German Resistance Memorial Center Biographie
Erika von Tresckow
Erika von Tresckow Erika von Falkenhayn was the daughter of the Prussian war minister and chief of the Supreme Army Command in the First World War, Erich von Falkenhayn. In 1926 she married Henning von Tresckow, who was a lieutenant in the Reichswehr and later trained for the general staff. Erika von Tresckow knew of the plans to assassinate Hitler from April 1943. Her husband played a leading role among the opposition officers. Erika von Tresckow supported the plans by couriering messages coordinating the military and civilian resistance groups. She and Margarethe von Oven typed up the clean copies of the draft Operation Valkyrie commands. Henning von Tresckow committed suicide on the front northeast of Warsaw a day after the attempted coup of July 20, 1944. When the Gestapo uncovered his involvement in the coup planning, Erika von Tresckow was arrested with her daughters on August 15, 1944, and separated from them shortly later. During her interrogations, she pretended not to have known about the plans for a coup. Erika von Tresckow was held in Berlin's Kantstraße court prison until her release on October 2, 1944.
