I
will always remember and honor Claus Von Stauffenberg as a World War II Hero. I
will post information about him from Wikipedia and other links.
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Claus
von Stauffenberg’s Quote [PHOTO SOURCE: http://izquotes.com/quote/176861]
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Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg portrait,
cut out from a german stamp
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Born
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Claus Philipp Maria Schenk
15 November 1907 Jettingen, Kingdom of Bavaria, German Empire |
Died
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21 July 1944 (aged 36)
Berlin, Nazi Germany 52.507892°N 13.36219°E |
Cause of death
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Execution by firing squad
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Nationality
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German
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Employer
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Wehrmacht Heer
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Known for
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20 July plot coordinator
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Home town
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Albstadt, Germany
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Religion
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Roman Catholicism
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Spouse(s)
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Children
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Gm Berthold Maria Schenk
Graf von Stauffenberg,
Heimeran Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, Franz-Ludwig Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, Valerie Ida Huberta Karoline Anna Maria Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg, Konstanze Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg. |
Parents
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Alfred Schenk Graf von
Stauffenberg,
Caroline Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg |
Claus Philipp Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, commonly referred to as Claus
Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (German:
[ˈklaʊs ˈʃɛŋk ˈɡʁaːf fɔn ˈʃtaʊfənbɛɐ̯k]), Claus von
Stauffenberg, or Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (15 November 1907 –
21 July 1944), was a German army officer and aristocrat who was one of the leading
members of the failed 20 July plot of 1944 to assassinate Adolf
Hitler and remove the Nazi Party from power. Along with Henning von Tresckow and Hans Oster,
he was one of the central figures of the German
Resistance movement within the Wehrmacht.
For his involvement in the movement he was executed by firing squad shortly
after the failed attempt known as Operation Valkyrie.
Family
name
Stauffenberg's
given name was Claus Philipp Maria Justinian, with the noble title at the end.
He was born in the Stauffenberg castle of Jettingen between Ulm and Augsburg,
in the eastern part of Swabia, at that time in the Kingdom of Bavaria, part of
the German Empire. He was the third of four sons including the twins Berthold
and Alexander and his own twin brother Konrad Maria, who died in Jettingen one
day after birth on 16 November 1907. His father was Alfred Klemens Philipp
Friedrich Justinian, the last Oberhofmarschall of the Kingdom of
Württemberg. His mother was Caroline Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg, née Gräfin
von Üxküll-Gyllenband, the daughter of Alfred Richard August Graf von
Üxküll-Gyllenband and Valerie Gräfin von Hohenthal.
The
titles "Graf" and "Gräfin" mean count and countess,
respectively. Schenk (i.e., cupbearer/butler) was an additional hereditary
noble title. The ancestral castle of the nobility was the last part of the
title, which would be Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and used as part of
the name. The Stauffenberg family is one of the oldest and most distinguished
aristocratic Catholic families of southern Germany. Among his maternal
Protestant ancestors were several famous Prussians, including Field Marshal
August von Gneisenau.
On
11 November 1919, a new constitutional law, as part of the Weimar Republic,
abolished the privileges of nobility. Article 109 also stated, "Legal
privileges or disadvantages based on birth or social standing are to be
abolished. Noble titles form part of the name only; noble titles may not be
granted any more." After this titles of nobility were incorporated as part
of a surname.
Early
life
In
his youth, he and his brothers were members of the Neupfadfinder, a German
Scout association and part of the German Youth movement.
Like
his brothers, he was carefully educated and inclined toward literature, but
eventually took up a military career. In 1926, he joined the family's
traditional regiment, the Bamberger Reiter- und Kavallerieregiment 17 (17th
Cavalry Regiment) in Bamberg. It was around this time that the three brothers were
introduced by Albrecht von Blumenthal to the poet Stefan George's influential
circle, Georgekreis, from which many notable members of the German resistance
would later emerge. George dedicated Das neue Reich ("the new
Empire") in 1928, including the Geheimes Deutschland ("secret
Germany") written in 1922, to Berthold. The work outlines a new form of
society ruled by a hierarchical spiritual aristocracy. George rejected any
attempts to use it for political purposes, especially Nazism.
