page_title: Claus von Stauffenberg
section_title: Execution
hierarchical_section_title: Claus von Stauffenberg / 20 July plot / Execution
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Sterbeurkunde für Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, erschossen am 20. Juli 1944, Urkunde ausgestellt 1951 in Bamberg English: Death certificate of Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, shot on July 20, 1944; certificate from the city of Bamberg, written in 1951
context_page_description: Claus Philipp Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg was a German army officer. He held the hereditary titles of "Graf" and "Schenk". He took part in the attack on Poland, the German invasion of the Soviet Union and the Tunisian Campaign during the Second World War.
  Stauffenberg was one of the leading members of the failed 20 July plot of 1944 to assassinate Adolf Hitler and remove the Nazi Party from power. Along with Henning von Tresckow and Hans Oster, he was one of the central figures of the German Resistance movement within the Wehrmacht. For his involvement in the movement, he was executed by firing squad shortly after the failed attempt known as Operation Valkyrie.
context_section_description: 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 in Plötzensee Prison, Berlin, later that day. Before he was killed, Berthold was strangled 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.
caption: Death certificate (issued in 1951)
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