Freytag von Loringhoven, Bernd Freiherr.

Freytag von Loringhoven, Bernd, born 06-02-1914, in Arensburg Estonia, the son of the nobel Charles Napoleon Haro Burchard* von Freytag-Loringhoven   and Leonide Clara Oda* von Möller   He was a Baltic-German descended from an ancient and illustrious family first ennobled in the 12^th  century (Baron: Livonia, Courland 1198; Master of the Teutonic Order 1485 , Gotha Register 1896, 1934 1942). After one year of law studies at the University of Königsberg, he joined the Reichswehr in 1933. In 1942 a tank battalion under Loringhoven’s command was encircled during the Soviet counter-offensive at the Battle of Stalingrad,  however, he was flown out of the pocket in January 1943. He was a decorated tank commander. From July 1944-April 1945, he served as an adjutant to both Generaloberst der Infanterie, Oberbefehler B 2^nd Panzer Armee, Heinz Guderian   and General der Infanterie, Chief of the Army General Staff (OKH) , Hans Krebs . Loringhoven’s cousin, Wessel Freytag von Loringhoven, provided the detonator charge and explosives for the July 20 assassination attempt against Adolf Hitler. They knew each other well but Bernd was not involved directly in the plot. After it failed, Bernd managed to escape arrest, due to the support of Guderian. However, Wessel was suspected of complicity in the plot and committed suicide on 26 July, age 44, rather than risk implicating his family and colleagues. Loringhoven’s last assignment was as a staff officer responsible for the preparation of reports for German leader Adolf Hitler. After 23-04-1945, when Hitler’s communications staff began to desert, he had to improvise and he based his intelligence reports on information he was able to gather from the Allied news agencies Reuters and the BBC. Fortunately, Hitler was not aware of this. During the evening of 29 April, he left the Führerbunker with Oberleutnant Gerhardt Boldt, he died age 63 on 10-05-1981 in Lübeck and Oberstleutnant Rudolf Weiß , he died age 47 on 19-09-1958. Earlier in the morning, Loringhoven had approached General Hans Krebs

and asked if he and Boldt could leave Berlin and “return to the fighting troops.” Krebs talked to Burgdorf to get his advice. Burgdorf approved but indicated that they should take his assistant, Weiss. Captured by the British, Loringhoven spent two and a half years as a prisoner of war. He was not charged with war crimes. After being repatriated in January 1948, he lived in Munich, where he became a publisher. He joined the German Federal Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) in 1956 and attained the rank of General. He was later appointed Deputy Inspector General of the Armed Forces and retired from the army in 1973, with full honours. At the time of his death on 22-02-2007 old age 93, he was one of the last three known living witnesses (along with bunker telephone operator Oberscharfführer, Rochus Misch

Misch died old age 96 on 05-09-2013 in Berlin and Hitler Youth courier Armin Dieter Lehmann,

    to the events in the Führerbunker at the end of World War II. Lehmann died in Coos Bay, Oregon, USA, on 10-10-2008, old age 81. His wife of 29 years, Kim, and daughter Angie were at his bedside.

  Freytag von Loringhoven is buried with his wife Hertha, born Wendelstadt, who died old age 90 on 24-11-2009, on the Nordfriedhof of Munich. Close by the graves of the Troost couple Paul Troost and Gerda 

 and Generaloberst der Gebirgstruppe, Kommandeur der 3^th Gebirgs Division, Eduard Dietl. Also close by the graves of Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler’s personal photographer and his daughter Henriette von Schirach-Hoffmann,   ex wife of the Hitler Youth Führer, Baldur von Schirach, Dr. Gustav von Kahr President of the Bavarian court in 1923 during the Putz and some further Hitler’s former adjutant, SS Standartenführer, Falaise Pocket, 12^th SS Panzer Division, “Hitlerjugend”, nicknamed “Baby Division” , Max Wünsche.

  War crimes were committed by the men of the Hitlerjugend division—they executed around 156 Canadian soldiers after capturing them. A remembrance stone is placed.  By September of 1944, only 1.500-3.500+ HJ troopers survived in the division. They had lost over 9.000 of their comrades in Normandy and in the Falaise Gap. After the Falaise campaign, the Hitlerjugend SS Panzer Grenadier Division

   had also lost nearly all of its armor, much of their equipment and heavy weapons. Also buried here the General der Flieger, Kommandeur Luftwaffe Hongaria, Kuno Fütterer, Generalleutnant der Infanterie, Commander of the POW in Wehrkreis IV, Erich Botzheim, SS Obersturmführer, Dr. Ludwig Stumpfegger, Hitler’s  Traudl Junge-Hoffmann and the Putz 1923 victim, Andreas Bauriedl