Claus von Stauffenberg
Claus Philipp Maria Justinian Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (; 15 November 1907 – 21 July 1944) was a German army officer best known for his failed attempt on 20 July 1944 to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the Wolf's Lair. Despite opposing democracy, and at first agreeing with the Nazi Party's nationalism and aryanism, he joined the German resistance within the Wehrmacht as the war progressed. He felt Hitler was losing the war, and opposed the criminal character of the dictatorship. Along with Henning von Tresckow and Hans Oster, he was one of the central figures of the  conspiracy against Hitler within the . For his involvement in the movement, he was executed by firing squad shortly after Operation Valkyrie. He held the hereditary titles of "Graf" (count) and "Schenk" (cupbearer). He took part in the attack on Poland, the German invasion of the Soviet Union and the Tunisian Campaign during the Second World War. Family history. Stauffenberg's full name was Claus Philipp Maria Justinian, followed by the noble title of "Count of Stauffenberg". He was born in the Stauffenberg Castle Jettingen between Ulm and Augsburg, in the eastern part of Swabia, at that time in the Kingdom  of Bavaria, part of the German Empire. Stauffenberg was the third of four sons, including the twins Berthold and Alexander and his own twin brother Konrad Maria, who died in Jettingen one day after birth on 16 November 1907. His father was Alfred Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, the last of the Kingdom of Württemberg. Stauffenberg's mother was Caroline Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg, née Gräfin von Üxküll-Gyllenband, the daughter of Alfred Richard August Graf von Üxküll-Gyllenband and Valerie Gräfin von The titles "Graf" and "Gräfin" define count and countess, respectively. Schenk (i.e., cupbearer/butler) was an additional hereditary  noble title. The ancestral castle of the nobility was the last part of the title, which was Schenk Graf von "Stauffenberg" and used as part of the name. The Stauffenberg family is one of the oldest and most distinguished aristocratic Catholic families of southern Germany. Among his maternal Protestant ancestors were several famous Prussians, including Field Marshal August von Gneisenau. On 11 November 1919, a new constitutional law, as part of the Weimar Republic, abolished the privileges of nobility. Article 109 also stated, "Legal privileges or disadvantages based on birth or social standing are to be abolished. Noble titles form  part of the name only; noble titles may not be granted any more." Early life. In his youth, he and his brothers were members of the , a German Scout association and part of the German Youth movement. Like his brothers, he was carefully educated and inclined toward literature, but eventually took up a military career. In 1926, he joined the family's traditional regiment, the Reiterregiment 17 (17th Cavalry Regiment) in Bamberg. It was around this time that the three brothers were introduced by Albrecht von Blumenthal to the poet Stefan George's influential circle, "Georgekreis", from which many notable  members of the German resistance later emerged. George dedicated "Das neue Reich" ("the new Empire") in 1928, including the "Geheimes Deutschland" ("secret Germany") written in 1922, to Berthold. Stauffenberg was commissioned as a (second lieutenant) in 1930. He studied modern weapons at the in Berlin, but remained focused on the use of horses—which continued to carry out a large part of transportation duties throughout World War II—in modern warfare. His regiment became part of the German 1st Light Division under General Erich Hoepner, who had taken part in the plans for the September 1938 German Resistance coup, cut  short by Hitler's unexpected diplomatic success in the Munich Agreement. The unit was among the Wehrmacht troops that moved into Sudetenland following its annexation to the Reich as per the Munich Agreement. Although Stauffenberg agreed with the Nazi Party's racist and nationalistic aspects and had supported the German colonization of Poland and made extremist remarks regarding Polish Jews, he never became a member. During the German presidential election, 1932, he voiced support for Hitler: Moreover, Stauffenberg remained a practicing Catholic. Stauffenberg vacillated between a strong dislike of Hitler's policies and a respect for what he perceived to  be Hitler's military acumen. Stauffenberg became even more disassociated with the party after The Night of the Long Knives and Kristallnacht proved Hitler had no intentions to pursue justice. On top of this, the growing systematic ill-treatment of Jews and suppression of religion had offended Stauffenberg's strong sense of