Axel Ernst-August Clamor Franz Albrecht Erich Leo Freiherr von dem Bussche-Streithorst (24 April 1919 – 26 January 1993) was a conspirator in a plot to kill German dictator Adolf Hitler during the later years of World War 2.
Von dem Busssche was posted to the Eastern Front as a junior officer with the 9th Infantry Regiment when he was 18. While initially he was in support of the war, in 1942 he witnessed the German intelligence agency, the SD, massacre over 3,000 Jewish civilians, making him become disillusioned with the German government and their dictator Adolf Hitler. Following this, he joined a resistance group led by Claus von Stauffenberg.
In November 1943, von dem Bussche volunteered to become a suicide bomber to take out Hitler. Hitler was due to inspect new Army winter uniforms at his Führerhauptquartier Wolfsschanze, near Rastenburg in Eastern Prussia. The idea was that von dem Bussche would volunteer to model the uniforms and embrace Hitler during the inspection, before setting off a grenade concealed in his pocket and kill them both. Unfortunately, the night before the inspection a bombing raid destroyed the train carrying the uniforms and it was cancelled.
Undeterred, von dem Bussche volunteered for another planned suicide bombing in February 1944, when the inspection had been pushed back to. However, the month before he lost a leg in battle and Ewald von Kleist volunteered instead, only for the inspection to be cancelled anyway.
Due to having to go to hospital after losing his leg, von dem Bussche was not involved in the 20 July plot, and as a result avoided sharing the same fate as von Stauffenberg, who was shot. Consequently, he was one of the extremely few Army plotters to survive the war, and went on to get married twice (once to the eldest daughter of the 5th Earl of Gosford) and become an advisor to the World Bank, a member of the presidency of the Evangelical Church in Germany and a delegate to the United Nations environment conference of 1972.