Stauffenberg
was commissioned as a leutnant (second lieutenant) in 1930. He studied modern
weapons at the Kriegsakademie in Berlin-Moabit, but remained focused on the use
of horses—which continued to carry out a large part of transportation duties
throughout World War II—in modern warfare. His regiment became part of the
German 1st Light Division under General Erich
Hoepner, who had taken part in the plans for the September 1938 German
Resistance coup, cut short by Hitler's unexpected diplomatic success in the
Munich Agreement. The unit was among the troops that moved into the
Sudetenland, the part of Czechoslovakia that had a German-speaking majority, as
agreed upon in Munich. However, Stauffenberg disliked the method by which the
Sudetenland was annexed and strongly disapproved of the invasion of Prague.
"I would say that he had an extraordinary gift for making others feel naturally and completely at ease. This was all the more remarkable seeing that he was generally recognised as being well above average intellectually." Another peer describes von Stauffenberg as "a man of extraordinary personal charm."
- Peers thought of Von Stauffenberg
Pre-war
misgivings
Although
Stauffenberg agreed with some of the Nazi Party's nationalistic aspects, he
found many aspects of its ideology repugnant and never became a member of the
party. Moreover, Stauffenberg remained a practicing Catholic. Stauffenberg
vacillated between a strong personal dislike of Hitler's policies and a respect
for what he perceived to be Hitler's military acumen. On top of this, the
growing systematic ill-treatment of Jews and suppression of religion had
offended Stauffenberg's strong personal sense of Catholic religious morality
and justice.
World
War II
Conquest
of Poland, 1939
Following
the outbreak of war in 1939, Stauffenberg and his regiment took part in the attack on Poland. He supported the
occupation of Poland and its handling by the Nazi regime and the use of Poles
as slave workers to achieve German prosperity as well as German colonization
and exploitation of Poland. The deeply rooted belief common in the German
aristocracy was that the Eastern territories, populated predominantly by Poles
and partly absorbed by Prussia in partitions of Poland, but taken from the
German Empire after World War I, should be colonized as the Teutonic Knights
had done in the Middle Ages. Stauffenberg said, "It is essential that we
begin a systemic colonization in Poland. But I have no fear that this will not
occur". It is certain that in the early stages of the war, he still held
the usual aristocratic beliefs typical of late imperial times.
Early
appeals to join resistance, 1939
While
his uncle, Nikolaus Graf von Üxküll-Gyllenband, had approached him before to
join the resistance movement against the Hitler regime, it was only after the
Polish campaign that Stauffenberg began to consider it. Peter Yorck von Wartenburg and Ulrich Schwerin von
Schwanenfeld urged him to become the adjutant of Walther von Brauchitsch, then Supreme
Commander of the Army, in order to participate in a coup against Hitler.
Stauffenberg declined at the time, reasoning that all German soldiers had
pledged allegiance not to the institution of the presidency of the German Reich,
but to the person of Adolf Hitler, due to the Führereid introduced in
1934.
Battle
of France, 1940
Stauffenberg's
unit was reorganized into the 6th Panzer Division, and he served
as an officer on its General Staff in the Battle
of France, for which he was awarded the Iron Cross
First Class. Like many others, Stauffenberg was impressed by the overwhelming
military success, which was attributed to Hitler.
Operation
Barbarossa, 1941
Operation
Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, was launched on
June 22, 1941. The mass executions of Russians, Ukrainians, Jews and others, as
well as what he believed was an already apparent deficiency in military
leadership (Hitler had assumed the role of supreme commander in late 1941 after
firing Hoepner and others), finally convinced Stauffenberg in 1942 to join with
resistance groups within the Wehrmacht, the only force that had a chance
to overcome Hitler's Gestapo, SD,
and SS. During the idle months of the so-called Phoney War,
preceding the Battle of France (1939–40), he had already been transferred to
the organizational department of the Oberkommando des Heeres, the German
army high command, which directed the operations on the Eastern Front.
