Editing 20 July plot (section)

=== Von Stauffenberg joins ===
[[File:VStauffenberg_vQuirnheim.jpg|thumb|Stauffenberg with [[Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim]] in June 1944]]
By mid-1943, the tide of war was turning decisively against Germany. The army plotters and their civilian allies became convinced that Hitler should be assassinated, so that a government acceptable to the western Allies could be formed, and a separate peace negotiated in time to prevent a Soviet invasion of Germany. In August 1943, Tresckow met, for the first time, a young staff officer named Lieutenant Colonel [[Claus von Stauffenberg]]. Severely wounded in North Africa, Claus von Stauffenberg was a political conservative and zealous German nationalist.<ref name="Valkyrie" />

From early 1942, he had come to share two basic convictions with many military officers: that Germany was being led to disaster and that Hitler's removal from power was necessary. After the [[Battle of Stalingrad]] in December 1942, despite his religious scruples, he concluded that the Führer's assassination was a lesser moral evil than Hitler's remaining in power.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Kaminski|first1=Joseph|title=The Plots to Kill Hitler|url=http://josephkaminski.net/2015/02/16/the-plots-to-kill-hitler/|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150407163855/http://josephkaminski.net/2015/02/16/the-plots-to-kill-hitler/|archive-date=7 April 2015}}</ref> Stauffenberg brought a new tone of decisiveness to the ranks of the resistance movement. When Tresckow was assigned to the Eastern Front, Stauffenberg took charge of planning and executing the assassination attempt.