Dohna-Schlobitten, Heinrich Karl Waldemar, Graf zu.

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Dohna-Schlobitten, Heinrich Karl Waldemar, Graf zu, born 15-10-1882, in Waldburg/Königsberg, East Prussia, the son of a famous Prussian noble family. He began his career as a professional soldier and was already an ensign (Fahnenjunker) by 1901. In the First World War, he served as a General Staff officer, but had to leave the shrunken army in 1919. He subsequently became a member of the Baltische Landwehr but on ethical grounds he chose to leave the military. Later on he opposed Nazism and found himself active in the Confessing Church’s Bruderrat (“brother council”) in the old-Prussian Ecclesiastical Province of East Prussia.

In 1939, Dohna-Schlobitten was remobilized as a General Staff officer and was appointed as Chief of Staff in Defence District I in Königsberg, later to be promoted to Chief of Staff, Army Group Centre. He acted as a corps leader in France, Norway and Finland.

Dohna-Schlobitten’s last post was as Generalmajor and Chief of the Acting General Command in Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland), before leaving the Wehrmacht at his own request in 1943. Thereafter, he earned his livelihood from farming in Tolksdorf (now Tołkiny, Poland) in East Prussia.

Death and burial ground of Dohna-Schlobitten, Heinrich Karl Waldemar, Graf zu.

 Dohna-Schlobitten maintained contacts with resistance leader Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, and was soon involved in Helmuth James von Moltke‘s

Kreisau Circle through fellow aristocrat Peter Yorck von Wartenburg. Had the attempt on Hitler’s life on 20 July 1944 succeeded, Dohna-Schlobitten was foreseen as East Prussia’s new provincial administrator. The day after Oberst Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg‘s failed assassination attempt with a briefcase bomb, Dohna-Schlobitten was arrested, and on 14-09-1944, he was sentenced to death in jurist Roland Freisler‘s infamous Nazi Volksgerichtshof (People’s Court).

Heinrich, age 61, was executed/hanged the same day at Plötzensee prison, along with Graf Nikolaus von Üxküll-Gyllenband, age67, Hermann Josef Wehrle, a German Catholic priest, age 45, and Michael Graf von Matuschka, a German politician, age 55. Dohna was married to Maria Agnes born von Borcke, with whom he had a daughter and three sons. Marie-Agnes von Borcke survived the war and died 25-06-1983, age 88, in Völksen.

Heinrich Karl Waldemar, Graf zu Dohna-Schlobitten, is buried at the Plötzensee cemetery in an anonymously grave like all Plötzensee victims.

Message(s), tips or interesting graves for the webmaster:    robhopmans@outlook.com

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