Philipp Freiherr von Boeselager; targeted Hitler

BERLIN - Philipp Freiherr von Boeselager, 90, 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, died Thursday.

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 forthcoming Tom Cruise film

Valkyrie

.

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

Afterward, von Stauffenberg and many of his cohorts were arrested and executed in an orgy of revenge killings that saw some hanged by the neck with piano wire. Though many of those rounded up by the Nazis were tortured in the hope they would give up other conspirators, Mr. von Boeselager's name never was divulged.

Mr. von Boeselager was recruited by a coconspirator, Maj. Gen. Henning von Tresckow, in 1942, he told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in an interview three weeks ago. He said he knew that Jews were being killed and that Germany was waging a war of annihilation along the Eastern Front and never considered declining a role in the plot.

The plotters first arranged for Mr. von Boeselager to shoot Hitler and SS chief Heinrich Himmler at a meeting in 1943. That plan was called off when they found out Hitler would not be at the meeting.

They then devised the explosives plan. Mr. von Boeselager acquired explosives without drawing suspicion and delivered them to Maj. Gen. Helmuth Stieff, packed into a suitcase. Stieff later was executed for his role in the plot.

Mr. von Boeselager told the Frankfurter Allgemeine that in the years immediately after the war, he spoke with his wife about his role in the resistance but otherwise said little else.

"There was nobody one could talk with about it," he said. "They were all dead."