Wessel Freytag von Loringhoven Wessel Freiherr Freytag von Loringhoven ( 10 November 1899 , , Courland Governorate – 26 July 1944 , Mauerwald , East Prussia ) , was a colonel in the High Command of the German Armed Forces ( " Oberkommando der Wehrmacht " , or OKW ) and a member of the German Resistance against German dictator Adolf Hitler ( " Widerstand " ) . Loringhoven was a friend of Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg , who was the leader of the 20 July Plot to assassinate Hitler in 1944 . Biography . Loringhoven came from an aristocratic Baltic German family in Courland descended from Westphalia . He grew up in Adiamünde ( Skulte ) in Livonia . After his Final Exams ( " Abitur " ) , Loringhoven joined the Baltic - German Army ( " Landeswehr " ) in 1918 , and with the formation of independent Latvia he became an officer of the 13th Infantry Regiment of Latvia . In 1922 , he left Latvia in order to enter the Army of Weimar Germany ( " Reichswehr " ) . Loringhoven initially sympathized with the National Socialist program for Germany . But , in 1934 , he was disaffected by the Night of the Long Knives massacre . After more negative experiences with war crimes during the German invasion of the Soviet Union ( Operation Barbarossa ) , Loringhoven joined the resistance against Nazi Germany . In 1943 , with the help of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris , Loringhoven was relocated to the High Command of the German Armed Forces ( " Oberkommando der Wehrmacht " , or OKW ) as a colonel . Hitler ' s plot to kidnap Pope Pius XII . Loringhoven ' s son Niki , testifying in Munich in 1972 and in recent revelations , reports that his father was involved in the foiling of Hitler ' s plot to kidnap Pope Pius XII . Niki von Freytag - Loringhoven ' s reported that within days of the arrest of Benito Mussolini as ordered by King Victor Emmanuel III , the Führer commanded the Reichssicherheitshauptamt ( the Third Reich ’ s Security Headquarters ) to retaliate against the Italians via the kidnapping or murder of Pius XII and the king , Victor Emmanuel . In 2009 the colonel ’ s son , Niki Freytag Loringhoven , then 72 , came forward to reveal details about the plan , reported that on 29 and 30 July 1943 his father and Erwin von Lahousen , who were employed in the section of German intelligence dealing mainly with sabotage , attended a meeting in Venice where Admiral Wilhelm Canaris , top Gerrman counterintelligence officer , also part of the resistance , informed the Italian General , Cesare Amè , of the plot . General Amè relayed the news which allowed the plot to be foiled . The Italian paper , Avvenire , reports that the younger Freytag von Loringhoven ’ s accounts comport with the Von Lahousen ’ s Nuremberg war crimes trials deposition . Both officers , von Lahousen and Freytag Loringhoven , participated with Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg in the failed 20 July Plot to assassinate Hitler in 1944 . 20 July plot . Loringhoven provided the detonator charge and explosives for the assassination attempt against Hitler on 20 July 1944 . He was able to obtain unrecognized English explosives from German intelligence ( " Abwehr " ) sources . However , Ernst Kaltenbrunner , the Chief of the Reich Security Main Office ( " Reichssicherheitshauptamt " , or RSHA ) , discovered the actions of Loringhoven . On 26 July 1944 , immediately before he was to be arrested by the Gestapo and fully aware of the interrogation techniques utilized by them , Loringhoven committed suicide at Mauerwald in East Prussia . Aftermath . After his death , Loringhoven ' s wife was imprisoned along with relatives of the other members of the plot . Loringhoven ' s four sons were separated from their mother . All were eventually liberated by Allied forces . A close cousin , Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven , was not implicated only due to the intervention of General Heinz Guderian . His cousin was an occupant of the Führerbunker in Berlin towards the end of World War II in Europe . Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven escaped Berlin , was captured by the British , and survived the war .