Claus Philipp Maria Justinian Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg was a German army officer who is best known for his failed attempt on 20 July 1944 to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the Wolf's Lair, part of Operation Valkyrie, a plan that would have seen the arrest of the Nazi leadership in the wake of Hitler's death and an earlier end to World War II.
Stauffenberg took part in the Invasion of Poland, the 1941–42 invasion of the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa and the Tunisian campaign during the Second World War. Alongside Major Generals Henning von Tresckow and Hans Oster, he became a key figure in the German resistance to Nazism within the Wehrmacht.
On 20 July 1944, Stauffenberg's assassination attempt failed; the explosive he had placed only dealt Hitler minor injuries.