German Military Figure. Born Phillip Freiherr von Boeselager near Bonn, Germany, he was the last known member of Operation Valkyrie, the failed July 20, 1944, plot by Colonel Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg to assassinate Adolph Hitler and retake control of Germany. Von Boeselager, then a lieutenant in the Wehrmacht (armed forces) of the Third Reich, was initially issued a Walther PP pistol to shoot both Hitler and Heinrich Himmler at a strategy planning meeting in 1943 near the Eastern Front; the plan was aborted when Himmler decided not to attend. Subsequently, he provided the English explosives used in the failed assasination of Hitler on July 20, 1944. While some 200 conspirators were either executed or committed suicide, he was not found out. His additional role in the plot was to bring his cavalry troops from the Eastern European front to sieze control of Berlin but was it was called off with the failed bombing and his name was never divulged. He studied law and economics after the war and managed his family forest industries as well as headed the German Forest Owners Association from 1968 to 1988. He also made it his mission in life to "warn the youth" about National Socialism via speeches and presentations to students and encourage them to actively participate in politics. He still possessed the Walther pistol when he gave his last interview just three weeks before he died at his home, Burg Kreuzberg, in Altenahr, Germany.
German Military Figure. Born Phillip Freiherr von Boeselager near Bonn, Germany, he was the last known member of Operation Valkyrie, the failed July 20, 1944, plot by Colonel Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg to assassinate Adolph Hitler and retake control of Germany. Von Boeselager, then a lieutenant in the Wehrmacht (armed forces) of the Third Reich, was initially issued a Walther PP pistol to shoot both Hitler and Heinrich Himmler at a strategy planning meeting in 1943 near the Eastern Front; the plan was aborted when Himmler decided not to attend. Subsequently, he provided the English explosives used in the failed assasination of Hitler on July 20, 1944. While some 200 conspirators were either executed or committed suicide, he was not found out. His additional role in the plot was to bring his cavalry troops from the Eastern European front to sieze control of Berlin but was it was called off with the failed bombing and his name was never divulged. He studied law and economics after the war and managed his family forest industries as well as headed the German Forest Owners Association from 1968 to 1988. He also made it his mission in life to "warn the youth" about National Socialism via speeches and presentations to students and encourage them to actively participate in politics. He still possessed the Walther pistol when he gave his last interview just three weeks before he died at his home, Burg Kreuzberg, in Altenahr, Germany.
Bio by: Fred Beisser
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