Claus von Stauffenberg
Claus Philipp Maria Justinian Schenk ''Graf'' von Stauffenberg was a German army officer who is best known for his failed attempt on 20 July 1944 to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the Wolf's Lair, part of Operation Valkyrie, a plan that would have seen the arrest of the Nazi leadership in the wake of Hitler's death and an earlier end to World War II.
Stauffenberg took part in the Invasion of Poland, the 1941–42 invasion of the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa and the Tunisian campaign during the Second World War. Alongside Major Generals Henning von Tresckow and Hans Oster, he became a key figure in the German resistance to Nazism within the Wehrmacht.
On 20 July 1944, Stauffenberg's assassination attempt failed; the explosive he had placed only dealt Hitler minor injuries. The conspirators were arrested, and many of them executed, including Stauffenberg on the day after the attempt. His wife Nina was also arrested, giving birth to their fifth child Konstanze while imprisoned. Their children also included Berthold, who followed in his father's footsteps as a military man, and politician Franz-Ludwig.
Family history
Stauffenberg was born in Stauffenberg Castle, Jettingen, on 15 November 1907 and baptised as Claus Philipp Maria Justinian. Born into the ancient House of Stauffenberg, he was the third of four sons of Alfred Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, the last Oberhofmarschall of the Kingdom of Württemberg, and his wife, Caroline Gräfin von Üxküll-Gyllenband, the daughter of Alfred Richard August Graf von Üxküll-Gyllenband and Valerie von Hohenthal.From birth, Stauffenberg inherited the hereditary titles of Graf and Schenk, leaving him referred to by his first name and Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg until the 1919 Weimar Constitutional Law abolished privileges of nobility. His maternal ancestors included Generalfeldmarschall August Graf von Gneisenau.
Early life
Stauffenberg grew up in Bavaria, where he and his brothers were members of the Neupfadfinder, a German Scout association and part of the German Youth movement. Though he and his brothers were carefully educated, and Stauffenberg was inclined towards literature, he eventually took up a military career, fitting with his family's traditional expectations. In 1926, he joined the family's traditional regiment, the Reiterregiment 17 in Bamberg.Around the beginning of his time in Bamberg, Albrecht von Blumenthal introduced the three brothers to the poet Stefan George's influential circle, Georgekreis, from which many notable members of the German resistance later emerged. George dedicated Das neue Reich in 1928, including the Geheimes Deutschland written in 1922, to Berthold.
By 1930, Stauffenberg had been commissioned as a leutnant, studying modern weapons at the Prussian Military Academy in Berlin, but remaining focused on the use of horses – which continued to carry out a large part of transportation duties throughout World War II—in modern warfare. His regiment became part of the German 1st Light Division under General Erich Hoepner, another later member of the covert German Resistance, and the unit was among the Wehrmacht troops that moved into Sudetenland following its annexation to the Reich as per the Munich Agreement.
Early views on Nazism
Though Stauffenberg had supported the German colonization of Poland and had made extremist remarks regarding Polish Jews, he refrained from joining the Nazi Party. However, during the 1932 German presidential election, he voiced tentative support for Hitler:Stauffenberg's views of Hitler were conflicted during this period. He vacillated between a strong dislike of Hitler's policies and a respect for what he perceived to be Hitler's military acumen, before becoming more disassociated with the party after The Night of the Long Knives and Kristallnacht which he saw as proof Hitler had no intentions to pursue justice. As a practising Catholic, it was noted that the growing systematic ill-treatment of Jews and suppression of religion had offended Stauffenberg's strong sense of Catholic morality and justice.
Even though Stauffenberg joined the covert resistance movement within the Wehrmacht, like many members of the Nazi Party, he displayed a tentative opposition to parliamentary democracy.
Second World War
Activities in 1939–40
Following the outbreak of war in 1939, Stauffenberg and his regiment took part in the Invasion of Poland. During this time, he was a strong supporter of Poland's occupation, and the Nazi Party's colonisation, exploitation and use of Pole slave workers to bring about German prosperity. Stauffenberg himself noted, "It is essential that we begin a systemic colonisation in Poland. But I have no fear that this will not occur". After the Invasion, Stauffenberg's unit was reorganised into the 6th Panzer Division, and he served as an officer on its General Staff in the Battle of France, for which he was awarded the Iron Cross First Class.While his uncle, Nikolaus Graf von Üxküll-Gyllenband, together with Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenburg, had approached Stauffenberg to join the resistance movement against the Hitler regime, it was only after the Polish campaign that Stauffenberg began to consider the offer. Peter Yorck von Wartenburg and Ulrich Schwerin von Schwanenfeld had urged him to become the adjutant of Walther von Brauchitsch, then Supreme Commander of the Army, to facilitate a coup against Hitler. Though, Stauffenberg declined at the time, reasoning that all German soldiers had pledged allegiance not to the institution of the presidency of the German Reich, but to the person of Adolf Hitler, due to the Führereid introduced in 1934.