Stauffenberg opposed the Commissar Order, which Hitler wrote and then cancelled
after a year. He tried to soften the German occupation policy in the conquered
areas of the Soviet Union by pointing out the benefits of getting volunteers
for the Ostlegionen which were commanded by his department.
Guidelines were issued on 2 June 1942 for the proper treatment of prisoners of
war from the Caucasus
region who had been captured by Heeresgruppe
A. The Soviet Union had not signed the 1929 Geneva Convention. However, a month
after the German invasion in 1941, an offer was made for a reciprocal adherence
to the Hague Conventions. This 'note'
was left unanswered by Third Reich officials. Stauffenberg did not
engage in any coup plot at this time. The Stauffenberg brothers (Berthold and
Claus) maintained contact with former commanders like Hoepner, and with the
Kreisau Circle; they also included civilians and social democrats like Julius
Leber in their scenarios for an administration after Hitler.
According
to Hoffman (p. 131, 1988) citing Brigadier (ret.) Oskar Alfred-Berger's
letters, Stauffenberg had commented openly on the ill-treatment of the Jews
when he "expressed outrage and shock on this subject to fellow officers in
General Staff Headquarters in Vinnitsa (Ukraine) during the summer of 1942."
Being interrogated after his capture by the Red Army on
September 2, 1944, Stauffenberg's friend, Major Joachim Kuhn stated that
Stauffenberg had told him in August 1942 that "They are shooting Jews in
masses. These crimes must not be allowed to continue." After his arrest in
July 1944, Stauffenberg’s older brother Berthold told the Gestapo that: “He and
his brother had basically approved of the racial principle of National
Socialism, but considered it to be exaggerated and excessive”.
"Is there no officer over there in the Führer's headquarters capable of shooting that beast!" he says to a fellow officer in August 1942."The point is ... to kill him, and I am prepared to do that," von Stauffenberg says to another fellow officer later the same year.
Tunisia,
1942
In
November 1942, the Allies landed
in French North Africa, and the 10th Panzer Division occupied Vichy
France (Case
Anton) before being transferred to fight in the Tunisia
Campaign, as part of the Afrika
Korps.
In
1943, Stauffenberg was promoted to Oberstleutnant
i.G. (lieutenant-colonel of the general staff), and was sent to Africa to
join the 10th Panzer Division as its Operations Officer in the General Staff
(Ia). On 19 February, Rommel launched his counter-offensive against British,
American and French forces in Tunisia. The Axis commanders hoped to break
rapidly through either the Sbiba or Kasserine Pass into the rear of the British
1st Army. The assault at Sbiba was halted, so that Rommel concentrated on
Kasserine Pass where primarily the Italians in the form of their 7th
Bersaglieri Regiment and 131st Centauro Armoured Division had defeated the
American defenders. During the fighting, Stauffenberg drove up to be with the
leading tanks and troops of the 10th Panzer Division. The division, together
with the 21st Panzer Division, took up defensive positions near Mezzouna on 8
April.
On
7 April 1943, Stauffenberg was involved in driving from one unit to another,
directing their movement. Near Mezzouna, his vehicle was part of a column strafed by Kittyhawk
(P-40) fighter bombers of the Desert
Air Force – most likely from No. 3 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force – and he
received multiple severe wounds.
Stauffenberg
spent three months in a hospital in Munich, where he was treated by Ferdinand Sauerbruch. Stauffenberg lost his
left eye, his right hand, and two fingers on his left hand. He jokingly
remarked to friends never to have really known what to do with so many fingers
when he still had all of them. For his injuries, Stauffenberg was awarded the Wound Badge
in Gold on 14 April and for his courage the German
Cross in Gold on 8 May.
