Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, a tall German aristocrat who deeply opposed the Nazis' treatment of Jewish people, planted one of Boeselager's bombs in a briefcase under a table close to Hitler.
The bomb exploded after Stauffenberg had left the room, killing four men -- but Hitler survived almost unscathed.
"Stauffenberg was the wrong man for this, but no one else had the guts," Boeselager said, noting that previous injuries including the loss of an eye, a hand and two more fingers would have handicapped Stauffenberg in the assassination bid.
Lacking time, Stauffenberg had only used one bomb instead of two as originally planned. An open window or a heavy table shielding Hitler could also have saved the dictator's life.
purge
Hitler immediately launched a merciless hunt for the plotters.
In the days after the attack, the Nazis killed Stieff, Stauffenberg and many accomplices. Relatives of the plotters were arrested and Tresckow, like many others, committed suicide.
Historians say that thousands were killed or sent to concentration camps in the purge. Though the Nazis brutally tortured the conspirators, no one revealed Boeselager's name.
The plotters had planned that Boeselager should lead a troop of some 1,000 horsemen from the eastern front to Berlin after Hitler's assassination, where they would seize key Nazi bodies.
Having ridden 200km towards the airport they were to leave from, Boeselager got a message from his brother: `All back to the old holes' -- code meaning the attack had failed.
Boeselager ordered the soldiers, who were not aware of the plot, to make an immediate about face, riding back eastwards to the front before anyone could find out about their secret movement.
"I was sure we would be noticed. Some 1,000 riders make up a huge caravan stretching over a few kilometers," Boeselager said.
"And the soldiers must have been suspicious: First, they are asked to ride westwards at one hell of a speed. And then, the command is to ride back eastwards as quickly as possible," he said.
Boeselager returned to the front after the failed attack but he said he carried cyanide on him every single day until the war ended -- convinced the Nazis would eventually find him out.
His brother Georg also eluded capture, but died in battle.
After the war, the officer studied economics and became a forestry expert.
Over the front door of his house in Kreuzberg near the western city of Bonn, a sign reads Et si omnes ego non -- "even if all, not me."
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