|
|
Biographies
|
|
|
| Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (November 15, 1907 - July 20, 1944) |
|
|
Claus's father, Alfred Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, was initially a stable master of the king of Württemberg and later senior marshal of the court. His mother Caroline, neé Gräfin von Uxkull-Gyllenband, was a great granddaughter of the Prussian general of the Napoleonic Wars and military reformer August Wilhelm Graf Neidhart von Gneisenau. Claus was particularly close to his brother Berthold, two years older, and both belonged the circle around the author Stefan George. Later, Stauffenberg recalled certain of the poet's verses, using them as maxims to guide his actions. Stauffenberg was also deeply attuned to the principles of Catholic Christianity. In 1933 he married Nina Freiin von Lerchenfeld, and together they had two daughters and three sons.
Stauffenberg entered the 17th Bamberg Cavalry Regiment in 1926, where he was regarded as a particularly gifted officer. After the unit was disbanded in mid-1934, Stauffenberg was transferred to the cavalry school in Hannover. After this, he was sent to the War Academy in Berlin, where he was enrolled in training for the General Staff until 1938. Among his classmates was his friend and subsequent co-conspirator Albrecht Ritter Mertz von Quirnheim. In 1938 Stauffenberg was assigned to the staff of the 1st Light Division under Lieutenant General Erich Hoepner as Second General Staff Officer (Ib) and took part in the occupation of the Sudetenland. At that time, Hoepner was already a member of the circle of conspirators around General Erwin von Witzleben. Stauffenberg's unit was deployed during the invasion of Poland, and Stauffenberg later served as a General Staff officer during the western offensive against France. After a series of billets in the organization section of the Army High Command, Stauffenberg was transferred in early 1943 to the 10th Panzer Division, which was supposed to cover General Erwin Rommel's retreat in North Africa. Severely wounded on April 7, 1943, Stauffenberg was flown back to Germany before the German troops in Africa surrendered. From autumn 1943 on, Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg became a decisive factor in the struggle against Hitler. Early on he was alienated by the National Socialists' racial anti-Semitism. Yet Stauffenberg only resolved to actively oppose the regime once he realized the consequences of German policy in eastern Europe and could estimate the full extent of the damage that Hitler's war had brought upon Germany and Europe. Under the influence of Henning von Tresckow, General Friedrich Olbricht, and First Lieutenant Fritz-Dietlof Graf von der Schulenburg of the army reserve, Stauffenberg became a focal point of the military conspiracy. He established important links to civilian resistance groups and coordinated his assassination plans with Carl Friedrich Goerdeler and Ludwig Beck and with the conspirators waiting in readiness in Paris, Vienna, Berlin, and at Army Group Center; but also with Social Democrats like Julius Leber, members of the Kreisau Circle like Adam von Trott zu Solz, and representatives of the labor union movement like Jakob Kaiser and Wilhelm Leuschner. Stauffenberg attempted to bring the various groups and circles to agree on a common strategy. After his recovery, he was assigned to the General Army Office in Berlin as chief of staff. Stauffenberg was designated to become a state secretary in the new government following the successful overthrow of the regime.
In the summer of 1944 he resolved to carry out the assassination attempt himself. Hitler's military briefings appeared to offer an opportunity to eliminate the dictator. After several unsuccessful attempts by others, Stauffenberg thus concentrated on the task of killing Hitler by detonating a bomb at the Führer's headquarters. On July 20, 1944, he succeeded in making an attempt on Hitler's life in the "Wolf's Lair" near Rastenburg in East Prussia. Hitler survived, yet Stauffenberg was convinced that his assassination attempt had been successful, and he was able to leave the headquarters at the last minute before the area was sealed off. He then flew to Rangsdorf airfield near Berlin and from the Bendler Block worked feverishly to bring about the coup. After the attempt to overthrow the regime had failed, Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators Olbricht, Mertz von Quirnheim, and Werner von Haeften were executed by a firing squad in the courtyard of the Bendler Block.
|
|
|
© 1996 - 2009 Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand