Battle of the Bulge - The First 24 Hours

In the middle of the afternoon, the Wolf's Lair began to receive copies of signals emanating from Berlin and claiming that an unscrupulous group of officers and politicians had assassinated the Fuhrer, and that the government had declared a state of emergency. During the period of emergency, full authority would be vested in the signatory of the telegram, Field Marshal Witzleben (who had been retired by Hitler in 1942). Von Stauffenberg's name as co-signatory of the signal demonstrated that the bomb was actually part of a coup attempt. The conspirators had control of the Bendlerstrasse headquarters building in Berlin, along with a number of other key sites. For a few hours, it appeared as though the coup might succeed: Hitler was at an isolated location, and all the commanders loyal to Hitler were, naturally, at the battlefront. It looked as though the coup would succeed through lack of opposition.
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