No problem. You had the misfortune to hit my one area of obsessive interest - the German resistance against Hitler - and you weren't to know. And I could have been more polite. My apologies for any tone of condescension I may have brought across - not intentional.
For anyone doing a model of Claus, the following details may be of use:
Stauffenberg's waffenfarbe was carmine (close to a raspberry colour), as appropriate to a generalstabs offizier. There is a bit of controversy going on right now on another site I frequent re. his collar patches on July 20 - should the 2 piston bars be on a carmine ground or on a standard rifle green backing? The working conclusion is that the full dress unifrom required carmine and the field dress allowed the dark green.
Stauffenberg was known to be a bit of a sloppy dresser and there are photos of him showing him in a quite rumpled state with open tunic pockets etc. Given his personality, he probably thought such mundane concerns as buttoning tunic pockets to be unimportant. That would fit his contempt for form over substance.
Per Nina v. Stauffenberg he had dark brown hair and grey/blue eyes.
At Wolfschanze on July 20, he probably wore his glass eye in Hitler's presence. Kleist says he had the eye patch on later in the day upon his return to the Bendlerstrasse so he probably removed the glass eye as it it was likely not comfortable to wear, especially in high heat and humidity. The last photo taken of Stauffenberg, with Hitler, was taken July 15, 1944 at Wolfschanze on the day of the previous aborted assassination attempt. It seems clear from that photo that Stauffenberg wears no eye patch. He also has no pistol belt or officer's peaked cap. Once in Hitler's presence he would have been inside the inner security zone of Wolfschanze where such items would have been checked for later pick-up. On July 20, Stauffenberg left so quickly that he abandoned his cap and belt. This may have been an early indication of his guilt.
At Wolfschanze on July 20, he would have worn a minimum of awards - probably just his iron cross and gold wound badge and not his full ribbon bar or German Cross in Gold (aka Hitler's fried egg). His awards included:
Sword of Honor 17.08.1929
Distinguished Service Badge, IVth Class 02.10.1936
Distinguished Service Badge, IIIrd Class 01.04.1938
Iron Cross, Ist Class 31.05.1940
Royal Bulgarian Order of Bravery, IVth Class 25.10.1941
Finnish Liberty Cross, IIIrd Class 11.12.1942
Wound Badge in Gold 14.04.1943
German Cross in Gold 08.05.1943
Italian-German Rememberance Medal 20.04.1943
His ribbon bar would have included 2 Heer long service awards as well.
The July 15 photo shows no indication of the carmine staff stripes on his breeches so he probably wore standard officer's jods. Many photos of Stauffenberg show him wearing a field grey field blouse of lighter colour than his trousers so this is a subtlety that modellers may wish to pick up too.
Finally, it appears to me that the uniforms and awards for the various participants in the recent film Valkyrie are very accurate. With some compression of characters and events to allow the film to fit into the 2 hour time budget, the whole film is also an accurate renditon of the July plot and a homage to some very brave and mostly honourable men who have been largely ignored by history, particulalry here in North America.
If anyone wants more detail or suggestions for further reading, throw me a PM and I will try to help.
Regards
Colin
