Hagen Albrecht von.

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Hagen Albrecht von, born 11-03 1904, Łęgi, Poland, a descendant of an ancient noble family in Pomerania, son of the landowner and reserve officer Gerhard von Hagen and his wife Elisabeth von Stülpnagel. Albrecht studied law in Heidelberg and Koningsbergen and then worked as a lawyer. On 29-03-1929, he married Erica von Berg. The couple had three children, one of whom died at a young age from meningitis. Hagen refused to join the NSDAP in the 1930s. He was a member of the German Hospitaller Order of Saint John (Balij Brandenburg). Order of Saint John or the Johanniter Order (German: Johanniterorden), is the German Protestant branch of the Knights Hospitaller, the oldest surviving chivalric order, which generally is considered to have been founded in Jerusalem in the year 1099.

At the start of World War II, Albrecht von Hagen was assigned to the 10th Panzer Division of the German Army as a reserve lieutenant.

The 10th Panzer Division (English: 10th Tank Division) was an armoured division in the German Army, the Heer, during World War II, established in March 1939.

The 10th Panzer Division was formed in Prague in March 1939, and served in the Army Group North reserve during the invasion of Poland of the same year. The division participated in the Battle of France in 1940, including the Siege of Calais, and in Operation Barbarossa attached to Army Group Center in 1941.

After taking heavy casualties on the Eastern Front the 10th Division under command of Generalleutnant Ferdinand Friedrich Schaal was sent back to France for rehabilitation and to serve as a strategic reserve against potential Allied invasion. The division was rushed to Tunisia after Operation Torch (1942) and spent six months in that theatre, where it engaged both British and American forces. It caused severe losses to the “green” US Army in some of their first encounters with the Germans under Field Marshal Erwin Rommel  at the Battle of Kasserine Pass (1943). It was later lost in the general Axis surrender in North Africa in May 1943 and officially disbanded in June 1943. The division was never rebuilt. General Ferdinand Friedrich Schaal survived the war and died 09-10-1962 (aged 73) in Baden-Baden, Baden-Württemberg, His role in Operation Valkyrie was to involve subduing the Nazi Party and establishing military control over Bohemia and Moravia. On the evening of 20 July 1944, Schaal waited for clarification on how to proceed from General Friedrich Fromm , a co-conspirator in Berlin. None came, as the assassination attempt had failed and Fromm had decided to betray the other plotters. Schaal was arrested the next day on the orders of Heinrich Himmler and imprisoned. Unlike many other conspirators, Schaal was spared execution, instead being imprisoned until the end of war. General Friedrich Fromm on 12-03-1945, Fromm was executed at the Brandenburg-Görden Prison by firing squad as part of the post-conspiracy purge. His last words before the firing squad were reported to be “I die, because it was ordered. I had always wanted only the best for Germany.”

In honour of notable members of the 10th Panzer Division being part of the German Resistance and the failed 20 July Plot to kill Adolf Hitler in 1944, a new armoured division was named 10th Armoured Division in 1959 upon the formation of the West German army as a part of the Bundeswehr.

He took part in the campaign against France and in Operation Barbarossa. After that he joined the Afrika Korps of Generalfeldmarschall der Panzertruppe, Erwin Rommel. In 1943 he met Oberst Claus von Stauffenberg in Tunisia and joined the circle of conspirators against Adolf Hitler. This included his immediate commander, Generalmajor and Chief of Organisation at OKH in July 1944. Helmuth Stieff (1901-1944). He was promoted to first leutnant and took over the courier service between Hitler’s headquarters Wolfsschanze (near Rastenburg) and Berlin. Due to his position as order officer and covered by Stieff, he was able to obtain explosives relatively unnoticed under the guise of missions. Together with his friend Major Wilhelm Georg Joachim Kuhn, he collected explosives from the Eastern Front up to three times. The first load was destined for Axel von dem Bussche-Streithorst. The plan was that, the moment Hitler would view new winter uniforms for the army, Axel von dem Bussche (who had signed up as a model) would blow himself up, including Hitler in this suicide bombing. However, Hitler did not show up. Another package of explosives, which he had buried with the Kuhn in the forest, was discovered by the secret police. He gave the following package to Oberst Claus von Stauffenberg in Berlin..Major Wilhelm Georg Joachim Kuhn on 06-02-1945, the Reich Court Martial in Berlin sentenced Kuhn to death in absentia for “deserting the enemy and treason ”  On the day of the assassination – July 20, 1944 – Kuhn was at the front near Ostrów Mazowiecka. On 21-07-1944, Kuhn accompanied General Henning von Tresckow   , who pretended to want to find out about the situation at the front, and witnessed his death. Kuhn survived the and on 13-11-1998, the Moscow Military Prosecutor found that Kuhn had been wrongly convicted in 1951. On 23-12-1998, Kuhn was rehabilitated by the Moscow Military District Military Tribunal “for lack of a crime in his actions”. Kuhn died age 80 on 06-03-1994 in Römershag near Bad Brückenau.

Death and burial ground of Hagen Albrecht von.

 

Albrecht von Hagen was arrested by the Gestapo immediately after the failure of the attack. His wife, parents, brothers and sisters were also imprisoned, his children were placed in an orphanage. On 08-08-1944, he and seven other conspirators were brought before a show trial by the Volksgerichtshof led by Roland Freisler. According to an ANP Telex message of 08-08-1944, Von Hagen is questioned about the explosive during this trial by Freisler, the president of the Volksgerichtshof, in the following way:

”Pres.: “Did you deliver the explosive to Stauffenberg?”

end: “yes.”

Pres.: “And with that the matter was settled?”

end: “no.”

President: “But…?

ass. : “I asked Stauffenberg what to do with it, Stauffenberg then stated that he wanted to make the government or the fuehrer – I don’t remember that exactly – fly into the air with it.”

On the same day he was sentenced to death and hanged by a piano string in the Plötzensee prison

 Together with him were convicted in this ‘trial’ of the Volksgerichtshof and executed on -08-08-1944: Erwin von Witzleben, Erich Hoepner, Helmuth Stieff, Paul von Hase, Robert Bernardis, Friedrich Karl Klausing, age 24 and Peter Yorck von Wartenburg, age 39 .

Just before his sentencing and execution, he wrote a farewell letter to his wife Erica in which it reads: “”I cannot contend with my fate, because I myself am to blame. I am not afraid of death, which today has so many guises. For me, in these last hours, all that remains is to preserve the attitude that I consider fundamental to the nobility.”

Reasons for participating in the attack Albrecht von Hagen’s motive for participating in the plot against Hitler was his deep disgust for the Nazi regime. He had the moral conviction that the Third Reich was an injustice and had to be overthrown. Like other conspirators, he did not feel bound by his military oath of obedience to Hitler and invoked paragraph 47/2 of the German Military Criminal Code, which stated that following a criminal order was a criminal act.

Albrecht von Hagen is buried at the cemetery of the Plötzensee prison, in a anonymously grave like all Plötzensee Nazi victims.

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

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