Marogna-Redwitz, Rudolf Graf von.

Marogna-Redwitz, Rudolf Graf von, born 15-10-1886 in München, from the formerly imperial Franconian, Catholic noble family von Redwitz. His father was court marshal of King Otto of Bavaria, his mother a born Freiess von Stillfried from Wisowitz Castle in Moravia. From the marriage came the four sons Josef, Rudolf, Franz, Alfons and a daughter Maria Josepha. When his brother Josef was adopted by the Roman Marogna family to ensure succession, the family name was secured by the entry of the then Prince Regent Luitpold of Bavaria as Count Marogna-Redwitz. He was married to Anna Gräfin von Arco-Zinneberg, with whom he had a daughter and two sons.

Rudolf von Marogna-Redwitz studied in Munich and actually wanted to be a musician. According to family custom, however, he became an officer. In 1916 he was seriously injured in Russia and lost his left eye. Until after the First World War he served in the 1st Bavarian Heavy Cavalry Regiment in Munich. In 1918 the family moved to the Chiemgau and worked as a farmer. In 1927 he had to undergo another operation after a serious head injury in World War I and moved to Munich. In 1933 he was taken on as an e-officer (supplementary officer) in the counter-intelligence service as an employee of his friend Admiral Wilhelm Canaris and became head of counter-intelligence in Munich. In 1938, just a few days after the annexation of Austria to the German Reich, he became the successor of Oberstleutnant, later Generalmajor Erwin Heinrich “René” Lahousen, Edler von Vivremont,  head of the counter-espionage department in Vienna, and head of the Vienna Intelligence Unit.

Already in Vienna he used his position and helped, with the support of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, General Hans Oster and Hans von Dohnanyi, to free former Austrian officers from Gestapo prisons or to have them removed from the wanted lists. He also tried to protect Jews from Gestapo and SD   access through a wide variety of activities.

After Admiral Canaris was deposed in February 1944, SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler took advantage of the situation and also deposed the “Catholic Count” as head of the counterintelligence in Vienna and south-eastern Europe. Rudolf von Marogna-Redwitz was assigned to the so-called leader reserve of the army high command.

Death and burial ground of Marogna-Redwitz, Rudolf Graf von.

Marogna-Redwitz belonged to the closest circle around the brothers Claus and Berthold Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg. After the failed assassination attempt, in which he, for many years, had been head of the Vienna Counter-Intelligence Unit, he was involved together with the Viennese Chief of Staff, Oberst i. G. Heinrich Kodré, and Hauptmann Carl Szokoll, was sentenced to death by the People’s Court, under jurist Roland Freisler

on 12-10-1944 and executed in Plötzensee together with theGerman lawyer and member of the resistance to Nazism, Carl Langbehn and Oberst i. G. Alexis Freiherr von Roenne hanged . They were buried on the Plötzensee prison cemetery, all in anonymously graves,

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