“We took this challenge before our Lord and our conscience, and it must be done, because this man, Hitler, he is the ultimate evil.”- Claus Von Stauffenberg
In
the resistance, 1943–1944
For
rehabilitation, Stauffenberg was sent to his home, Schloss Lautlingen
(today a museum), then still one of the Stauffenberg castles in southern
Germany. Initially, he felt frustrated not to be in a position to stage a coup
himself. But by the beginning of September 1943, after a somewhat slow recovery
from his wounds, he was propositioned by the conspirators and was introduced to
Henning von Tresckow as a staff officer to the headquarters of the Ersatzheer
("Replacement Army" – charged with training soldiers to reinforce
first line divisions at the front), located on the Bendlerstrasse
(later Stauffenbergstrasse) in Berlin.
There,
one of Stauffenberg's superiors was General Friedrich Olbricht, a committed member of the
resistance movement. The Ersatzheer had a unique opportunity to launch a
coup, as one of its functions was to have Operation Valkyrie in place.
This was a contingency measure which would let it assume control of the Reich
in the event that internal disturbances blocked communications to the military
high command. Ironically, the Valkyrie plan had been agreed to by Hitler
but was now secretly changed to sweep the rest of his regime from power in the
event of his death.
A
detailed military plan was developed not only to occupy Berlin, but also to
take the different headquarters of the German army and of Hitler in East
Prussia by military force after the suicide assassination attempt by Axel von dem Bussche in late November 1943.
Stauffenberg had von dem Bussche transmit these written orders personally to
Major Kuhn once he had arrived at Wolfsschanze
(Wolf's Lair) near Rastenburg, East
Prussia. However, von dem Bussche had left the Wolfsschanze for the eastern
front, after the meeting with Hitler was cancelled, and the attempt could not
be made. Kuhn hid these compromising documents under a watch tower of the OKW, located not far from
the Wolfsschanze.
Kuhn
became a prisoner of war of the Soviets after the 20 July
plot. He led the Soviets to the hiding place of the documents in February 1945.
In 1989, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev presented these documents to
then-German chancellor Dr. Helmut Kohl. These documents, produced by Stauffenberg
and his fellow officers in 1943 in Berlin, evince the idealistic motivation of
the resistance group. This had been doubted and was a matter of discussion for
years in Germany after the war. Some thought the plotters wanted to kill Hitler
in order to end the war and to avoid the loss of their privileges as
professional officers and members of the nobility.
On
D-Day, June 6, 1944, the Allies had landed in
France. Stauffenberg, like most other German professional military officers,
had absolutely no doubt that the war was lost. Only an immediate armistice
could avoid more unnecessary bloodshed and further damage to Germany, its
people, and other European nations. However, in late 1943, he had written out
demands with which he felt the Allies had to comply in order for Germany to
agree to an immediate peace. These demands included Germany retaining its 1914
eastern borders, including the Polish territories of Wielkopolska
and Poznań.
Other demands included keeping such territorial gains as Austria and the Sudetenland
within the Reich, giving autonomy to Alsace-Lorraine,
and even expansion of the current wartime borders of Germany in the south by
annexing Tyrol as far as Bolzano and Merano. Non-territorial demands included such points as
refusal of any occupation of Germany by the Allies, as well as refusal to hand
over war criminals by demanding the right of "nations to deal with its own
criminals". These proposals were only directed to the Western Allies –
Stauffenberg wanted Germany only to retreat from western, southern and northern
positions, while demanding the right to continue military occupation of German
territorial gains in the east.
“It is now time that something was done. But the man who has the courage to do something must do it in the knowledge that he will go down in German history as a traitor. If he does not do it, however, he will be a traitor to his own conscience.”
- Claus Von Stauffenberg
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Claus von Stauffenberg's former office at the
Bendlerblock in October 2011
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At Rastenburg
on 15 July 1944. Stauffenberg at left, Hitler center, Keitel
on right. The person shaking hands with Hitler is General Karl
Bodenschatz, who was seriously wounded five days later, by Stauffenberg's
bomb.
