Schenk von Stauffenberg, Claus Philipp Maria Graf von.

      

Because of Alexander’s tendency to be outspoken, and because his wife was of  Jewish ancestry, his brothers refrained from telling him about their plot to assassinate the Führer. On 11-08-1937 at Berlin suburb-Wilmersdorf

Alexander had married the aviatrix and engineer Melitta SChenck von Stauffenberg Schiller  , who had been released from the German Luftwaffe  in 1936 owing to her Jewish roots. Although she had been reinstated and was very active developing and testing war planes, she might nevertheless have been under surveillance. She was shot down by an allied fighter plane on 08-04-1945, age 42, she died hours later from the bullet wounds. Alexander died  27-01-1964, age 58, in Munich.

In late April 1945, Alexander Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg was transferred to Tyrol together with about 140 other prominent inmates of the Dacha concentration camp where the SS left the prisoners behind. He was liberated by the Fifth U.S Army  under 4* General Lucian Truscott,  on 05-05-1945. He married secondly on 23-07-1949 Marlene Hoffmann, born at Gross Roppershausen on 10-07-1913. He had no issue by either of his marriages. Alexander Schenk von Stauffenberg died young age 58 on 27-01-1964, in Munich.

Claus here with General Heinz Guderian and SS Oberstgruppenführer Paul  “Papa” Hausser,

  , would quote George’s The Anti-Christ when recruiting friends and trusted colleagues into the conspiracy. A bright student, at nineteen he became an officer cadet. Claus first met Nina Lerchenfeld around 1930 and were married on 26-09-1933 in Bamberg. The couple got five children

  . Nina was pregned of Constanze the fifth child in 1945 and Claus was executed before her birth. Claus attended the War Academy in Berlin and joined the General Staff in 1938 as a quartermaster officer in 1938 in General Erich Hoepner’s

   1^st Light Division, which was renamed 6^th Panzer Division  in November 1939. General Hoepner was hanged age 57, on 08-08-1944, Stauffenberg served combat positions in all of Hitler’s major campaigns from the Sudetenland to Poland to France to Tunisia. During Operation Barbarossa, Stauffenberg became appalled by the atrocities committed by the Schutzstaffel, SS, SD and “Security Police” units, particularly the mass murder of the Jews in Russia, but he was equally appalled by the atrocities committed by the German Army against Soviet prisoners-of-war and by the treatment of the civil population in Russia at the hands of the German occupation administration and forces, and Stauffenberg cited these matters to Major Joachim Kuhn in August 1942.  From the end of May 1940 to the end of January 1943, Stauffenberg served in the Army High Command/General Staff Headquarters. In early 1943, Stauffenberg served with the 10^th Panzer Division  in Field Marchal Erwin Rommel‘s Afrika Korps

. . On 07-04-1943, he was seriously wounded at Sebkhet en Noual, south of Mezzouna in the North African desert, when Allied fighters strafed his vehicle. He lost his left eye, right hand, and last two fingers of his left hand after surgery. Stauffenberg had decided in 1942 that he must try to help overthrow Hitler. He had attempted throughout the summer of 1942 to persuade senior commanders to move against Adolf Hitler, and he had declared in September 1942 that he himself was prepared to kill Hitler. In 1943, he only agreed to join in conspiracy with the civilian side of the German Resistance, including Wilhem Canaris, Carl Goerdeler, he died on the guillotine age 60, on 02-02-1945, Goerdeler’s son Christian Goerdeler born 31-05-1917 was killed in action near Charkow on 15-05-1942.

              

Julius Leber, Ulrich Hassel, he was executed age 62, on 08-09-1944, Hans Oster, Henning von Tresckow, Fabian von Schlabrendorff he died age 73, on 03-09-1980, in Wiesbaden, Peter Graf von Yorck von Wartenburg, he is executed age 40, on 08-08-1944, Ludwig Beck, and Erwin von Witzleben, he on 08-08-1944, was executed by being hung by piano wire from a meat hook.in what became known as the July Plot. According to the plan, after Adolf Hitler (see Hitler parents), Hermann Göring (see Göring Peter) and Heinrich Himmler were assassinated, Ludwig Beck, Erwin von Witzleben and Friedrich Fromm, Fromm was found guilty and executed on 12-03-1945, age 56, would take control of the German Army and seize key government buildings, telephone and signal centres, and radio stations. Stauffenberg was to become State Secretary of the War Ministry in the post-coup government. In June 1944, Stauffenberg was promoted to Colonel and appointed Chief of Staff to Home Army Commander General Friedrich Fromm. This gave him direct access to Hitler’s briefing sessions. On July 11, Stauffenberg brought a bomb concealed in a briefcase with him to a briefing at Hitler’s Berghof residence. He planned to assassinate Hitler that day, but circumstances beyond his control prevented him from doing so. Four days later, Stauffenberg flew to the Fuehrer’s Wolf’s Lair headquarters with aide and co-conspirator Captain Klausing. He was ordered by senior conspirators in Berlin to abort the attempt after telephoning to report the absence of Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler and Luftwaffe Air Marshal Goering from the briefing session. He secretly agreed with close friend and Berlin co-conspirator Oberst Albert Mertz von Quirheim to try to kill Hitler anyway, but when he returned to the briefing room, he discovered the session had ended after only five minutes. On July 20, Stauffenberg flew to the Wolf’s Lair again with aide and co-inspirator Leutnant, Werner von Haeften who had never met Hitler before carried the bomb in a briefcase and placed it on the floor while he left to make a phone call.

   The bomb exploded and of four men in the hut who died of the attack, (see Günther Korten) (see Rudolf Schmundt) (see Gustav Boehringer) only one was killed outright. Another died in the afternoon and two more died later in hospital. Hitler’s right arm was badly injured, but he survived the bomb blast. Stauffenberg returned to Berlin with Haeften and arrived at Army High Command Headquarters at 4:30 P.M. to launch the planned coup. The plot unraveled, however, for several reasons: Hitler survived the attack; co-conspirator General, Friedrich Olbricht

neglected to set the coup in motion during first two hours after the attempt; and the conspirators failed to seize any radio stations or retain authority over reserve army troops in Berlin. In an attempt to protect himself, Fromm organized the execution of Stauffenberg along with three other conspirators, Olbricht, von Haeften, and Colonel Albrecht Ritter Mertz von Quirnheim, in the courtyard of the War Ministry.

On 21-07-1944, at 12:30 A.M., Stauffenberg, age 36,

    was executed by firing squad in the Bendler innercourt. It was later reported that Stauffenberg died shouting, “Long live free Germany.” His brother Berthold

         also involved was executed, age 38, on 10-08-1944 in the Plötzensee prison. He  was strangled and then revived multiple times. The entire execution and multiple resuscitations was filmed for Hitler to view at his leisure. The victims had a temporary grave on the Alter Sankt Matheaus Friedhof, in Berlin, but after a few weeks the bodies were removed from the grave, burned by the SS and the ashes scattered on a secret place.

Stauffenberg married Nina Freiin von Lerchenfeld on 26-09-1933 in Bamberg. They had five children: Berthold, Heimeran; Franz Ludwig  Valerie; and Konstanze, who was born in Frankfurt an der Oder six months after Stauffenberg’s execution.

 Berthold, Heimeran , Franz-Ludwig  Valerie and Konstanze, 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 02-04-2006 at Kirchlauter near Bamberg, and was buried there on 8 April. Berthold visits the Wolf’s Lair, Hitler’s Polish bolthole, where the famous failed assassination attempt against the dictator took place.

   He 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.