Posted on Sat, May. 03, 2008

Officer in on plot to kill Hitler dies at 90

ASSOCIATED PRESS

BERLIN --

Philipp Freiherr von Boeselager, believed to be the last surviving member of the inner circle of plotters who attempted to kill Adolf Hitler in 1944 with a briefcase bomb, has died at 90.

The German military said in a statement Friday that the former army major died Thursday night. It did not give a cause of death.

Mr. von Boeselager was part of a group of officers who tried to kill Hitler on July 20, 1944, supplying explosives for the operation led by Col. Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg.

The von Stauffenberg plot is the basis for the upcoming Tom Cruise film Valkyrie in which the American actor plays the aristocratic colonel.

Von Stauffenberg placed the bomb in a conference room where Hitler was meeting with his aides and military advisers, but Hitler escaped the blast when someone moved the briefcase next to a table leg, deflecting much of the explosive force.

Von Stauffenberg and many of his cohorts were arrested and executed, but von Boeselager's name was never divulged and he was never found out.