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20
July plot
Main article: 20 July plot
As
early as September 1942 von Stauffenberg was considering Hans Georg Schmidt von
Altenstadt (de:Hans Georg Schmidt von
Altenstadt), author of Unser Weg zur Meer, as a replacement for
Hitler: "Bereits im September 1942 hatte er Kenntnis von Plänen von Claus
Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg zur Beseitigung Hitlers." From the beginning
of September 1943 until 20 July 1944, von Stauffenberg was the driving force
behind the plot to assassinate Hitler and take control of Germany. His resolve,
organisational abilities, and radical approach put an end to inactivity caused
by doubts and long discussions on whether military virtues had been made
obsolete by Hitler's behaviour. With the help of his friend Henning von
Tresckow, he united the conspirators and drove them into action.
Stauffenberg
was aware that, under German law, he was committing high treason. He openly
told young conspirator Axel von dem Bussche in late 1943, "ich betreibe
mit allen mir zur Verfügung stehenden Mitteln den Hochverrat..." ("I am committing high treason with all my might and
means...."). He justified himself to Bussche by referring to the
right under natural law ("Naturrecht") to defend millions of
people's lives from the criminal aggressions of Hitler.
Only
after the conspirator General Helmuth Stieff on 7 July 1944 had declared
himself unable to assassinate Hitler on a uniforms display at Klessheim castle
near Salzburg, Stauffenberg decided to personally kill Hitler and to run the
plot in Berlin. By then, Stauffenberg had great doubts about the possibility of
success. Tresckow convinced him to go on with it even if it had no chance of
success at all, "The assassination must be attempted. Even if it fails, we
must take action in Berlin", as this would be the only way to prove to the
world that the Hitler regime and Germany were not one and the same and that not
all Germans supported the regime.
“Can the Church grant absolution to a murderer who has taken the life of a tyrant?”- Claus Von Stauffenberg, after praying at a Catholic Chapel.
Stauffenberg's
part in the original plan required him to stay at the Bendlerstraße offices in
Berlin, so he could phone regular army units all over Europe in an attempt to
convince them to arrest leaders of Nazi political organisations such as the Sicherheitsdienst
(SD) and the Gestapo. Unfortunately, when General Helmuth
Stieff, Chief of Operation at Army High Command, who had regular access to Hitler, backtracked
from his earlier commitment to assassinate Hitler, Stauffenberg was forced to
take on two critical roles: kill Hitler far from Berlin and trigger the
military machine in Berlin during office hours of the very same day. Beside
Stieff, he was the only conspirator who had regular access to Hitler (during
his briefings) by mid-1944, as well as being the only officer among the
conspirators thought to have the resolve and persuasiveness to convince German
military leaders to throw in with the coup once Hitler was dead. This
requirement greatly reduced the chance of a successful coup.
"Fate has offered us this opportunity, and I would not refuse it for anything in the world," von Stauffenberg says, continuing, "I have examined myself before God and my conscience. It must be done because this man (Hitler) is evil personified."
After
several unsuccessful tries by Stauffenberg to meet Hitler, Göring and Himmler
when they were together, he went ahead with the attempt at Wolfsschanze
on 20 July 1944. Stauffenberg entered the briefing room carrying a briefcase
containing two small bombs. The location had unexpectedly been changed from the
subterranean Führerbunker to Albert
Speer's wooden barrack/hut due to it being a hot summer's day. He left the
room to arm the first bomb with specially adapted pliers, a task made difficult
because he had lost his right hand and had only three fingers on his left. A
guard knocked and opened the door, urging him to hurry as the meeting was about
to begin. As a result, Stauffenberg was able to arm only one of the bombs. He
left the second bomb with his aide-de-camp, Werner von Haeften, and returned to the briefing
room, where he placed the briefcase under the conference table, as close as he
could to Hitler. Some minutes later, he excused himself and left the room.
After his exit, the briefcase was moved by Colonel Heinz
Brandt.
When
the explosion tore through the hut, Stauffenberg was convinced that no one in
the room could have survived. Although four people were killed and almost all
survivors were injured, Hitler himself was shielded from the blast by the heavy,
solid-oak conference table leg and was only slightly wounded.