Catholic morality and justice. Second World War. Activities in 1939–40. Following the outbreak of war in 1939, Stauffenberg and his regiment took part in the attack on Poland. He supported the occupation of Poland and its handling by the Nazi regime and the use of Poles as slave  workers to achieve German prosperity as well as German colonization and exploitation of Poland. The deeply rooted belief common in the German aristocracy was that the Eastern territories, populated predominantly by Poles and partly absorbed by Prussia in partitions of Poland, but taken from the German Empire after World War I, should be colonized as the Teutonic Knights had done in the Middle Ages. Stauffenberg said, "It is essential that we begin a systemic colonization in Poland. But I have no fear that this will not occur". While his uncle, Nikolaus Graf von Üxküll-Gyllenband, together with Fritz-Dietlof von  der Schulenburg, had approached him before to join the resistance movement against the Hitler regime, it was only after the Polish campaign that Stauffenberg began to consider it. Peter Yorck von Wartenburg and Ulrich Schwerin von Schwanenfeld urged him to become the adjutant of Walther von Brauchitsch, then Supreme Commander of the Army, in order to participate in a coup against Hitler. Stauffenberg declined at the time, reasoning that all German soldiers had pledged allegiance not to the institution of the presidency of the German , but to the person of Adolf Hitler, due to the introduced in 1934. Stauffenberg's  unit was reorganised into the 6th Panzer Division, and he served as an officer on its General Staff in the Battle of France, for which he was awarded the Iron Cross First Class. Operation Barbarossa, 1941–42. Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, began on 22 June 1941. ("Army High Command"; OKH) directed operations on the Eastern Front. After the Battle of France Stauffenberg had been transferred to the organisational department of OKH during the quiet months of 1940 to 1941. Stauffenberg did not engage in any coup plotting at this time. However, the Stauffenberg brothers (Berthold and  Claus) maintained contact with anti-regime figures such as the Kreisau Circle and former commanders like Hoepner. They also included civilians, even social democrats like Julius Leber, in their scenarios for an administration after Hitler. According to Hoffman, citing Brigadier Oskar Alfred-Berger's letters, Stauffenberg had commented openly on the ill-treatment of the Jews when he "expressed outrage and shock on this subject to fellow officers in the General Staff Headquarters in Vinnitsa (Ukraine) during the summer of 1942." Stauffenberg's friend, Major Joachim Kuhn, was captured by the Red Army. During interrogation on 2 September 1944, Kuhn  claimed that Stauffenberg had told him in August 1942 that "They are shooting Jews in masses. These crimes must not be allowed to continue." Tunisia, 1943. In November 1942, the Allies landed in French North Africa, and the 10th Panzer Division occupied Vichy France (Case Anton) before being transferred to fight in the Tunisia Campaign, as part of the . In 1943, Stauffenberg was promoted to (lieutenant-colonel of the general staff), and was sent to Africa to join the 10th Panzer Division as its Operations Officer in the General Staff (Ia). On 19 February, Rommel launched his counter-offensive against  British, American and French forces in Tunisia. The Axis commanders hoped to break rapidly through either the Sbiba or Kasserine Pass into the rear of the British First Army. The assault at Sbiba was halted, so Rommel concentrated on the Kasserine Pass where primarily the Italian 7th Bersaglieri Regiment and 131st Armoured Division Centauro had defeated the American defenders. During the fighting, Stauffenberg drove up to be with the leading tanks and troops of the 10th Panzer Division. The division, together with the 21st Panzer Division, took up defensive positions near Mezzouna on 8 April. On 7 April 1943, Stauffenberg  was involved in driving from one unit to another, directing their movement. Near Mezzouna, his vehicle was part of a column strafed by P-40 Kittyhawk fighter bombers of the Desert Air Force – most likely from No. 3 Squadron RAAF – and he received multiple severe wounds. Stauffenberg spent three months in a hospital in Munich, where he was treated by Ferdinand Sauerbruch. Stauffenberg lost his left eye, his right hand, and two fingers on his left hand. He jokingly remarked to friends never to have really known what to do with so many fingers when he still had all of them . For his injuries, Stauffenberg was awarded the Wound Badge in Gold on 14 April and for his courage the German Cross in Gold on 8 May. In the resistance, 1943–44. For rehabilitation, Stauffenberg was sent