erratic changes of programme and the numerous security services that kept him safe.
Vladimir Putin has increased his personal security to more than 800 officers Credit: Gavriil Grigorov/AFP
that infamous plot in mind, the news that Vladimir Putin has increased his personal security detachment to more than 800 officers comes as no surprise. He, like autocrats who have gone before him, rose to the top through bloody deeds – and so fears similar treatment from rivals (or Ukrainian saboteurs).
President Harry S. Truman summed up Hitler, Stalin, and those of their tainted ilk as ruling by the doctrine “that the individual amounts to nothing; that the state is the only one that counts; and that men and women and children were put on Earth solely for the purpose of serving the state”.
For autocrats to control the activities and thoughts of their subjects, a vast security apparatus is needed. Concentric rings of protection are coupled with informants confiding their suspicions to a state police or militia.
In Putin’s case, this is the FSB, in which he once served. Hitler had his Gestapo, and Honecker – his East German successor – devised the Stasi. In our time, the Ayatollahs in Tehran field their Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
These organisations soon become a state within a state, putting millions under surveillance, giving credence to the sniping and jealousies of each informant, and listing the originators as anti-state activists.
As the dictator is the state, any abnormal behaviour can be regarded as a threat to the leader. Detention facilities are needed, and murder squads. The death toll after the Stauffenberg attempt on Hitler’s life reached over 5,000 before the war’s end.
But those who rule by the sword often die by it. As Margaret Thatcher once observed: “When you stop a dictator, there are always risks. But there are greater risks in not stopping a dictator.”
And so, paranoid that your enemies are out to get you, the hamster wheel of perpetual personal security becomes an obsession.
Counting all part-time informers, the East German secret police is reckoned to have employed one secret policeman for every 6.5 East Germans. By comparison, Hitler’s Gestapo deployed one per 2,000 people.
Putin is as fearful as Hitler was of any threat to his regime. He hopes that technology and his many overlapping security organisations will neutralise any opposition.
Back in March, the Amsterdam-based Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) identified a high alert in the Kremlin centred on “the risk of a plot or coup attempt against the Russian president. In particular, the fear of drones for a possible assassination attempt by members of the Russian political elite”.
The bodyguard that protects Putin and his cronies is the 50,000-strong Federal Protective Service. Their inner corps, all hand-picked and politically reliable, has announced a rise from 785 operatives to 812. Wise minds have concluded this is a 27-strong detachment of skilled drone pilots.
These extra measures were caused by the assassination of Putin-loyalist and former veteran of Chechnya and Syria, General Fanil Sarvarov, who died in a car bomb in Moscow last December.
Immediately, staff working near Putin were no longer allowed to take public transport, or use mobile phones. Cell phone signals are now routinely jammed when he is in the vicinity, and key staff issued with Kevlar umbrellas.
To further obscure his movements, Putin employs up to a dozen body doubles, and has several identically furnished offices in Moscow, St Petersburg, his various dachas, and aboard his train, so that his location remains secret even during video conferences with officials and journalists.
At the same time, according to the OCCRP, surveillance systems were also installed in the homes of cooks, photographers, and bodyguards.
The inclusion of cooks is interesting, as Putin’s paternal grandfather, Spiridon, once worked as a chef to Lenin and Stalin, and the young Vladimir was brought up on tales of the old man preparing meals for the Soviet elite.
He employs food tasters, probably due to his own history of using poisons against opponents, such as Alexander Litvinenko in 2006, Sergei Skripal in 2018 and Alexei Navalny in 2020.
All of this is because, as a former secret policeman steeped in the bloody traditions of the KGB and its predecessor, the NKVD, Putin knows the rules of the game.
He understands that some threats against him are imaginary, but that the more repressive his regime, the more enemies he creates.
Just like Hitler, he has to be vigilant all the time, whereas his opponents have to be lucky only once.
Von Stauffenberg’s briefcase bomb was as close as the anti-Hitler conspirators came to success. Yet in consequence, the Führer became a raving, deluded old man who hid in bunkers and, nine months later, died in one.
Putin appears to be heading in the same direction.
“But those who rule by the sword often die by it. As Margaret Thatcher once observed: “When you stop a dictator, there are always risks. But there are greater risks in not stopping a dictator.”
Lady Thatcher is like Sir Winston Spencer-Churchill in the sense that quotes of hers from long ago still resonate strongly today.
Comment from :
Suffolk Pothole
Especially when they are seen to fail…
J Finnemore
A really informative article. Thank you.
The quotation from Harry Truman and the Stasi secret police ratio in East Germany were particularly interesting.
Mark Hall
Trump had better watch his back too.
