Operation Foxley

During World War II, Operation Foxley was a 1944 plan to assassinate Adolf Hitler, conceived by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE). Although detailed preparations were made, no attempt was made to carry out the plan.

Prior plans

One of the first actual British plans to assassinate Hitler was to bomb the special train "Amerika" (in 1943 renamed "Brandenburg") he travelled in; SOE had extensive experience of derailing trains using explosives. The plan was dropped because Hitler's schedule was too irregular and unpredictable: stations were informed of his arrival only a few minutes beforehand.

Another plan was to put some tasteless but lethal poison in the drinking water supply on Hitler's train. However, this plan was considered too complicated because of the need for an inside man.

Plan

Ultimately a sniper attack was considered to be the method most likely to succeed. In the summer of 1944, a German who had been part of Hitler's personal guard at the Berghof had been taken prisoner in Normandy. He revealed that at the Berghof, Hitler always took a 20-minute morning walk at around the same time (after 10:00). Hitler liked to be left alone during this walk, leaving him unprotected near some woods, where he was out of sight of sentry posts. When Hitler was at the Berghof, a Nazi flag visible from a cafe in the nearby town was flown.

The plan was to assassinate Hitler during his morning exercise, as he walked unprotected to the ''Teehaus'' on Mooslahnerkopf Hill from the Berghof residence. The scheme called for the SOE to parachute a German-speaking Pole and a British sniper into Austria. An "inside man" was recruited, the uncle of a prisoner of war named Dieser, who was a shopkeeper living in nearby (20 km) Salzburg, identified as "Heidentaler", who was vehemently anti-Nazi. Heidentaler would shelter the agents and transport them to Berchtesgaden disguised as German mountain troops (''Gebirgsjäger''), from where they would make the approach to the vantage point for the attack.

A sniper was recruited and briefed, and the plan was submitted. The sniper practised by firing at moving dummy targets with an accurized Kar 98k with a Mauser telescopic sight, the standard rifle of the Wehrmacht, under conditions that simulated the planned attack. Additionally, a 9mm parabellum Luger pistol fitted with a British-made silencer was provided so that the sniper could quietly deal with any threats while approaching the target. The Luger is now on display at the Combined Military Services Museum in Maldon, Essex.

There was some opposition to the assassination plan among the British authorities, particularly from the Deputy Head of SOE's German Directorate, Lt. Col. Ronald Thornley. However, his superior, Sir Gerald Templer, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill supported it.

Hitler left the Berghof for the last time on 14 July 1944, never to return; six days later, anti-Nazi Wehrmacht officers attempted to assassinate him as part of the July 20 plot.

See also

* Assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler
* '' Rogue Male'', a prewar novel about a British private citizen making such an assassination attempt prior to the start of World War II
* ''Killing Hitler'', a BBC
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