to his home, Schloss Lautlingen (today a museum), then still one of the Stauffenberg castles in southern Germany. The Torfels near Meßstetten Bueloch had been visited many times. Initially, he felt frustrated not to be in a position to stage a coup himself. But by the beginning of September 1943, after a somewhat slow recovery from his wounds, he was propositioned by the conspirators and  was introduced to Henning von Tresckow as a staff officer to the headquarters of the ("Replacement Army" – charged with training soldiers to reinforce first line divisions at the front), located on the (later ) in Berlin. There, one of Stauffenberg's superiors was General Friedrich Olbricht, a committed member of the resistance movement. The had a unique opportunity to launch a coup, as one of its functions was to have Operation Valkyrie in place. This was a contingency measure to let it assume control of the in the event that internal disturbances blocked communications to the military high command. The "Valkyrie  plan had been agreed to by Hitler but was secretly changed to sweep the rest of his regime from power in the event of his death. In 1943, Henning von Tresckow was deployed on the Eastern Front, giving Stauffenberg control of the resistance. Tresckow did not return to Germany, as he committed suicide at Królowy Most, Poland, in 1944, after learning of the plot's failure. A detailed military plan was developed not only to occupy Berlin, but also to take the different headquarters of the German army and of Hitler in East Prussia by military force after the suicide 	Claus von Stauffenberg
8968500	assassination attempt by Axel von dem Bussche in late November 1943. Stauffenberg had von dem Bussche transmit these written orders personally to Major Kuhn once he had arrived at Wolfsschanze" (Wolf's Lair) near Rastenburg, East Prussia. However, von dem Bussche had left the Wolfsschanze for the eastern front, after the meeting with Hitler was cancelled, and the attempt could not be made. Kuhn became a prisoner of war of the Soviets after the 20 July plot. He led the Soviets to the hiding place of the documents in February 1945. In 1989, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev presented these documents  to German chancellor Dr. Helmut Kohl. The conspirators' motivations have been a matter of discussion for years in Germany since the war. Many thought the plotters wanted to kill Hitler in order to end the war and to avoid the loss of their privileges as professional officers and members of the nobility. On D-Day, 6 June 1944, the Allies had landed in France. Stauffenberg, like most other German professional military officers, had absolutely no doubt that the war was lost. Only an immediate armistice could avoid more unnecessary bloodshed and further damage to Germany, its people, and other European  nations. However, in late 1943, he had written out demands with which he felt the Allies had to comply in order for Germany to agree to an immediate peace. These demands included Germany retaining its 1914 eastern borders, including the Polish territories of Wielkopolska and Poznań. Other demands included keeping such territorial gains as Austria and the Sudetenland within the Reich, giving autonomy to Alsace-Lorraine and even expansion of the current wartime borders of Germany in the south by annexing Tyrol as far as Bozen and Meran. Non-territorial demands included such points as refusal of any occupation of  Germany by the Allies, as well as refusal to hand over war criminals by demanding the right of "nations to deal with its own criminals." These proposals were directed to only the Western Allies – Stauffenberg wanted Germany to retreat from only the western, southern, and northern positions, while demanding the right to continue military occupation of German territorial gains in the east. 20 July plot. 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, organisational 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, ("I am committing high treason with all means at my disposal..."). He justified  himself to Bussche by referring to the right under natural law () 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 (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 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. 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 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 , 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 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. When 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 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. 