Stauffenberg

Claus Schnek Graf von Stauffenberg was born in Griefstein Castle, Jettingen, in Swabia near Ulm (sw Germany), on November 15, 1907 into an old and distinguished family of Bavarian nobility. He was one of twins, but his twin died shortly after birth. His family had a background in military service, but in his youth he showed great interest in the arts and literature and was a disciple of the poet Stephen George. However, after contemplating careers in music and architecture, he opted for a career in military service, and entered the German army as a cadet officer in 1926 in his family’s traditional regiment, the 17th Cavalry Regiment of Bamberg.

In 1930, Stauffenberg graduated first in his class and received a ceremonial sabre for ‘outstanding achievements.’ He was commissioned as a lieutenant. In this year he also met Nina von Lerchenfeld, the daughter of another Bavarian noble family, and began courting her. They were married in 1933 and she gave birth to their first son about a year later.

In 1936, Stauffenberg was accepted into the army’s General Staff College in Berlin, from which he graduated first in his class in 1938, and joined the army’s general staff with the rank of captain (he would be promoted again in ’43 to lieutenant-colonel, and in ’44 to colonel). In 1940 he was awarded the Iron Cross First Class.

Stauffenberg was generally recognized as independent of thought, highly intelligent, self-confident and a natural leader. He was a passionate reader and was fluent not only in German, but also in English, Russian and French.

Stauffenberg was not initially opposed to Hitler, and agreed with some of the Nazi ideas, especially ideas of nationalism. He as a devout Catholic with a strong sense of ethics, and he became appalled at the atrocities of the Nazi regime, beginning with the Night of Long Knives Massacre in 1934 and the Kristallnacht in 1938 and later with the actions of the Schutz Staffeinel (the SS). In 1941 he said of Hitler’s occupation policy of Eastern Europe that it “would sow such hatred in the East which will one day be revisited on our children.” He began criticizing Hitler and was aware of the conspiracy against Hitler as early as 1938, though he was not yet involved.

Stauffenberg served in all of Hitler’s major campaigns from the Sudetenland, to Poland, to France, to Russia, and to North Africa. His own ethics came into play during many of these campaigns and he assisted civilian populations in the Sudetenland in obtaining food supplies, court-martialed an officer who caused the deaths of Polish civilian women, and was involved in a conspiracy that allowed Allied prisoners of war to be ‘killed’ on paper while living in actuality. In Russia he declared that the Cossacks were an independent people from the Slavs and exempt from Hitler’s decrees on what to do with the Slavs. This helped thousands of Russians to identify themselves as Cossacks (whether they were or not) and leave the concentration camps. He also tried to organized Russian troops to lead a Russian liberation from Stalin’s regime, with some success, especially in the Caucasus.

In 1943 he served with the 10th Panzer Division of Rommel’s Afrika korps. On April 7, 1943, he was seriously wounded along the Kasserine Pass in the North Africa desert when Allied fighters strafed his convoy and vehicle. Stauffenberg lost his left eye, right hand, and the last two fingers of his left hand after surgery. During his three month convalescence he decided to devote himself completely to the removal of Hitler and the overthrow of the Nazi regime.

From the fall of 1943 through the summer of 1944 he became the leader of the July Plot, or the ‘Valkyrie Plot,’ the last leader of the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler. In June of 1944 he was promoted to colonel and appointed Chief of Staff to Home Army Commander General Friedrich Fromm. Stauffenberg would now have access to Hitler’s briefings sessions, and, after two failed attempts, on July 20 he brought a time-bomb concealed in a briefcase with him to the briefing at Wolf’s Lair. He activated the time-bomb and escaped while the explosion was triggered. He then flew back to Berlin with co-conspirator Lt. Werther von Haeften, unaware that the heavy oak table had shielded Hitler. Hitler’s survival, coupled with co-conspirator General Friedrich Olbricht’s failure to set the coup in motion during the first two hours after the attempt, and other co-conspirator’s failure to seize control of any radio stations, or retain authority over reserve army troops in Berlin, caused the coup to collapse.

On July 21, at 12:30 in the morning, Stauffenberg was executed by firing squad along with co-conspirators Olbricht, Haeften, and Mertz. It has been later reported that Stauffenberg died shouting "Long live free Germany" or "Long live our sacred Germany," though this may or may not be true.

A Hero of Our Time © Danae Cassandra
http://otaku.memory-motel.net/stauffenberg/bio.html