Joachim Kramarz: Stauffenberg, The Life & Death of an Officer, 15th November 1907 - 20th July 1944, Andre Deutsch, London, 1967., hardcover with dust jacket, size 22.5 x 14.5 cm, 255 pages.

Stauffenberg, Claus, Graf (count) Schenk von

born November 15, 1907, Jettingen, Germany

died July 20, 1944, Berlin

German army officer who, as the chief conspirator of the July Plot, carried out  an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

Claus, Count Schenk von Stauffenberg, entered the German army in 1926 and won  distinction as a staff officer with a panzer (armoured) division in the  campaigns in Poland and northern France (1939–40). After he was transferred to  the front in the Soviet Union, however, he became disillusioned with the German  occupation's brutal policies toward Slavs and Jews. At his own request, he was  transferred to the North African campaign, where he was a staff officer in a  panzer division. In that campaign he was severely wounded (losing his left eye,  right hand, and two fingers of his left hand) in April 1943.

While convalescing from his wounds, Stauffenberg decided that Hitler must be  eliminated. In the ever-widening conspiracy of army officers against Hitler, he  assumed a leading role and reserved for himself the central task of carrying out  the proposed assassination. His chance came in July 1944, after he had been  promoted to colonel and reassigned to the post of chief of staff to the Reserve  Army Command; this post gave him access to situation conferences personally  attended by Hitler. After two preliminary attempts, Stauffenberg succeeded in  placing a bomb in Hitler's headquarters at Rastenburg (July 20, 1944); however,  it failed to kill the dictator. A planned simultaneous coup in Berlin likewise  miscarried, and Stauffenberg and a few of his coconspirators were summarily  executed the night of July 20 in Berlin—the first of the several thousands who  ultimately died in the bloody aftermath of the conspiracy.