Stauffenberg
and Haeften quickly left and drove to the nearby airfield. After his return to
Berlin, Stauffenberg immediately began to motivate his friends to initiate the
second phase: the military coup against the Nazi leaders. When Joseph Goebbels
announced by radio that Hitler had survived and later, after Hitler himself
personally spoke on the state radio, the conspirators realised that the coup
had failed. They were tracked to their Bendlerstrasse offices and
overpowered after a brief shoot-out, during which Stauffenberg was wounded in
the shoulder.
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| The Wolf's Lair conference room soon after the explosion |
Execution
In
an attempt to save his own life, co-conspirator Generaloberst Friedrich
Fromm, Commander-in-Chief of the Replacement Army present in the
Bendlerblock (Headquarters of the Army), charged other conspirators in an
impromptu court martial and condemned the ringleaders of the conspiracy to
death. Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, his aide 1st Lieutenant Werner von
Haeften, General Friedrich Olbricht, and Colonel Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim were executed
before 1:00 am that night (21 July 1944) by a makeshift firing
squad in the courtyard of the Bendlerblock, which was lit by the headlights
of a truck.
Stauffenberg
was third in line to be executed, with Lieutenant von Haeften after. However,
when it was Stauffenberg's turn, Lieutenant von Haeften placed himself between
the firing squad and Stauffenberg, and received the bullets meant for
Stauffenberg. When his turn came, Stauffenberg spoke his last words, "Es
lebe unser heiliges Deutschland!" ("Long live our sacred
Germany!") Others say the last words were: "Es lebe das
geheime Deutschland!" ("Long live the secret Germany!")
Fromm ordered that the executed officers (his former co-conspirators) receive
an immediate burial with military honours in the Matthäus Churchyard in
Berlin's Schöneberg district. The next day, however, Stauffenberg's body was
exhumed by the SS, stripped of his medals and insignia, and cremated.
Stauffenberg's family had already fled the country.
Another
central figure in the plot was Stauffenberg's eldest brother, Berthold Schenk Graf von
Stauffenberg. On 10 August 1944, Berthold was tried before Judge-President
Roland Freisler in the special "People's Court" (Volksgerichtshof).
This court was established by Hitler for political offences. Berthold was one
of eight conspirators executed by slow strangulation (reputedly with piano wire
used as the garrote) in Plötzensee Prison, Berlin, later that day. Before he
was killed, Berthold was strangled and then revived multiple times. The entire
execution and multiple resuscitations were filmed for Hitler to view at his
leisure. More than 200 were condemned in show trials and executed. Hitler used
the 20 July Plot as an excuse to destroy anyone he feared would oppose him. The
traditional military salute was replaced with the Nazi salute
also known as the Hitler salute. Eventually, over 20,000 Germans were killed or
sent to concentration camps in the purge.
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Death certificate of Claus Schenk Graf von
Stauffenberg, shot on July 20, 1944; certificate from the city of Bamberg,
written in 1951
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Other
views
Among
the most active members of the German resistance and one of its few survivors, Hans Bernd Gisevius portrays Colonel
Stauffenberg, whom he met in July 1944, as a man driven by reasons which had
little to do with Christian ideals or repugnance of Nazi ideology. In his
autobiographical Bis zum bitteren Ende ("To the Bitter End"),
Gisevius writes:
Stauffenberg wanted to retain all the totalitarian, militaristic and socialistic elements of National Socialism (p. 504). What he had in mind was the salvation of Germany by military men who could break with corruption and maladministration, who would provide an orderly military government and would inspire the people to make one last great effort. Reduced to a formula, he wanted the nation to remain soldierly and become socialistic (p. 503).Stauffenberg, was motivated by the impulsive passions of the disillusioned military man whose eyes had been opened by the defeat of German arms (p. 510). Stauffenberg had shifted to the rebel side only after Stalingrad (p. 512). The difference between Stauffenberg, Helldorf and Schulenburg — all of them counts — was that Helldorf had come to the Nazi Movement as a primitive, I might almost say an unpolitical revolutionary. The other two had been attracted primarily by a political ideology. Therefore, it was possible for Helldorf to throw everything overboard at once: Hitler, the Party, the entire system. Stauffenberg, Schulenberg and their clique wanted to drop no more ballast than was absolutely necessary; then they would paint the ship of state a military gray and set it afloat again (p. 513–514).
