Berthold Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg

Berthold Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (born 3 July 1934 in Bamberg) is a retired German Bundeswehr officer.

He is the oldest of five children of Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg and nephew of Berthold Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, two German aristocrats who were active in the July 20 Plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

After the failed assassination and the subsequent executions, Claus's pregnant wife Nina Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg was interned in a concentration camp and separated from her four children, who were taken to a foster home in Bad Sachsa. Until the end of the war they were forced to use a different family name, as "von Stauffenberg" was not accepted as their name. Berthold Maria von Stauffenberg was the oldest of the children and had just turned ten at the time.

Berthold graduated from Schule Schloss Salem and studied engineering before becoming an officer in West Germany's new army as soon as it was established in 1956. From 1972 to 1974, he was commander of Tank Battalion 11 at Munster, Lower Saxony, Germany's largest military base. His career culminated as Supreme Commander of Territorial Command South, and he retired in 1994 with the rank of "Generalmajor", as Germany's oldest soldier after 38 years of service.

In 1958, he had married Mechthild Gräfin von Bentzel-Sturmfeder-Horneck von Oppenweiler (born 27 January 1938 in Bamberg), and moved to her family's hometown of Oppenweiler in Southern Germany.

In July 2004, for his 70th birthday and 60th anniversary of the plot, he was interviewed by several newspapers, and was also invited to a ceremony at the former Wolfschanze.

In 2006, he participated with Richard von Weizsäcker and others in the opening ceremony of the von Stauffenberg Memorial in Stuttgart.

In 2007, von Stauffenberg voiced concerns over the film "Valkyrie", because the actor portraying his father, Tom Cruise, belongs to the Church of Scientology. [cite news
last =Staff
first =
coauthors =
title =Son of German general fears Cruise film could become 'horrible kitsch'
work =CBC News
pages =
language =
publisher =Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
date =2007-06-24
url =http://www.cbc.ca/arts/film/story/2007/06/24/cruise-nazi-film.html?ref=rss
accessdate = ]

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* [http://www.pipeline.de/bkz-online/php/archivartikel.php?userid=&publikation=19&template=arttextlokalesphp&redaktion=19&artikel=107393214&archiv=1 German local newspaper on the 70th birthday of the son]
*de icon Stauffenberg-Memorial in Stuttgart [http://www.ncb-ge.de/portal/a/streitkraeftebasis/kcxml/04_Sj9SPykssy0xPLMnMz0vM0Y_QjzKLt4g3cQsBSUGYwfqRMLGglFR9X4_83FR9b_0A_YLciHJHR0VFAHZP5NA!/delta/base64xml/L2dJQSEvUUt3QS80SVVFLzZfOF9PSko!?yw_contentURL=%2F01DB040000000001%2FW26VQA8Q957INFODE%2Fcontent.jsp] inaugurated in 2006, in presence of von Stauffenberg [http://www.ncb-ge.de/portal/PA_1_0_LT/PortalFiles/02DB040000000001/W26VQA4H827INFODE/enthuellung_420.jpg?yw_repository=youatweb]