Lentorama 2007: The Non-Canonized Catholic Person of the Day

Born on this date in 1905, Berthold Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg was the oldest of three brothers born into an aristocratic German family from Wurttemburg. He went into law, and was a professor of international law at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. He joined the navy in 1939 as a staff judge and advisor on international law.

But as noble Prussians, Berthold and his family and friends weren't too keen on the Nazis, and a group of them planned to assassinate Hitler (with many of the meetings taking place in Berthold's apartment in Berlin). Berthold's brother Claus was the only one of their group with access to Hitler, and on July 20, 1944, he brought a bomb (hidden in his briefcase) into a staff meeting where Hitler was in attendance. The bomb went off, but Hitler escaped with minor injuries.

The Stauffenbergs, along with their fellow co-conspiritors, were not so lucky. Roughly 200 people were executed, though that includes a number of folks who the Gestapo just wanted to get rid of, and saw this as a good pretext. Many of the central plotters were hanged and killed by slow strangulation. Berthold was somewhat luckier, as he was executed by firing squad.