Count Claus von Stauffenberg (German: [ˈklaʊs fɔn ˈʃtaʊfn̩bɛʁk] ⓘ; 15 November 1907 – 21 July 1944) was a German army officer who is best known for his failed attempt on 20 July 1944 to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the Wolf's Lair, part of Operation Valkyrie, a plan that would have seen the arrest of Nazi leadership in the wake of Hitler's death and an early end to World War II.

Alongside Major Generals Henning von Tresckow and Hans Oster, he became a key figure in the German resistance to Nazism within the Wehrmacht.

Konstanze's son Philipp von Schulthess would become an actor and play a supporting role in Valkyrie, a 2008 American film about the 20 July 1944 assassination with Stauffenberg as main character, portrayed by Tom Cruise.

[11] Around the beginning of his time in Bamberg, Albrecht von Blumenthal introduced the three brothers to the poet Stefan George's influential circle, Georgekreis, from which many notable members of the German resistance later emerged.

Though Stauffenberg had supported the German colonization of Poland and had made extremist remarks regarding Polish Jews, he refrained from joining the Nazi Party.

[14][15][16] However, during the 1932 German presidential election, he voiced tentative support for Hitler:The idea of the Führer principle [...] bound together with a Volksgemeinschaft, the principle "The community good before the individual good," and the fight against corruption, the fight against the spirit of the large urban cities, the racial thought (Rassengedanke), and the will towards a new German-formed legal order appears to us healthy and auspicious.

[19][20] Even though Stauffenberg joined the covert resistance movement within the Wehrmacht, like many members of the Nazi Party, he displayed a tentative opposition to parliamentary democracy.

During this time, he was a strong supporter of Poland's occupation, and the Nazi Party's colonisation, exploitation and use of Pole slave workers to bring about German prosperity.

[15] After the Invasion, 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.

[23] During the quieter months of 1940 to 1941, Stauffenberg was transferred to the organisational department of the Oberkommando des Heeres ("Army High Command"; OKH), which was directing the German invasion of the Soviet Union and operations on the Eastern Front.

Though Stauffenberg did not engage in any coup plotting at this time, his brothers Berthold and Alexander maintained contact with anti-regime figures such as the Kreisau Circle and former commanders such as Hoepner.

[24] Hoffman, in citing Brigadier Oskar Alfred-Berger's letters, noted 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.

"[26] 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 Tunisian campaign, as part of the Afrika Korps.

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.

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 Ersatzheer ("Replacement Army" – charged with training soldiers to reinforce first line divisions at the front), located on the Bendlerstrasse (later Stauffenbergstrasse) in Berlin.

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.

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.

[40] 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.

[41] As early as September 1942, Stauffenberg was considering Hans Georg Schmidt von Altenstadt, author of Unser Weg zum Meer, as a replacement for Hitler.

His resolve, organizational 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.

He openly told young conspirator Axel von dem Bussche in late 1943, "Ich betreibe mit allen mir zur Verfügung stehenden Mitteln den Hochverrat..." ("I am committing high treason with all means at my disposal...").

[44] 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 Sicherheitsdienst (SD) and the Gestapo.

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.

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 and burned.

[48][49] 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.

Stauffenberg, Schulenberg and their clique wanted to drop no more ballast than was absolutely necessary; then they would paint the ship of state a military gray and set it afloat again (p.

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,[57][58] 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".

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.

Berthold, Heimeran, Franz-Ludwig, Valerie and Kostanze, who were not told of their father's deed,[64] were placed in a foster home for the remainder of the war and were forced to use new surnames, as Stauffenberg was considered taboo.