Richard
J. Evans, Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University, wrote
three books on the Third Reich, and covers various aspects of Stauffenberg's
beliefs and philosophy. He wrote an article originally published in Süddeutsche Zeitung, 23 January 2009
entitled "Why did Stauffenberg plant the bomb?" which states,
"Was it because Hitler was losing the war? Was it to put an end to the
mass murder of the Jews. Or was it to save Germany's honour? The overwhelming
support, toleration, or silent acquiescence" from the people of his
country for Hitler, that was also being heavily censored and constantly fed
propaganda meant any action must be swift and successful. Evans writes,
"Had Stauffenberg's bomb succeeded in killing Hitler, it is unlikely that
the military coup planned to follow it would have moved the leading
conspirators smoothly into power."
However,
Karl Heinz Bohrer, a cultural critic, literary
scholar, publisher, and visiting professor for German and Comparative Studies
at Stanford University, criticized Evans' views in an article originally
published in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, January 30, 2010. Although
agreeing that Evans is historically correct in much of his writing, Bohrer
feels that Evans twists time lines and misrepresents certain aspects. He wrote
of Evans, "In the course of his problematic argument he walks into two
traps: 1. by contesting Stauffenberg's "moral motivation"; 2. by contesting
Stauffenberg's suitability as role model." He further writes, "If
then, as Evans notes with initial objectivity, Stauffenberg had a strong moral
imperative – whether this stemmed from an aristocratic code of honour, Catholic
doctrine or Romantic poetry – then this also underpinned his initial affinity
for National Socialism which Stauffenberg misinterpreted as 'spiritual
renewal.' "
In
1980, the German government established a memorial for the failed anti-Nazi
resistance movement in a part of the Bendlerblock, the remainder of which
currently houses the Berlin offices of the German Ministry of Defense (whose
main offices remain in Bonn). The Bendlerstrasse was renamed the Stauffenbergstrasse,
and the Bendlerblock now houses the Memorial to the German Resistance, a
permanent exhibition with more than 5,000 photographs and documents showing the
various resistance organizations at work during the Hitler era. The courtyard
where the officers were shot on 21 July 1944 is now a memorial site, with a plaque
commemorating the events and a bronze figure of a young man with his hands
symbolically bound which resembles Count von Stauffenberg.
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Tombstone/Rememberance stone for the 20th
July victims. Memorial at the cemetery (Alter St.-Matthäus Kirchhof, Berlin)
where the corpses were buried but afterwards removed to an unknown place.
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Plaque at the Bendlerblock (Berlin) in 2007
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Family
Stauffenberg
married Nina Freiin von Lerchenfeld on
26 September 1933 in Bamberg. They had five children: Berthold; Heimeran; Franz-Ludwig; Valerie;
and Konstanze, who was born in Frankfurt on the Oder after Stauffenberg's execution.
Berthold, Heimeran, Franz-Ludwig and Valerie, who were not told of their
father's deed, were placed in a foster home for the remainder of the war and
were forced to use new surnames, as Stauffenberg was now considered
taboo. Nina died at the age of 92 on 2 April 2006 at Kirchlauter
near Bamberg, and was buried there on 8 April. Berthold went on to become a
general in West Germany's post-war Bundeswehr.
Franz-Ludwig became a member of both the German and European parliaments,
representing Bavaria. In 2008, Konstanze von Schulthess-Rechberg wrote a
best-selling book about her mother, Nina Schenk Graefin von Stauffenberg.
