Claus von Stauffenberg: The man who tried to assassinate Hitler

Tommorow, 20 July, sixty years ago, a group of German Army officers conspired to assassinate Adolf Hitler. One of these officers is Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, then he was Chief of Staff for Home Army Command.

On 20 July, 1944, Stauffenberg, a German count, planted a briefcase containing a bomb under an oak table during a meeting at Hitler's Wolf's Lair headquarters in Rastenburg, East Prussia. Stauffenberg was whispering something indistinctly as he left the room as if making an excuse. According to historian Joachim Fest's Plotting Hitler's Death, just after 12.40pm there was a deafening explosion, throwing all 24 people to the ground, some with their hair in flames. Hitler had just leaned far over a table to examine a map and his chair was torn from under him. His trousers hung in ribbons from his legs and as he stumbled to his feet one general took him in his arms and cried: 'My Führer, you're alive, you're alive!'


But Stauffenberg, climbing into a getaway car, had seen a body covered by Hitler's cloak carried from the barracks on a stretcher and concluded his mission was accomplished. All day rumours spread that Hitler was dead. But that night, with the dictator back in control, the conspirators were executed by firing squad. When the squad took aim, writes Fest, Stauffenberg shouted: 'Long live sacred Germany!'