that open protests were futile, tried to overthrow the regime in secret. In the process, even though, like his cousin, he tried to utilize various strategems to reduce the number of reprisal executions (while trying to maintain an impression of himself as a Nazi hardliner), including creative accounting to fulfill the quota of reprisal victims set by Hitler, he still became involved in war crimes. German soldiers generally treated their Western opponents according to the laws of war and the German military administration ordered them to follow the Hague Convention (even though with their reprisals, both Otto and Carl-Heinrich appeared to violate the Geneva Conventions). Laub remarks that terms like good and bad, resistance and collaboration, as well as both the concepts "good army, bad SS" and "Hitler's willing executioners" do not prove good enough to explain the actions of German and French authorities in France. During his time in the East, Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel briefly tried to protest the relocation of Jews and other potential subversives, but abandoned his effort after seeing the Commissar Order and talking with Josef Bühler. After that even though his unit earned praise from the SS for its attitude towards Jews, Hitler noticed that it lagged behind other units. Unable or unwilling to face the censure, Stülpnagel gave up his command, citing poor health. 20 July plot On the day in question, 20 July 1944, Stülpnagel put his part of the plot into operation. This mainly involved having Hans Otfried von Linstow, who was only informed of the plot on that same day, round up all SS and Gestapo officers in Paris and imprison them. However, when it became apparent that the assassination attempt in East Prussia had failed, Stülpnagel was unable to convince Field Marshal Günther von Kluge to support the uprising and was forced to release his prisoners. When Stülpnagel was recalled from Paris, he stopped at Verdun and tried to kill himself by shooting himself in the head with a pistol on the banks of the Meuse River. He only succeeded in blinding himself, and in the aftermath he was heard muttering repeatedly in delirium "Rommel", making himself the first to implicate the Field Marshal named as a party to the plot, leading ultimately to the latter's forced suicide. Stülpnagel and his adviser were both arrested by the Gestapo, and Stülpnagel was brought before the Volksgerichtshof (People's Court) on 30 August