Describing
her late husband, Nina von Stauffenberg said:
He let things come to him, and then he made up his mind ... one of his characteristics was that he really enjoyed playing the devil's advocate. Conservatives were convinced that he was a ferocious Nazi, and ferocious Nazis were convinced he was an unreconstructed conservative. He was neither.
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Stauffenberg memorial site in Altes Schloss in Stuttgart
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Assignments,
promotions and decorations
Assignments
- 1 January 1926 – 17th (Bavarian) Cavalry Regiment, Bamberg
- 17 October 1927 – Infantry School, Dresden
- 1 October 1928 – Cavalry School, Hannover
- 30 July 1930 – Pioneer Course
- 18 November 1930 – Mortar Course
- 1 October 1934 – Cavalry School, Hannover / Adjutant
- 6 October 1936 – War Academy, Berlin
- 1 August 1938 – 1st Light Division (renamed 6th Panzer Division 18 October 1939) / Second Staff Officer (Ib)
- 31 May 1940 – OKH / General Staff / Organization Branch / Section Head II
- 15 February 1943 – 10th Panzer Division / Senior Staff Officer (Ia)
- 7 April 1943 – Seriously wounded in Tunisia, assigned to Officer Reserve Pool
- 1 November 1943 – OKH / General Army Office / Chief of Staff
- 20 June 1944 – OKW / Chief of Replacement Army / Chief of General Staff
- 4 August 1944 – (Posthumous) Expelled from Wehrmacht by the Führer at the recommendation of the Army Court of Honour
Promotions
- 18 August 1927 – Fahnenjunker-Gefreiter
- 15 October 1927 – Fahnenjunker-Unteroffizier
- 1 August 1929 – Fähnrich
- 1 January 1930 – Leutnant
- 1 May 1933 – Oberleutnant
- 1 January 1937 – Rittmeister (Hauptmann i.G. from 1 November 1939)
- 1 January 1941 – Major i.G.
- 1 January 1943 – Oberstleutnant i.G.
- 1 April 1944 – Oberst i.G.
Decorations
and awards
- 17 August 1929 – Sword of Honor
- 2 October 1936 – Distinguished Service Badge, IVth Class
- 1 April 1938 – Distinguished Service Badge, IIIrd Class
- 31 May 1940 – Iron Cross, Ist Class
- 25 October 1941 – Royal Bulgarian Order of Bravery, IVth Class
- 11 December 1942 – Finnish Liberty Cross, IIIrd Class
- 14 April 1943 – Wound Badge in Gold
- 20 April 1943 – Italian-German Remembrance Medal
- 8 May 1943 – German Cross in Gold
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20th anniversary memorial service
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Stauffenberg memorial site in Altes Schloss in Stuttgart
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Popular
culture
Films
- 1951: The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel, played by Eduard Franz (the first movie to feature Stauffenberg as a character[43])
- 1955: Der 20. Juli, played by Wolfgang Preiss. Directed by ex-resistance-fighter Falk Harnack.
- 1955: Es geschah am 20. Juli (It happened July 20), played by Bernhard Wicki. Directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst.
- 1967: The Night of the Generals, played by Gérard Buhr
- 1989: Stauffenberg. 13 Bilder über einen Täter, by Hans Bentzien and Erich Thiede, a documentary movie
- 1990: Stauffenberg – Verschwörung gegen Hitler
- 2004: Die Stunde der Offiziere, semi-documentary movie
- 2008: Valkyrie, Stauffenberg is the film's protagonist and is played by Tom Cruise
Television
- 1971: Operation Walküre, played by Joachim Hansen in the docudrama part of the 199 min. documentary featuring Joachim Fest.
- 2004: Stauffenberg, played by Sebastian Koch. TV movie by Jo Baier.
- 2004: Conspiracy To Kill: Wolf's Lair (part of the Days That Shook The World drama-documentary series. Played by Folke Paulsen.
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| A German stamp of Stauffenberg and Helmuth James Graf von Moltke in commemoration of their 100th birthdays. |
See
also
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