volunteered to carry out the mission at a viewing on 11 February 1944. However, Hitler repeatedly postponed and finally cancelled the event. As a result of his injuries, von dem Bussche spent several months in the Waffen-SS hospital Hohenlychenin in Lychen (a privilege allotted to him as recipient of the gold German Cross). This hospitalization helped von dem Bussche escape discovery during the wave of persecution that followed the July 20, 1944 assassination attempt and he was never betrayed by any of the officers who knew of his involvement. He thereby became one of the few men in the Resistance to survive the war. Other survivors included Fabian von Schlabrendorff, Philipp Freiherr von Boeselager, Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist-Schmenzin, Joachim Kuhn and Rudolf-Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff. After the war The von dem Bussche owned manors in Thale, in the form of the former Wendhusen monastery, and Stecklenberg, however immediately after the Second World War, these properties were seized by the Soviet occupiers of what was to become communist East Germany. von dem Bussche went on to study law at the University of Göttingen and he became the first post-war chairman of the General Student Committee (Allgemeiner Studierendenausschuss) of the University of Göttingen. After completing his studies, he worked as a program assistant in the German department of BBC London. In 1948 he started work as an editor and consultant for advertising at Suhrkamp-Verlag. In 1953 when he took over the management of the press office in the "Blank Office," which was the predecessor of the Federal Ministry of Defense of the Federal Republic of Germany, which dealt with the preparation of new German armed forces. He then moved to the Press and Information Office of the Federal Government as an employee in the Commonwealth and USA department. From 1954 to 1958 he served as Legation Counselor at the German Embassy in Washington. From 1959 to 1962 he was head of the Salem Castle boarding school founded by Kurt Hahn, Karl Reinhardt and the Margrave of Baden. After the founding of German equivalent of the Peace Corps (Deutsche Entwicklungsdienst), he was appointed one of its two managing directors at the beginning of 1964; in this function he played a key role in building up the German development aid organization until 1966. Alongside and after that, from 1964 he was a member of the Executive Committee of the German Evangelical Church Congress, a member