Belated honor for Austrian resistance fighter against Hitler

The president of Austria, Heinz Fischer, has unveiled a plaque commemorating Robert Bernardis, an officer in the German Wehrmacht who was the highest-ranking Austrian solider to participate in the failed 20 July 1944 attempt to overthrow Hitler and his regime. Fischer and other Austrian government and party officials paid tribute to former lieutenant Bernardis, who was executed together with other collaborators after the coup had failed and Hitler survived a bomb explosion in his "Wolfschanze" headquarters. The Austrian president, who unveiled the plaque at a barracks in the provincial city of Enns, alluded to the length of time it took to recognize Bernardis, saying the honor came "late, but not too late." The granite plaque reads: "With Bernardis, we honor the resistance to criminal National Socialism."