Axel Freiherr von dem Bussche-Streithorst
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Axel Freiherr von dem Bussche-Streithorst (24 April 1919 - 26 January 1993), usually referred to as Axel von dem Bussche in English, German Army officer, was a member of the German Resistance to the regime of Adolf Hitler. Born in Braunschweig, he joined the Army in 1939 and was posted as a junior officer to the eastern front, where he witnessed a massacre of Jews near Dubno in 1942. He then joined the resistance grouping in the Army based at Army Group Centre, declaring that there were only three ways to preserve his honour: die in battle, desert, or rebel.
In December 1943 Bussche undertook to carry out a suicide bombing to kill Hitler. In December Hitler was due to inspect new Army winter uniforms, and Bussche planned to demonstrate one of the uniforms with two hand grenades hidden in the coat, which he would detonate, killing both Hitler and himself. The plan failed when an Allied bomb attack on Berlin destroyed the railway truck with the uniforms on the day before the planned assassination attempt.
In January 1944 Bussche volunteered for a further assassination attempt, but before it could be organised he was severely wounded in action, losing a leg. He then spent many months in hospital, and as result was not involved in the July 20 Plot to kill Hitler. His role in the earlier assassination plots was not suspected, and he was not betrayed by any of the officers who knew of his role. As a result he was one of the few Army plotters to survive the war.
After the war Bussche became a lawyer and diplomat, serving from 1954 to 1958 in the German Embassy in Washington. He was also a member of the presidency of the German Evangelical Church, an advisor to the World Bank and a delegate to the Stockholm UN environment conference of 1972. In 1950 he married Lady Camilla Acheson, daughter of the 6th Earl of Gosford.
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