Claus von Stauffenberg significant event 20 July plot
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.Assassination attempt
After several unsuccessful attempts by Stauffenberg to encounter Hitler, Göring and Himmler at the same time, he went ahead with the attempt at the Wolfsschanze on 20 July 1944. Stauffenberg entered the briefing room carrying a briefcase containing two small bombs. The location had unexpectedly been changed from the subterranean Führerbunker to Albert Speer's wooden hut due to the heat on this summer's day. He left the room to arm the first bomb with specially adapted pliers. This was a difficult task for him as he had lost his right hand and had only three fingers on his left hand. A guard knocked and opened the door, urging him to hurry as the meeting was about to begin. As a result, Stauffenberg was able to arm only one of the bombs. He left the second bomb with his aide-de-camp, Werner von Haeften, and returned to the briefing room, where he placed the briefcase under the conference table, as close as he could to Hitler. Some minutes later, he received a planned phone call; he then  excused himself and left the room. After his exit, the briefcase was moved by Colonel Heinz Brandt.When the explosion tore through the hut, Stauffenberg was convinced that no one in the room could have survived. Although four people were killed and almost all survivors were injured, Hitler himself was shielded from the blast by the heavy, solid-oak conference table leg, which Colonel Brandt had placed the briefcase bomb behind, and was only slightly wounded.Stauffenberg and Haeften quickly left and drove to the nearby airfield. After his return to Berlin, Stauffenberg immediately began to motivate his friends to initiate the second phase: the military coup against the Nazi leaders. Joseph Goebbels announced by radio that Hitler had survived and later, after Hitler spoke on the state radio, the conspirators realised that the coup had failed. They were tracked to their Bendlerstrasse offices and overpowered after a brief shoot-out, during which Stauffenberg was wounded in the shoulder.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.
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