German Resistance Memorial Center Biographie
Horst von Einsiedel
Horst von Einsiedel was born in Dresden as the second son in a doctor’s family. In the mid-1920s he studied law and political science at Breslau University. After his final law examination he joined the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in 1930. In 1934 he found a post at the Reich Statistical Office in Berlin, but had to resign for political reasons shortly afterwards. Following his discharge from public service, Einsiedel worked at the Reich Chemistry Department, where Otto Heinrich von der Gablentz was one of his closest colleagues. From 1939 on Einsiedel belonged to the circle around Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, whom he already knew from the Löwenberg Working Group, a political forum for young people. Einsiedel initially explored basic questions of political economy with Moltke and Peter Graf Yorck von Wartenburg, but in 1942 he began concentrating on agrarian policy. He attended the second and third major conferences in Kreisau, and he and Carl Dietrich von Trotha influenced the Kreisau Circle’s discussions on political economy. Due to good fortune, Horst von Einsiedel was able to survive the war undiscovered in Berlin after the unsuccessful coup attempt of July 20, 1944. In August 1945 he took charge of a department in the economic administration offices of the Berlin City Council. However, the Soviet secret police arrested him in October 1945. Horst von Einsiedel perished in obscure circumstances on February 25, 1947 in the Soviet internment camp in Sachsenhausen.