The last known survivor of a group of German army officers who tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1944 has died aged 90, his family says.
Philipp von Boeselager provided the explosives used to pack a briefcase planted under a table in the Nazi leader's East Prussia headquarters.
But the briefcase was moved behind one of the oak table's wooden legs, and Hitler escaped with only slight wounds.
Most of the plotters were executed, but Mr Von Boeselager escaped detection.
Among those executed - just hours after the assassination attempt - was Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, who planted the briefcase and after whom the plot was named.
Mr Von Boeselager died overnight on Thursday, his family said.
She was the 21st Duchess of Medina Sidonia, Spain's most ancient dukedom whose origins go back to 1297. She was a princess, a marquess and a three-fold Spanish grandee. But from childhood, Luisa Isabel Alvarez de Toledo y Maura kicked against the conventions of her lineage.
The dictator Francisco Franco jailed her for championing workers, who nicknamed her the "Red Duchess". She challenged Spain's official history, arguing that Columbus didn't discover America. She was an atheist, a republican and reckoned her 13th-century ancestor Guzman el Bueno, ennobled for fighting the Moors, was a north African whose grandmother was black.
But the Red Duchess – a "title" she never accepted – threw down her most defiant challenge in her final hours. As she lay dying in her palace in Sanlucar de Barrameda, aged 71, Luisa Isabel married in articulo mortis her secretary and companion, Liliana Maria Dahlmann, and left her everything. Her discreet sexual preferences were known to her family, but the secret lesbian marriage has shaken Spain's proud and ancient aristocracy and is likely to unleash a legal battle over a sumptuous inheritance.
The duchess's German-born widow, 52, inherits a patrimony accumulated over seven centuries, a collection of six million letters and documents said to comprise Europe's biggest private archive, an undisclosed quantity of art and property, and the marital home, the 16th-century ducal palace.
Luisa Isabel's three children from her first marriage are furious and threaten court action to claim the inheritance they believe is theirs. "She was a singular person; she had many qualities, but not the maternal instinct," said her daughter, Maria Pilar Gonzalez de Gregorio, 51, Duchess of Fernandina. Mother and daughter at least greeted each other. But the younger son, Gabriel, 50, was cast out and last saw his mother in 1986. While Liliana, who lived with the duchess for 25 years, wept by her dying wife, Pilar and Gabriel were told their mother wouldn't see them.
"She wouldn't even receive us on her deathbed," said Gabriel after her death in March. "I was very surprised she maintained her bitterness to the point of not saying farewell." Only the eldest son, Leoncio Gonzalez de Gregorio, 53, had visited his mother in her final hours. But the duke has only one vote on the ruling committee of the Medina Sidonia Foundation his mother set up in 1990, presided over by his mother's lesbian partner.
Liliana Dahlmann first came to Sanlucar in 1983, as a guest at Leoncio's wedding, and stayed on. "Everything developed naturally without premeditation," she told the Spanish daily El Pais. "I immediately felt part of her life and her work." Luisa Isabel presided over the foundation, and appointed her friend secretary.
"The duchess built a perfect juridical structure to protect this heritage," said Jesus Barba, the duchess's lawyer. "Obviously, her children would rather she had left everything to them, but this way it's better for the public interest." The contents of the will are to be revealed shortly, but Gabriel, who inherits no title, has few expectations. "She has left us with only debts, because she put everything of value into her foundation," he said.
Gabriel is said to date the parental chill from the day his mother fled to France in 1969 to avoid political persecution. The three children remained in Madrid with their mother's grandmother, Julia Herrera.
In 1967, the Red Duchess had led a farmworkers' protest in Palomares, near Almeria, demanding compensation for contamination on their land. Four American nuclear bombs had fallen in the area in a plane crash a year earlier. The duchess was jailed in March 1969, and given amnesty in November. But her book Strike, which denounced abuses by landowners of Andalusian labourers, prompted court action and a renewed jail threat. She did not return to Spain until 1976, after Franco's death.
She then settled in the renaissance pile of the ducal palace. Parts of the estate had been taken over, including a church that is now a concert hall; other parts she gave to workers on the land. She cared only about the family library, whose stacks and bundles dating from 1228 she began investigating and cataloguing. It became her life's work.
As a girl, her grandfather had encouraged her interest in history. Otherwise she had what she called a useless convent schooling. Born in Estoril, Portugal, in 1936 – her parents went into exile at the start of the Spanish Civil War – she was a debutante with Doña Pilar de Borbón, sister of Juan Carlos.
Flaunting her republicanism, Luisa Isabel teased Spain's future king as "Citizen Borbón".
Her mother died when she was 10, and she lived with her grandmother – Julia Herrera, who later cared for the duchess's own children. At 18 she married Jose Leoncio Gonzalez de Gregorio y Marti. Her father died that year, 1955, and she inherited the title of duchess. Her husband was apparently rigid and conservative, and five years and three children later, the marriage ended. Armed with her archive, Luisa Isabel campaigned to dismantle official Spanish history. She said documents proved that voyagers from Spain and north Africa reached America long before Columbus landed in 1492.