Operation Barbarossa, 1941–42
During the quieter months of 1940 to 1941, Stauffenberg was transferred to the organisational department of the Oberkommando des Heeres, which was directing the German invasion of the Soviet Union and operations on the Eastern Front. Though Stauffenberg did not engage in any coup plotting at this time, his brothers Berthold and Alexander maintained contact with anti-regime figures such as the Kreisau Circle and former commanders such as Hoepner.Hoffman, in citing Brigadier Oskar Alfred-Berger's letters, noted Stauffenberg had commented openly on the ill-treatment of the Jews when he "expressed outrage and shock on this subject to fellow officers in the General Staff Headquarters in Vinnitsa, Ukraine during the summer of 1942." When Stauffenberg's friend, Major Joachim Kuhn, was captured by the Red Army, during interrogation on 2 September 1944, Kuhn claimed that Stauffenberg had told him in August 1942 that "They are shooting Jews in masses. These crimes must not be allowed to continue."
Tunisia, 1943
In November 1942, the Allies landed in French North Africa whilst the 10th Panzer Division occupied Vichy France, consequently being transferred to fight in the Tunisian campaign, as part of the Afrika Korps. In 1943, Stauffenberg was promoted to Oberstleutnant i.G., and was sent to Africa to join the 10th Panzer Division as its Operations Officer in the General Staff. On 19 February, Rommel launched his counter-offensive against British, American and French forces in Tunisia. The Axis commanders hoped to rapidly break through either the Sbiba or Kasserine Pass into the rear of the British First Army. The assault at Sbiba was halted, so Rommel concentrated on the Kasserine Pass where primarily the Italian 7th Bersaglieri Regiment and 131st Armoured Division Centauro had defeated the American defenders. During the fighting, Stauffenberg drove up to be with the leading tanks and troops of the 10th Panzer Division. The division, together with the 21st Panzer Division, took up defensive positions near Mezzouna on 8 April.On 7 April 1943, Stauffenberg was involved in driving from one unit to another, directing their movement. Near Mezzouna, his vehicle was part of a column strafed by P-40 Kittyhawk fighter bombers of the Desert Air Force – most likely from No. 3 Squadron RAAF – and he received multiple severe wounds. Stauffenberg spent three months in a hospital in Munich, where he was treated by Ferdinand Sauerbruch. Stauffenberg lost his left eye, his right hand, and two fingers on his left hand. He jokingly remarked to friends never to have really known what to do with so many fingers when he still had all of them. For his injuries, Stauffenberg was awarded the Wound Badge in Gold on 14 April and for his courage the German Cross in Gold on 8 May.
In the resistance, 1943–44
For rehabilitation, Stauffenberg was sent to his home, Schloss Lautlingen, then still one of the Stauffenberg castles in southern Germany. The Torfels near Meßstetten Bueloch had been visited many times. Initially, he felt frustrated not to be in a position to stage a coup himself. But by the beginning of September 1943, after a somewhat slow recovery from his wounds, he was propositioned by the conspirators and was introduced to Henning von Tresckow as a staff officer to the headquarters of the Ersatzheer, located on the Bendlerstrasse in Berlin.There, one of Stauffenberg's superiors was General Friedrich Olbricht, a committed member of the resistance movement. The Ersatzheer had a unique opportunity to launch a coup, as one of its functions was to have Operation Valkyrie in place. This was a contingency measure to let it assume control of the Reich in the event that internal disturbances blocked communications to the military high command. The Valkyrie plan had been agreed to by Hitler but was secretly changed to sweep the rest of his regime from power in the event of his death. In 1943, Henning von Tresckow was deployed on the Eastern Front, giving Stauffenberg control of the resistance.
A detailed military plan was developed not only to occupy Berlin, but also to take the different headquarters of the German army and of Hitler in East Prussia by military force after the suicide assassination attempt by Axel von dem Bussche in late November 1943. Stauffenberg had von dem Bussche transmit these written orders personally to Major Kuhn once he had arrived at Wolfsschanze near Rastenburg, East Prussia. However, von dem Bussche had left the Wolfsschanze for the eastern front, after the meeting with Hitler was cancelled, and the attempt could not be made.
Kuhn became a prisoner of war of the Soviets after the 20 July plot. He led the Soviets to the hiding place of the documents in February 1945. In 1989, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev presented these documents to German chancellor Dr. Helmut Kohl. The conspirators' motivations have been a matter of discussion for years in Germany since the war. Many thought the plotters wanted to kill Hitler in order to end the war and to avoid the loss of their privileges as professional officers and members of the nobility.
On D-Day, 6 June 1944, the Allies had landed in France. Stauffenberg, like most other German professional military officers, had absolutely no doubt that the war was lost. Only an immediate armistice could avoid more unnecessary bloodshed and further damage to Germany, its people, and other European nations. However, in late 1943, he had written out demands with which he felt the Allies had to comply in order for Germany to agree to an immediate peace. These demands included Germany retaining its 1914 eastern borders, including the Polish territories of Wielkopolska and Poznań.
Other demands included keeping such territorial gains as Austria and the Sudetenland within the Reich, giving autonomy to Alsace-Lorraine and even expansion of the current wartime borders of Germany in the south by annexing Tyrol as far as Bozen and Meran. Non-territorial demands included such points as refusal of any occupation of Germany by the Allies, as well as refusal to hand over war criminals by demanding the right of "nations to deal with its own criminals." These proposals were directed to only the Western Allies – Stauffenberg wanted Germany to retreat from only the western, southern, and northern positions, while demanding the right to continue military occupation of German territorial gains in the east.