Stauffenberg blew into the conspiracy like a blast of chill air, inspiring and invigorating the plotters' weary ranks. A cyclone of energy and determination, he resolved, despite the appalling injuries that had maimed him, not only to carry out the assassination himself - since his new job gave him regular access to Hitler - but effectively to lead the putsch too. He would be the head, hand and heart of the conspiracy. As Germany's military position worsened, he insisted that there was no time to lose. Hitler must be eliminated physically, and the world shown that there were Germans ready to act, however hopelessly, against his evil reign. As one of Stauffenberg's mentors, Major-General Henning von Tresckow, put it: "The assassination must be attempted at all costs. Even if it should not succeed... what matters now is not the practical purpose of the putsch, but to prove to the world and to history that the men of the resistance dared to take the decisive step. Compared to this, nothing else matters."

The morality of killing Hitler - and those around him if the chosen method was an undiscriminating bomb - had caused long and anguished debate among the plotters. Prominent civilian conspirators such as Carl Goerdeler and Helmuth von Moltke adamantly opposed assassination as incompatible with their Christian faith. However, the officers, who were also sincere Christians, were equally sure that killing Hitler was both a practical necessity and theologically justified. It is noteworthy that on the very eve of planting his bomb, on 19 July, Stauffenberg found time to visit a Catholic church, presumably in search of consolation, if not absolution, for the plot.

In the event, the plot was bungled. As with every previous assassination attempt, the plan went awry. Stauffenberg was interrupted while priming his bomb, which as a result was only half as strong as he had intended. Then an officer at the conference unwittingly kicked the briefcase bomb behind a stout table strut, shielding Hitler from the full effect of the blast. Though bluffing himself out of the Führer's heavily guarded "Wolf's Lair" HQ with his customary cool charm and panache, Stauffenberg arrived back in Berlin too late to turn the tide. As they had foreseen, the plotters had failed again, and Stauffenberg duly went to his death with his last shouted words "Long live our sacred Germany" ringing in his executioners' ears even as the echoes of their shots died away. But in dying so, he and his companions had at any rate tried to save their own and their country's honour.

Since the war, the July conspirators have come to be adopted by the state as officially approved heroes of German history from a time when heroes were in woefully short supply. Streets and schools have been renamed in their honour, and the places where they died turned into shrines. The efforts of neo-Nazis to brand them as traitors have notably failed, although that is how many Germans saw them at the time. Despite their failure, there can be little doubt that in their main objective - to atone for their country's atrocious crimes - they triumphantly succeeded, and in dying as they did laid the foundations of a new Germany to arise from the poisoned ashes of the old.