Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (Stauffenberg)

Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (Stauffenberg), (1907-1944), Colonel General Staff of Germany army, Count, a key figure of the July 1944 conspiracy. Born November 15, 1907 in the castle Greyfenshteyn, Upper Franconia, in the family, has long served as a royal houses Wurttemberg and Bavaria. His father was a Bavarian king's chamberlain, and his mother - granddaughter of the Prussian General Count August Wilhelm Anton von Gneisenau (1760-1831).
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. Educated in the spirit of the monarchist conservatism and Catholic piety, Stauffenberg, however, did not accept the bourgeois of the Weimar Republic and eventually imbued with socialist ideas.
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. Believing in the dignity of the beginning of the Nazi regime, sulivshego ensure revival of Germany, Stauffenberg enthusiastic about Hitler's rise to power in 1933
. At the beginning of the 2-nd World War, Stauffenberg was an officer in the Bavarian Cavalry Regiment, served in Poland, France and North. Africa. Was seriously wounded in Tunisia (lost an eye, his right hand crippled leg), Stauffenberg had miraculously survived thanks to the skill of the largest German surgeon Ferdinand Sauerbruch, and returned to the ranks, later becoming chief of staff of the Army Reserve. Since then, his relationship to Hitler and Nazism have changed dramatically, he realized that Hitler was leading Germany to disaster. Wanting to save our country from the shame and dishonor, Stauffenberg joined the conspiracy against Hitler, so that, by overthrowing the Nazi regime in Germany to create a new social community.
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. Being a hereditary military aristocrat, Stauffenberg did not make any secret of his contempt for Hitler, whom he called "the principal parasite, and to Nazism
. Through his cousin Peter von Wartenburg he began to work closely with a group Kreysau. In January 1944 he was arrested by Count von Moltke, Stauffenberg took the lead conspirators, who included a former mayor of Leipzig, Dr. Goerdeler, former Chief of Army Staff, General Beck and many others. Gizevius recalled: "Stauffenberg did not want Hitler lured into the grave with the whole army. As a military man to the tips of nails, he thought that to save the army meant to save the motherland ... He was not alone in this belief, being a typical representative of the military, administer 20 July. Since 1942 the number of this group grew with each new defeat at the front and it grew stronger commitment to actively respond to events. "

December 26, 1943 Stauffenberg was invited to Hitler's Headquarters in Rustenburg for the report. He was brought there in a briefcase bomb in slow motion. But Hitler, as usual, at the last minute to cancel the meeting, and Stauffenberg had to take away the bomb back in Berlin. Enlisting the support, if not, . a friendly neutrality of some high-ranking military (Chief creep - Criminal Police - Heaven, . Prefect of the Berlin police Count Gelldorfa, . his deputy, Count Schulenburg, . military commandant of Berlin, General von Gaza, etc.), . Stauffenberg developed a plan "Valkyrie", . which called for the killing of Hitler and the immediate organization of a military government in Berlin, . that should have been using the Wehrmacht neutralize the most dangerous bodies of the Nazi regime: SS, . Gestapo and SD.,
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. At the end of June 1944 Stauffenberg was promoted to colonel and was appointed Chief of Staff of the Army Reserve, which opened him access to the meeting in the Fuehrer's Headquarters
. On July 20 has been designated an important meeting at headquarters to take stock of the Soviet offensive in Galicia. Keitel invited Stauffenberg in Rustenburg, where he was to make a report on the formation of the inner parts of the army destined for organizing the defense of each settlement of Germany and later received the name "Volkssturm". Stauffenberg arrived at headquarters with a briefcase, which again was delayed-action bomb, packed with exogenous - British bomb from secret warehouses Abwehr. Leaving the briefcase under the table, under the pretext he left the room. Sound of a few minutes later the explosion did not cause much harm to Hitler. Stauffenberg flew to Berlin was absolutely convinced that Hitler was dead and demanded that their commander commander of Reserve army Fromm immediately set in motion a plan of "Valkyrie". However, when it became known that the Fuhrer is alive, Fromm disavowed his subordinate, who was immediately arrested and sentenced by the People's Tribunal to death, and that night shot in the courtyard of the War Ministry on Bendlerstrasse.