Adolf Heusinger- Hitler's Chief Of Staff who Became NATO's Chief Of Staff

General Adolf Heusinger was Adolf Hitler's Chief of the General Staff of the Army during World War II. With the outbreak of the Second World War Heusinger accompanied the German HQ field staff and assisted in the planning of operations in Poland, Denmark, Norway, and France and the Low Countries (coastal region in western Europe, consisting especially of the Netherlands and Belgium). He was promoted to colonel on August 1, 1940 and became chief of the Operationsabteilung in October 1940, making him number three in the Army planning hierarchy . In 1944 Heusinger assumed office as Chief of the General Staff of the Army. In this capacity, he attended the meeting at Adolf Hitler's Wolf's Lair on July 20, 1944, and was standing next to Hitler when the bomb planted by Claus von Stauffenberg exploded.