Claus von Stauffenberg manner of death capital punishment
Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (German: [ˈklaʊ̯s ˈfɔn ˈʃtaʊ̯fn̩bɛʁk] (listen); 15 November 1907 – 21 July 1944) was a German army officer and resistance leader who is best known for orchestrating the 20 July plot, which was the failed attempt on 20 July 1944 to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the Wolf's Lair near Rastenburg, East Prussia, now Kętrzyn, in present-day Poland. 
Despite initial support for the Nazi Party's nationalist aspects, and a tentative opposition to democracy, Stauffenberg joined the covert resistance movement within the Wehrmacht as the war continued, opposing the criminal character of the dictatorship. Alongside Major General Henning von Tresckow and General Hans Oster, Stauffenberg was a central figure in the conspiracy against Hitler within the Wehrmacht. Shortly following the foiled 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.Execution
In an attempt to save his own life, co-conspirator General Friedrich Fromm, Commander-in-Chief of the Replacement Army present in the Bendlerblock (Headquarters of the Army), charged other conspirators in an impromptu court martial and condemned the ringleaders of the conspiracy to death. Stauffenberg, his aide 1st Lieutenant Werner von Haeften, General Friedrich Olbricht and Colonel Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim were executed before 1:00 in the morning (21 July 1944) by a makeshift firing squad in the courtyard of the Bendlerblock, which was lit by the headlights of a truck.Stauffenberg was third in line to be executed, with Lieutenant von Haeften after. However, when it was Stauffenberg's turn, Lieutenant von Haeften placed himself between the firing squad and Stauffenberg, and received the bullets meant for Stauffenberg. When his turn came, Stauffenberg spoke his last words, "Es lebe das heilige Deutschland!" ("Long live our sacred Germany!"), or, possibly, "Es lebe das geheime Deutschland!" ("Long live the secret Germany!"), in reference to Stefan George and the anti-Nazi circle.
Fromm ordered that the executed officers (his former co-conspirators) receive an immediate burial with military honours in the Alter St.-Matthäus-Kirchhof in Berlin's Schöneberg district. The next day, however, Stauffenberg's body was exhumed by the SS, stripped of his medals and insignia, and cremated.Another central figure in the plot was Stauffenberg's eldest brother, Berthold Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg. On 10 August 1944, Berthold was tried before Judge-President Roland Freisler in the special "People's Court" (Volksgerichtshof). This court was established by Hitler for political offences. Berthold was one of eight conspirators executed by slow strangulation at Plötzensee Prison, Berlin, later that day. Before he was killed, Berthold was throttled and then revived multiple times. The entire execution and multiple resuscitations were filmed for Hitler to view at his leisure.More than 200 were condemned in show trials and executed. Hitler used the 20 July Plot as an excuse to destroy anyone he feared would oppose him. The traditional military salute was replaced with the Nazi salute. Eventually, over 20,000 Germans were killed or sent to concentration camps in the purge.
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