Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist, who was a part of the main plot to kill Adolf Hitler, has died at the age of 90.

Von Kliest was one of the plotters who participated in the 1944 plan to assassinate Hitler.

According to his wife, Gundula, he died peacefully at his home in Munich on Friday.

In January 1944, while recovering from an injury sustained while fighting on the eastern front, Von Kliest was approached by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg.

Von Stauffenberg asked him to participate a plot to kill Hitler. Von Kleist had been chosen to model a new uniform in front of Hitler and Von Stauffenberg proposed that he wear a suicide vest underneath. The young Von Kleist was supposed to detonate the bomb as he stood next to the dictator, but the plan never came to fruition.

However, months later, in July 1944, Von Stauffenberg approached him again and asked Von Kleist to participate in yet another Hitler assassination plot.

Von Kleist was supposed to play a vital role in the plot as the person to deliver a briefcase full of explosives to a meeting with Hitler. At the last minute Von Stauffenberg changed the plans and decided to plant the bomb himself.

Because someone had moved the briefcase, Hitler was able to avoid injury and the plan failed.

As news spread, the Hitler assassination plotters, as well as other anti-Nazi revolutionaries, were arrested and executed. Von Stauffenberg was shot by firing squad.

Von Kleist's father, Ewald von Kleist, was also killed as a result of the failed plot to kill Hitler.

He was an opponent of Hitler even before he came to power, and was arrested many times after the Nazi dictator took control in 1933. Before the start of the second world war, he had traveled to England to see what other western nations would support a coup attempt against Hitler.

Von Kleist himself was arrested and questioned by the Gestapo. He was sent to a concentration camp, but then inexplicably let go and returned to combat duty.

Less than a year later, on April 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler and his wife committed suicide to avoid capture. 

The 2008 Tom Cruise movie Valkyrie is about the July 1944 Hitler assassination plotters.