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, ("Long live our sacred Germany!"), or, possibly, ("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. After his arrest in July 1944, Berthold while being interrogated by the Gestapo, claimed that: "He and his brother had basically approved of the racial principle of National Socialism, but considered it to be exaggerated and excessive." On 10 August 1944, Berthold was tried before Judge-President  Roland Freisler in the special "People's Court" (). 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. Assessment. One of the few surviving members of the German resistance, Hans Bernd Gisevius portrays Colonel Stauffenberg, whom he met in July 1944, as a man driven by reasons which had little to do with Christian ideals or repugnance of Nazi ideology. In his autobiographical "Bis zum bitteren Ende" ("To the Bitter End"), Gisevius writes: Historian Peter Hoffman questions Gisevius's evaluations based on the latter's brief acquaintance with Stauffenberg, misreporting of Stauffenberg's actions, and apparent rivalry with him: British historian Richard J. Evans, in his  books on the Third Reich, covered various aspects of Stauffenberg's beliefs and philosophy. He wrote an article originally published in "Süddeutsche Zeitung", 23 January 2009 entitled "Why did Stauffenberg plant the bomb?" which states, "Was it because Hitler was losing the war? Was it to put an end to the mass murder of the Jews. Or was it to save Germany's honour? The overwhelming support, toleration, or silent acquiescence" from the people of his country for Hitler, which was also being heavily censored and constantly fed propaganda, meant any action must be swift and successful. Evans writes, "Had  Stauffenberg's bomb succeeded in killing Hitler, it is unlikely that the military coup planned to follow it would have moved the leading conspirators smoothly into power". However, Karl Heinz Bohrer, a cultural critic, literary scholar, publisher, criticized Evans' views in an article originally published in the "Süddeutsche Zeitung", 30 January 2010. Although agreeing that Evans is historically correct in much of his writing, Bohrer feels that Evans twists time lines and misrepresents certain aspects. He wrote of Evans, "In the course of his problematic argument he walks into two traps: 1. by contesting Stauffenberg's "moral motivation"; 2. by  contesting Stauffenberg's suitability as role model." He further writes, "If then, as Evans notes with initial objectivity, Stauffenberg had a strong moral imperative – whether this stemmed from an aristocratic code of honour, Catholic doctrine or Romantic poetry – then this also underpinned his initial affinity for National Socialism which Stauffenberg misinterpreted as 'spiritual renewal'". In 1980, the German government established a memorial for the failed anti-Nazi resistance movement in a part of the Bendlerblock, the remainder of which currently houses the Berlin offices of the German Ministry of Defense (whose main offices remain in Bonn). The was renamed the  , and the Bendlerblock now houses the Memorial to the German Resistance, a permanent exhibition with more than 5,000 photographs and documents showing the various resistance organisations at work during the Hitler era. The courtyard where the officers were shot on 21 July 1944 is now a memorial site, with a plaque commemorating the events and a bronze figure of a young man with his hands symbolically bound which resembles Count von Stauffenberg. Family. Stauffenberg married Nina Freiin von Lerchenfeld on 26 September 1933 in Bamberg. They had five children: Berthold, Heimeran, Franz-Ludwig, Valerie, and Konstanze, who was born in  Frankfurt on the Oder seven months after Stauffenberg's execution. Stauffenberg lived with his family in Berlin-Wannsee. Berthold, Heimeran, Franz-Ludwig and Valerie, who were not told of their father's deed, were placed in a foster home for the remainder of the war and were forced to use new surnames, as was considered taboo. Nina died at the age of 92 on 2 April 2006 at Kirchlauter near Bamberg and was buried there on 8 April. Berthold went on to become a general in West Germany's post-war . Franz-Ludwig became a member of both the German  and European parliaments, representing the Christian Social Union in Bavaria. In 2008, Konstanze von Schulthess-Rechberg wrote a best-selling book about her mother, "Nina Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg". Legacy. After the war, a United States intelligence officer, Ernie Blake, who was invloved in interrogation of Nazi Officers, went on to establish a ski area in Taos New Mexico. He named a ski run on the West Basin Ridge, "Stauffenberg", after Claus von Stauffenberg. In fiction. Dramas with portrayals of Stauffenberg include "War and Remembrance" (1998, Sky du Mont), "The Plot to Kill Hitler" (1990, Brad Davis)," Stauffenberg" (2004, Sebastian  Koch), and "Valkyrie" (2008, Tom Cruise).