Activities in 1939–1940 Following the outbreak of war in 1939, Stauffenberg and his regiment took part in the
Invasion of Poland. During this time, he was a strong supporter of Poland's occupation, and the Nazi Party's colonisation, exploitation and use of Pole slave workers to bring about German prosperity. While his uncle,
Nikolaus Graf von Üxküll-Gyllenband, together with
Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenburg, had approached Stauffenberg to join the resistance movement against the Hitler regime, it was only after the Polish campaign that Stauffenberg began to consider the offer.
Peter Yorck von Wartenburg and
Ulrich Schwerin von Schwanenfeld had urged him to become the adjutant of
Walther von Brauchitsch, then Supreme Commander of the Army, to facilitate a coup against Hitler. Though, Stauffenberg declined at the time, reasoning that all German soldiers had pledged allegiance not to the institution of the presidency of the German , but to the person of
Adolf Hitler, due to the introduced in 1934.
Operation Barbarossa, 1941–1942 During the quieter months of 1940 to 1941, Stauffenberg was transferred to the organisational department of the ("Army High Command"; OKH), which was directing the German invasion of the
Soviet Union and operations on the Eastern Front. Though Stauffenberg did not engage in any coup plotting at this time, his brothers Berthold and Alexander maintained contact with anti-regime figures such as the
Kreisau Circle and former commanders such as Hoepner. Hoffman, in citing Brigadier Oskar Alfred-Berger's letters, noted Stauffenberg had commented openly on the ill-treatment of the Jews when he "expressed outrage and shock on this subject to fellow officers in the General Staff Headquarters in
Vinnitsa, Ukraine during the summer of 1942." When Stauffenberg's friend, Major Joachim Kuhn, was captured by the
Red Army, during interrogation on 2 September 1944, Kuhn claimed that Stauffenberg had told him in August 1942 that "They are shooting Jews in masses. These crimes must not be allowed to continue."
Tunisia, 1943 In November 1942, the
Allies landed in French North Africa whilst the
10th Panzer Division occupied
Vichy France (
Case Anton), consequently being transferred to fight in the
Tunisian campaign, as part of the . In 1943, Stauffenberg was promoted to (lieutenant-colonel of the general staff), and was sent to Africa to join the 10th Panzer Division as its Operations Officer in the General Staff (Ia). On 19 February,
Rommel launched his counter-offensive against British, American and French forces in Tunisia. The Axis commanders hoped to rapidly break through either the Sbiba or Kasserine Pass into the rear of the British
First Army. The assault at Sbiba was halted, so Rommel
concentrated on the Kasserine Pass where primarily the Italian
7th Bersaglieri Regiment and
131st Armoured Division Centauro had defeated the American defenders. During the fighting, Stauffenberg drove up to be with the leading tanks and troops of the 10th Panzer Division. The division, together with the 21st Panzer Division, took up defensive positions near
Mezzouna on 8 April. On 7 April 1943, Stauffenberg was involved in driving from one unit to another, directing their movement. Near Mezzouna, his vehicle was part of a column
strafed by
P-40 Kittyhawk fighter bombers of the
Desert Air Force – most likely from
No. 3 Squadron RAAF – and he received multiple severe wounds. Stauffenberg spent three months in a hospital in
Munich, where he was treated by
Ferdinand Sauerbruch. Stauffenberg lost his left eye, his right hand, and two fingers on his left hand. He jokingly remarked to friends never to have really known what to do with so many fingers when he still had all of them. For his injuries, Stauffenberg was awarded the
Wound Badge in Gold on 14 April and for his courage the
German Cross in Gold on 8 May.
In the resistance, 1943–1944 For rehabilitation, Stauffenberg was sent to his home, Schloss
Lautlingen (today a museum), then still one of the Stauffenberg castles in southern Germany. The Torfels near
Meßstetten Bueloch had been visited many times. Initially, he felt frustrated not to be in a position to stage a coup himself. But by the beginning of September 1943, after a somewhat slow recovery from his wounds, he was propositioned by the conspirators and was introduced to
Henning von Tresckow as a staff officer to the headquarters of the ("Replacement Army" – charged with training soldiers to reinforce first line divisions at the front), located on the (later ) in
Berlin. There, one of Stauffenberg's superiors was
General Friedrich Olbricht, a committed member of the resistance movement. The had a unique opportunity to launch a coup, as one of its functions was to have
Operation Valkyrie in place. This was a contingency measure to let it assume control of the in the event that internal disturbances blocked communications to the military high command. The
Valkyrie plan had been agreed to by Hitler but was secretly changed to sweep the rest of his regime from power in the event of his death. In 1943, Henning von Tresckow was deployed on the Eastern Front, giving Stauffenberg control of the resistance. (Tresckow never returned to Germany, as he committed suicide at
Królowy Most, Poland, in 1944, after learning of the plot's failure.) A detailed military plan was developed not only to occupy Berlin, but also to take the different headquarters of the German army and of Hitler in
East Prussia by military force after the suicide assassination attempt by
Axel von dem Bussche in late November 1943. Stauffenberg had von dem Bussche transmit these written orders personally to Major Kuhn once he had arrived at
Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) near
Rastenburg, East Prussia. However, von dem Bussche had left the Wolfsschanze for the eastern front, after the meeting with Hitler was cancelled, and the attempt could not be made. Kuhn became a
prisoner of war of the Soviets after the 20 July plot. He led the Soviets to the hiding place of the documents in February 1945. In 1989, Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev presented these documents to German chancellor Dr.
Helmut Kohl. The conspirators' motivations have been a matter of discussion for years in Germany since the war. Many thought the plotters wanted to kill Hitler in order to end the war and to avoid the loss of their privileges as professional officers and members of the nobility. On
D-Day, 6 June 1944, the Allies had landed in France. Stauffenberg, like most other German professional military officers, had absolutely no doubt that the war was lost. Only an immediate armistice could avoid more unnecessary bloodshed and further damage to Germany, its people, and other European nations. However, in late 1943, he had written out demands with which he felt the Allies had to comply in order for Germany to agree to an immediate peace. These demands included Germany retaining its 1914 eastern borders, including the Polish territories of
Wielkopolska and
Poznań. Other demands included keeping such territorial gains as
Austria and the Sudetenland within the Reich, giving autonomy to
Alsace-Lorraine and even expansion of the current wartime borders of Germany in the south by annexing Tyrol as far as
Bozen and
Meran. Non-territorial demands included such points as refusal of any occupation of Germany by the Allies, as well as refusal to hand over war criminals by demanding the right of "nations to deal with its own criminals." These proposals were directed to only the Western Allies – Stauffenberg wanted Germany to retreat from only the western, southern, and northern positions, while demanding the right to continue military occupation of German territorial gains in the east. ==20 July plot==