Stauffenberg On My Mind

Stauffenberg's grandson Philipp von Schulthess plays a minor part in the most recent movie about operation Valkyrie. This is an interview with him not on the "Valkyrie" DVD.

Today it is the 20th of July and I am thinking a bit extra of the 1944 bomb plot to kill Hitler on that date, for two reasons.

First, I recently read a new and riveting autobiography by one of the officer conspirators against Hitler, Knight's Cross holder Baron Rudolf-Christoph von Gersdorff. I learnt a great deal from it both about the German officer corps (especially from the cavalry) and the fighting on the Ostfront and in Normandy. In English it is entitled Soldier in the Downfall. I have by now read many books by German veterans and can say that this one ranks as my all time favourite German memoir alongside Black Edelweiss and A Mind in Prison.

Secondly, the recent bomb against the Syrian leadership made me think a lot about "Syria's Stauffenberg". I wonder what his fate will be?