Tresckow, Hermann Karl Robert “Henning” von.

Tresckow, Hermann Karl Robert “Henning” von, born 10-01-1901 in Magdeburg, the son of thea nobel Prussian officer Leopold Hans Heinrich Eugen Hermann von Tresckow and his second wife Marie Agnes, born von Zedlitz and Trützschler. Hermann volunteered at the age of sixteen and served in the First World War in 1917-18. In 1920, he left the Army and took up the study of law. Four years later, he took over his father’s estate in the Neumark region only to join the Reichswehr again two years after that. Tresckow was initially skeptical of the Weimar Republic. He completed training for the General Staff and was married to Erika “Ida” von Falkenhayn, with whom he had two daughters and two sons.

In 1886 General Erich von Falkenhayn married Ida Selkmann, with whom he had a son Fritz Georg Adalbert von Falkenhayn (1890–1973) and a daughter Erika Karola Olga von Falkenhayn (1904–1975) who married Henning von Tresckow.

Tresckow joined the 1 Regiment of the Food Guards as an officer cadet at age of 16 and became the youngest leutnant in the Army in June 1918. In the Second Battle of the Marne, he earned the Iron Cross 1^st class  for outstanding courage and independent action against the enemy. At that time Count Siegfried von Eulenberg, the commander of the 1^st Regiment of Foot Guards, predicted that “You, Tresckow, will either become chief of the General Staff or die on the scaffold as a rebel. Von Eulenberg died old age 91, on 18-10-1961 in Lindau. He initially welcomed the National Socialist takeover but became increasingly skeptical of Hitler’s policies and finally joined the ranks of the resolute opponents to the regime following the November pogroms in 1938. Tresckow strengthened the connections between the military resistance and victim of Operation Walküre. “20-07-1944, Ludwig Beck and Carl Goerdeler, who died on the guillotine, age 60, on 02-02-1945  and assumed a dominant position among the officers of the opposition. He believed it was necessary to “shoot Hitler like a mad dog.” For him, the assassination attempt was an act of self-defense and the consequence of a moral obligation. Tresckow succeeded in finding several fellow officers who were prepared to risk their lives to carry out the assassination that they knew to be necessary. Assigned to the command of Army Group G under General Gerd von Rundstedt

  as a Major in 1939, Tresckow was promoted to Oberstleutnant in 1940 and transferred as First General Staff Officer (Ia) to Army Group B,  under command of Generalfeldmarshall Fedor von Bock  ,which in 1941 was renamed Army Group Centre in preparation for the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Tresckow was promoted to Oberst in the General Staff in 1942. From mid-1942 on, he repeatedly tried to organize attempts on Hitler’s life but these assassination attempts were repeatedly aborted. Tresckow was transferred to the “Führer’s Reserve” (see Adolf Hitler) (did you know) in late July 1943. In Berlin, Gauleiter of Berlin was Josef Goebbels (did you know) he used this opportunity to work together with Oberst der Kavallerie, Graf Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg on the “Valkyrie” plans for a coup. In the fall of 1943, Tresckow was transferred to the southern segment of the eastern front, where in late November 1943 he was appointed Chief of Staff of the 2^nd Army.   In 1944, now with the rank of Generalmajor, he maintained contact with the conspirators although he was unable to be directly involved in the preparing the coup.  His uncle General Field Marshal, Oberbefehlhaber  of Heeresgruppe Mitten, Operatie Barbarossa, Fedor von Bock was a loyal Hitler follower. Immediately before the assassination attempt of July 20, 1944,  Tresckow strengthened Stauffenberg’s determination to carry out the assassination attempt. The 20 July threaten at the Bendlerblock in Berlin was saved by Major Otto Ernst Remer  commander of the Infantry Regiment Grossdeutschland who refused to arrest Joseph Goebbels after talking to Hitler in the Wolfschanze by phone.

  When Henning von Tresckow heard that the coup had failed, he took his own life at the front near Ostrów on 21-07-1944, age 43, by holding a hand grenade below his chin. Von Tresckow was married with the daughter of the famous World War I General Erich von Falkenhayn

  , Erika, who died age 69 in 1974. On 18-04-1927, their first son, Mark Hermann Erich Robert von Tresckow, was born, who died on 22-01-1945 as a gunner in an artillery regiment near Bentschen (between Posen and Frankfurt an der Oder). Son Rüdiger Hermann Erich Henning (1928–2012) became business owner of BHF-Bank. The couple also had two daughters. Von Falkenhayn died age 60 on 08-04-1922. He was buried in the family home in Wartenberg. When the Nazis learned about Tresckov’s connections in late August, his body was exhumed and taken to the crematorium of Sachsenhausen concentration camp. His wife Erika was arrested on August 15 and her children were taken away under Nazi policy of Sippenhaft, meaning shared family guilt, but early in October she was released again and survived the war. Sippenhaft, “kin liability” was a form of collective punishment practiced in Nazi Germany. There is a grave of honour for Tresckow and his wife on the Bomstedter Cemetery in Berlin, and in his birthtown there is a memeorial stone.

   

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