Bismarck-Schönhausen, Count Gottfried von, born 29-03-1901, in Berlin, 
Germany, to Herbert von Bismarck (1849–1904) 
and his wife Marguerite Malvine, born Hoyos von Bismarck (1871–1945) . 
Gottfried had one sister and two brothers: Hannah Leopoldine Alice von Bismarck-Schönhausen von Bredow (1893–1971), Edward Albrecht von Bismarck (1903–1970) 
and Otto Christian Archibald von Bismarck (1904–1975) 
Gottfried was married to Melanie Alice Marguerite Hoyos von Bismarck (1916–1949) 
Bismarck was a grandson of the 19th century Chancellor Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg 
Gottfried was a member of the Nazi Party and, from 1933 to 1934, he was a Kreisleiter in Rügen. In March 1933, he was elected to the Reichstag from electoral constituency 6 (Pomerania) and was reelected at the next three elections through 1938. In 1935, he became chairman of the regional council (Regierungspräsident) for Stettin, and later also for Potsdam. In 1937, he married his cousin, Countess Melanie Hoyos, in Vienna.
From 1942, however, Count Gottfried Bismarck-Schönhausen had been opposed to the continuation of World War II, and had made contact with other members of the German aristocracy who were working against the Nazi regime – such as the Berlin police chief Wolf-Heinrich Graf von Helldorf, 
Colonel Claus Philipp Maria Graf von Stauffenberg, 
and General der Infantry Friedrich Olbricht
– with the aim of starting negotiations with the western Allies. He was aware of preparations for the 20 July plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, 
but was not directly involved in it.
After the failure of the plot, Bismarck’s connections to the plotters were discovered. He was expelled from the SS 
and from the Reichstag. 
Death and burial ground of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Count Gottfried von.
Because of his famous name and many powerful connections, however, he escaped the fate of most of the active plotters. He was not arrested until August and he was not tortured. In October, he was acquitted of the charges against him by the “famous” People’s Court of jurist Roland Freisler
of, but was nevertheless sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, 
where he was relatively well treated. He was liberated by Soviet forces in April 1945.
Approximately 200,000 people were imprisoned in Sachsenhausen between 1939 and 1945. There are no reliable figures for the period from 1936 to 1939. According to official figures, approximately 30,000 to 50,000 people died there. Among the prisoners were political opponents of Adolf Hitler, prisoners of war, so-called anti-social elements, Roma, Sinti, Jews, homosexuals and Jehovah’s Witnesses. The causes of death varied: disease, starvation, exhaustion, torture and execution.
On 14-09-1949 (age 48) Gottfried Bismarck and his wife Melanie Hoyos, age 33, were killed in a car accident in Verden an der Aller near Bremen. They are buried at the Bismarck Mausoleum zu Friedrichsruh, Friedrichsruh, Kreis Herzogtum Lauenburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.
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