Hitler plot as seen in Cruise film 'Valkyrie'commemorated

Ceremonies will be held in Berlin today at the spot where Stauffenberg was shot and at Berlin's Ploetzensee prison, where many of the conspirators were executed. Chancellor Angela Merkel will give a speech in front of the Reichstag for a public oath- taking by soldiers to mark the anniversary.

"Germany should be unhesitatingly proud of the men and women of the resistance," Economy Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg wrote in the Bild-Zeitung newspaper. Guttenberg's great-uncle was executed as one of those involved in the plot.

Stauffenberg, an army colonel who had become appalled about reports of SS massacres committed on the Soviet front, was the main actor in an attempt from within the army to bring an end to the war by killing Hitler. The failed bid is celebrated as the closest the Nazi resistance ever came to success.

On July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg carried a 1-kilogram (2.2 pound) bomb hidden in a briefcase directly into Hitler's eastern-front headquarters in East Prussia, called the "Wolf's Lair." Hitler came away with minor injuries from the explosion because the briefcase's position had been shifted under the table in the room where he was holding a meeting.

Stauffenberg, who flew back to Berlin believing the Nazi dictator was dead, gave the order for "Operation Valkyrie" to take control of the military and disarm the SS, only to have the plot unravel within 12 hours. He and four other army officers were brought into an army building courtyard in central Berlin and shot dead.

Hitler's Revenge

Hitler took revenge. Two hundred men and women connected to the plot were hauled before the fanatical Nazi People's Court and then executed. An estimated 7,000 others were rounded up, thousands of whom were killed in camps before the war ended.

The attempt on Hitler's life was one of at least eight between 1938 and 1944. In 1939, a Swabian carpenter, Georg Elser, sought to murder the dictator. He built a bomb into a column in a Munich beer hall, timing it to go off during a speech by Hitler who escaped the explosion by leaving the premises early to catch a train.

Stauffenberg's attempt to kill Hitler was made into the movie "Valkyrie" released last year starring Tom Cruise as the colonel.

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