Claus von Stauffenberg


Stauffenberg in June 1944

Birth name: Claus Philipp Maria Justinian Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg
Born: 15 November 1907; Jettingen, Bavaria, German Empire
Died: 21 July 1944 (aged 36); Berlin, Gau Berlin, Nazi Germany

Claus von Stauffenberg (German: [ˈklaʊ̯s ˈfɔn ˈʃtaʊ̯fn̩bɛʁk] ⓘ; 15 November 1907 – 21 July 1944) was a German army officer who is best known for his failed attempt on 20 July 1944 to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the Wolf's Lair.

Alongside Major Generals Henning von Tresckow and Hans Oster, Stauffenberg was a central figure in the conspiracy against Hitler within the Wehrmacht. Shortly following the failed Operation Valkyrie plot, he was executed by firing squad.

As a military officer from a noble background, Stauffenberg took part in the Invasion of Poland, the 1941–42 invasion of the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa and the Tunisian campaign during the Second World War.

{snip}

20 July plot

Main article: 20 July plot


Stauffenberg, left, with Hitler (centre) and Wilhelm Keitel, right, in an aborted assassination attempt at Rastenburg
on 15 July 1944

As early as September 1942, Stauffenberg was considering Hans Georg Schmidt von Altenstadt, author of Unser Weg zum Meer, as a replacement for Hitler. From the beginning of September 1943 until 20 July 1944, Stauffenberg was the driving force behind the plot to assassinate Hitler and take control of Germany. His resolve, organizational abilities, and radical approach put an end to inactivity caused by doubts and long discussions on whether military virtues had been made obsolete by Hitler's behaviour. With the help of his friend Henning von Tresckow, he united the conspirators and drove them into action.

Stauffenberg was aware that, under German law, he was committing high treason. He openly told young conspirator Axel von dem Bussche in late 1943, "Ich betreibe mit allen mir zur Verfügung stehenden Mitteln den Hochverrat..." ( "I am committing high treason with all means at my disposal..." ). He justified himself to Bussche by referring to the right under natural law (Naturrecht) to defend millions of people's lives from the criminal aggressions of Hitler.

Only after the conspirator General Helmuth Stieff on 7 July 1944 had declared himself unable to assassinate Hitler on a uniforms display at Klessheim castle near Salzburg, Stauffenberg decided to personally kill Hitler and to run the plot in Berlin. By then, Stauffenberg had great doubts about the possibility of success. Tresckow convinced him to go on with it even if it had no chance of success at all, "The assassination must be attempted. Even if it fails, we must take action in Berlin", as this was the only way to prove to the world that the Hitler regime and Germany were not one and the same and that not all Germans supported the regime.

Stauffenberg's part in the original plan required him to stay at the Bendlerstraße offices in Berlin, so he could phone regular army units all over Europe in an attempt to convince them to arrest leaders of Nazi political organisations such as the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) and the Gestapo. When General Helmuth Stieff, Chief of Operation at Army High Command, who had regular access to Hitler, backtracked from his earlier commitment to assassinate Hitler, Stauffenberg was forced to take on two critical roles: kill Hitler far from Berlin and trigger the military machine in Berlin during office hours of the very same day. Beside Stieff, he was the only conspirator who had regular access to Hitler (during his briefings) by mid-1944, as well as being the only officer among the conspirators thought to have the resolve and persuasiveness to convince German military leaders to throw in with the coup once Hitler was dead. This requirement greatly reduced the chance of a successful coup.

{snip}