Guitar Player
Yep! the history of all the dictators is not a good one.
The sad thing is the number of people who die on the way to the dictator’s end.
Jon Carmi
There are a million and a half Russian families out there with dead or seriously injured sons and husbands. The Russian economy is in a total mess. People struggle to fill their cars with petrol. It’s all going swimmingly for the dictator and his three-day special military operation
Liza Rose from Stand With Ukraine:
🔴 These moments lost are US President Donald J. Trump’s fault. Donald Trump intentionally misled Americans into voting for him by running on an outrageous proposition: that he (Trump) would end the war in one day.
This was preposterous!
But for those with family and blood in Ukraine enduring a then, three year genocide — this outrageous claim was a glimmer of propagandist hope.
Trump knew this.
Trump knew that misleading people into thinking he was going to end the war in 24 hours was just so crazy that it might work.
And it did.
When your heritage is at stake, we as humans, may overlook obvious red flags in reaching for hope.
I believe that is what happened with many Americans including Ukrainian-Americans.
To a reasonable person you think, this guy Trump, is friends with Putin.
That is bad.
But after three years of genocide, it is not absurd for those people to think, this guy Trump, is friends with Putin — he claims he will be able stop the war in 24 hours — maybe he can. Maybe he is the only one who can, because he is friends with Putin.
The entire world stood by as 24 hours passed.
Then a month.
Then Trump took away all aid to Ukrainians.
Then Trump mocked Zelenskyy on February 28, 2025 along with Russian propagandist JD Vance exclaiming on live news feed, “You have no cards Zelenskyy!”
Donald J. Trump peddles corruption and scams just as Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin does.
They prey on victims and use propaganda to get anything that benefits only themselves.
In my opinion Donald Trump is no different than Vladimir Putin.
These innocent moments lost, as in the story below are the fault of Donald Trump.
Donald Trump has over the past year supported the Kremlin — by pushing its propaganda and by removing sanctions — putting billions into the war machine coffers.
🔴 Story from Ukraine.ua :
For months, Mariia Polska and her classmates rehearsed their prom waltz. As an experienced dancer, she helped shape the choreography and was chosen for the central role.
The night before the students were due to rehearse on the school stage, a Russian missile struck Mariia’s apartment building in Kyiv. Mariia, her father, and her grandmother were killed.
When prom day arrived, her classmates decided to perform the waltz they had spent months preparing. Yehor, Mariia’s dance partner, refused to replace her. Instead, he danced every step alone.
Behind the students, a recording from an earlier rehearsal showed Mariia dancing the same waltz. In the video, she was still there.
After the ceremony, the class gathered at the restaurant Mariia had chosen for the celebration before she was killed.
Russia’s attacks do not only destroy homes. They also take away the ordinary moments every child deserves to have.
Story: Siobhán O’Grady and Liubov Sholudko for The New York Times / ukraine.ua
🔴 These innocent moments lost are the fault of Donald Trump. Teenagers, children and civilians have lost life, limb, and their youth due to the Trump Administration.
Donald Trump has supported the Kremlin by pushing its propaganda and by removing sanctions putting billions into the war machine coffers.
This is Donald Trump’s fault.
Donald Trump has enhanced the Russians evil war crimes.
🔴 Let us do something positive about it.
Message to Trump,
It is time to send the tomahawk missiles to Ukraine. Let’s end this!
We can share this post and get the message out to the Trump Administration. We can start today.
Donald Lerma from Stand With Ukraine :-
“If Kostiantynivka is now under Russian control, then Putin probably won’t have a problem meeting me there and ending the war.” – President Zelenskyy.
“Putin refuses to meet with President Zelenskyy in Kostiantynivka.” – Peskov.
After lying that Kostiantynivka is under Russian control, the Kremlin is now backing out, saying that Putin is ready to meet in Moscow – which means that Russia has no intention of actually ending the war.
“If in this way Mr. Zelenskyy expresses his willingness to come to Russia, we welcome it. But we want to recall that Putin spoke about his readiness to receive him in Moscow.
After all, the capital of the Russian Federation is Moscow, not Konstantinovka (Russian writing of Kostiantynivka). Therefore, he can come to Moscow as soon as he is ready to make important and responsible decisions,” Peskov said.
“President Harry S. Truman summed up Hitler, Stalin, and those of their tainted ilk as ruling by the doctrine “that the individual amounts to nothing; that the state is the only one that counts; and that men and women and children were put on Earth solely for the purpose of serving the state”.
That is absolutely putler’s position.
Czarism, communism and now fascism under fuhrer putler; the cauldron of devilry changes its system of government periodically, but it’s still a cauldron of devilry.