She also claimed documentary proof that the grandmother of her illegitimate ancestor, Alonso Perez de Guzman, a hero ennobled for defending the port of Tarifa against Moorish attack in 1282, was black. She wrote a biography of a later Perez de Guzman, commander of the ill-fated Spanish Armada, based on his correspondence with Philip II.
"She was a whirlwind, an indefatigable woman," her widow recalled. "Imagine what it means to organise all this archive. She wanted to get help for such a prodigious task, but in the end she did it alone." But she never forgot who she was. According to Jose Rodriguez, a Sanlucar priest: "This lady was a duchess, even if she wore jeans and smoked [rough, black] Celtas cigarettes."
The criticisms, witticisms and daily observations posted on her "London Underground's Blog" www.london-underground.blogspot.com since she first began writing it in 2003 have struck a chord with commuters and the people who operate the rail system beneath the capital that is affectionately known as the "Tube".
"I thought might be a subject that people would want to interact and talk about, because everyone's got their own little Tube story," Mole told Reuters in a coffee shop near her office.Mole, who writes under a pseudonym and declined to reveal her real name, said the blog was a spin-off from her original Web site "Going Underground", which she first created in 1999.
"I wanted to be anonymous because I thought, I'm not sure the Tube are actually going to like this and they might try and find out who I am and get the site closed down," Mole said.
But her blog has received enormous attention instead, roping in other bloggers, commuters sharing experiences and even people who work on the Underground.
It has been nominated best British blog at the international weblog awards (aka: the bloggies) three times in the last four years and voted one of TimeOut magazine's 50 best London sites.
A number of the private companies which do maintenance work on the 12 Tube lines that criss-cross London's Underground, have recognised her blog's powerful influence on commuters and have met Mole to clarify rumours and answer complaints, she said.
"They think what I'm doing is positive...they say it's a way for the public to see what actually goes on behind these lines that they would have never done without bloggers."
LIFE ON THE TUBE
Mole said her blog speaks to busy Londoners, who she says spend on average 45 minutes a day commuting on public transport, with three million passengers travelling on the Tube.
"The amount of time you spend on it, it's definitely an extra life, well it is for me because I have quite a long commute," Mole said.
The blogger spends 80 minutes observing fellow passengers on the Tube on her way to and from work as a product manager in central London.
"There are people who are incredibly self-conscious on the Tube, who are very aware of people watching them so they won't look at anyone, they won't smile at anyone...like I'm in my own little world," Mole said.
"And then there are other people who are like: 'Brilliant, here's an extension of my office, here's an extension of my bedroom. I'm gonna be on my phone, I'm gonna be doing my makeup," she said.
But the blog has not changed Mole's opinion about delayed services and crowded conditions on the Tube.
"Even this morning I was delayed by 25 minutes coming into work...I hated it," Mole said. "Because I understand it more, it amazes me as to why it's so rubbish because it shouldn't be that bad."
(Editing by Paul Casciato)
Disgusting: In tests, some keyboards were found to have five times as much bacteria as a toilet
Many users are at risk of becoming ill with stomach bugs, according to the consumer group Which?
It warned that 'qwerty tummy', named after the first six letters on a keyboard, could sweep through workplaces after tests on equipment in its own London offices showed alarming results.
One keyboard was so dirty that a microbiologist ordered it to be removed, quarantined and cleaned.
It had 150 times the acceptable limit for bacteria and was five times as filthy as a typical lavatory seat.
Anyone who eats a sandwich or piece of fruit having been tapping on such a keyboard can pick up bacteria that could lead to a stomach upset.
The scientist swabbed 33 keyboards for food poisoning bugs e.coli, coliforms, staphylococcus aureus and enterobacteria and compared the results to those found on a lavatory seat and lavatory door handle.
Four of the keyboards were considered a potential health hazard and one was "condemned".
Two had "warning levels" of staphylococcus aureus and two others had "worryingly elevated" levels of coliforms and enterobacteria, "putting users at high risk of becoming ill from contact".
The expert said the findings were typical of offices all over Britain.
Which? computing editor Sarah Kidner said: "The shocking results revealed that some of these keyboards were harbouring harmful bacteria that could potentially give their users a stomach upset.
"The germs found could cause food poisoning symptoms such as diarrhoea.
"The main cause of a bug-infested keyboard is eating lunch at desks, as the food deposits encourage the growth of millions of bacteria.
"Poor personal hygiene, such as dodging hand washing after going to the lavatory, may also be to blame.
"Most people don't give much thought to the grime that builds up on their PC, but if you don't clean your computer, you might as well eat your lunch off a lavatory seat."
Which? found that one in ten people never clean their keyboard, while 20 per cent never clean their mouse.
Around half cleaned their keyboard less than one a month.
The modern practice of "hotdesking", in which staff sit at different desks every week, means that workers do not know who has been using their keyboard before them.
Miss Kidner said workers and home PC users should give their keyboards a regular clean, adding: "It's quite simple to do and could prevent your computer becoming a health hazard."
Which? says users should unplug computers before wiping surfaces with a damp, soft, lint-free cloth.
Keyboards should be unplugged, turned upside down and shaken.
