Claus von Stauffenberg

Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (1907 – 1944) was a German aristocratic army officer and the driving force behind the internal military conspiracy to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Serving in North Africa in 1943, Stauffenberg was severely wounded, losing his left eye, his right hand, and two fingers of his left hand.

Horrified by the systematic massacres of Soviet civilians and Jews on the Eastern Front, Stauffenberg joined the clandestine military and civilian resistance. Appointed Chief of Staff to the Replacement Army, he held direct access to Hitler's military briefings. On July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg placed a briefcase bomb beneath the conference table at Hitler's Wolf's Lair headquarters in East Prussia and flew to Berlin to initiate Operation Valkyrie to seize power. The heavy oak table deflected the blast, and Hitler survived with minor injuries. That midnight, Stauffenberg was arrested and executed by firing squad in the Bendlerblock courtyard, crying out: 'Long live our sacred Germany!'.