Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg rose from the dead Saturday to pay his admission fee for the opening of Berlin's Madame Tussauds museum and visit the controversial waxwork figure of Adolf Hitler sulking in his Führerbunker beneath the old Reich Chancellery building at Wilhelmstraße 77.
Just minutes after the museum opened, police said von Stauffenberg pushed by guards to set a briefcase bomb near the brooding figure, rip the Charlie Chaplin mustache from its face, then click his heels, salute and leave the bunker.
The bomb failed to detonate.
The Gestapo were alerted and arrested von Stauffenberg, who will be shot by firing squad at midnight in the courtyard of the Bendlerblock.
It is not known what effect, if any, the shooting will have on the already deceased, much decorated von Stauffenberg.
Madame Tussauds' plan to display a waxwork figure of Adolf Hitler in his bunker during the last days of his life has been criticized as being in bad taste, but some disagree. After all, it's not as if Austrian madness in underground bunkers has gone out of fashion.
Meanwhile, Kutznetsov's 3rd Shock Army and the 8th Guards Army of the Soviet Union continue to advance through the south of the Tiergarten to complete the encircling of Nazi headquarters and sympathizers at Wilhelmstraße 77, presumably including those in line at Madame Tussauds.
Hitler today gave permission for defenders and fans to attempt a breakout through the encircling Red Army lines, then sat down to a nice tea, followed by suicide.
