Claus von Stauffenberg

Claus von Stauffenberg was a German army officer, born into a noble Bavarian family, who is best known for the failed attempt of 20 July 1944 to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the Wolf's Lair. He served in the invasion of Poland, Operation Barbarossa and the Tunisian campaign, where severe wounds cost him his left eye, his right hand and two fingers of the left hand. Together with senior officers such as Henning von Tresckow and Hans Oster he became a leading figure in the military resistance to Nazism inside the Wehrmacht. He placed the bomb and planned Operation Valkyrie, intended to arrest the Nazi leadership and negotiate an end to the war. The plot failed and he was executed the day after the attempt.