Introduction

Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg

Born in Swabia and raised a Catholic, Stauffenberg displayed a sense of responsibility based on social and ethical considerations at an early age. Together with his brother Berthold, who belonged to the inner circle of conspirators before him, Stauffenberg examined the fundamental questions of human existence and the principles of political systems. The author Stefan George was a great influence on the intellectual and moral development of the Stauffenberg brothers.

Only in the course of the war did Stauffenberg recognize the criminal character of national Socialist policies. Only gradually and more slowly than his fellow conspirators was he able to free himself from the fascination which Hitler's early military successes held for him. After being seriously wounded and losing an eye, his right hand, and fingers of his left hand, he was assigned to the General Army Office in September of 1943 as chief of staff. By that time he was a member of the innermost circle of emphatic opponents of the regime. His new superior was General Friedrich Olbricht, who had been a driving force of the military overthrow efforts since 1938.

Olbricht informed Stauffenberg of his plans for a coup and introduced him to Ludwig Beck and Carl Friedrich Goerdeler. From his central position in the General Army Office, Stauffenberg attempted to unite the various groups and circles within the resistance movement. In his opinion, all the resistance groups had to agree on common goals despite their differences in order to be able to carry out the coup immediately and decisively at the critical "X-hour" following Hitler's assassination.

Assassination plans repeatedly failed in 1943 and close co-conspirators such as Adolf Reichwein and Julius Leber were arrested in the summer of 1944. Despite his serious wounds and his key role in Berlin, Stauffenberg decided early in July of 1944 to attempt the assassination of Hitler himself. On July 20, he successfully smuggled a bomb into the "Wolf's Lair", the Führer's closely guarded headquarters near Rastenburg in East Prussia, and detonated it during a briefing. After he returned to Berlin, Stauffenberg at first did not believe reports that Hitler had survived. Together with his friend Albrecht Ritter Mertz von Quirnheim, he feverishly attempted to persuade senior officers to support the coup. Late that evening, he was forced to acknowledge that the assassination attempt had failed. That same night, Stauffenberg, his adjutant Werner von Haeften, Mertz von Quirnheim, and Olbricht were summarily executed as the principal guilty parties in the assassination attempt. Beck was forced to commit suicide. Tresckow took his own life on the eastern front shortly thereafter.