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Hans Bernd von Haeften

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Hans-Bernd August Gustav von Haeften
Born(1905-12-18)18 December 1905
Berlin, Germany
Died15 August 1944(1944-08-15) (aged 38)
Berlin, Germany
Cause of deathExecution by hanging
OccupationDiplomat
Known forGerman Resistance

Hans-Bernd August Gustav von Haeften (18 December 1905 – 15 August 1944) was a German jurist and member of the German Resistance against Adolf Hitler.

Biography

Criminal cases against von Haeften and other defendants in the German People's Court, presided by Judge Roland Freisler

Von Haeften was born in Berlin to Agnes (1869-1945) (née von Brauchitsch, a relative of Walther von Brauchitsch) and Hans von Haeften (1870-1937), an army officer and President of the Reichsarchiv. His siblings were Elisabeth (1903-1980) and Werner (1908–1944). He passed abitur in 1924 in Berlin-wilmersdorf. After studying law, which had led him as an exchange student to Oxford University, he first found himself busy with the Stresemann Foundation, and then in 1933, he joined the Foreign Service. He worked mainly for the cultural-political department of the Foreign Office and as a cultural attaché in Copenhagen, Vienna and Bucharest.

During the rise of the Nazi Party

In 1940, von Haeften became the department's leader, but refused to join the Nazi Party. From 1933, he belonged to the Confessing Church. He had contacts with the Kreisau Circle, especially through Ulrich von Hassell and Adam von Trott zu Solz. He refused on religious and moral grounds to have anything to do with any attempt on Adolf Hitler's life, but supported the attempt to overthrow Hitler and stood ready to take power at the Foreign Ministry for the plotters.[citation needed] On 2. September 1930 he married Barbara Curtius (1908–2006), daughter of Julius Curtius. The couple had five children: Jan (* 1931), Dirk (1934–2006), and three daughters born till 1944. In January 1944 he stopped his brother, Lieutenant Werner von Haeften, from shooting Hitler with a pistol with the argument that this would break the Fifth Commandment.[1]

Arrest

Von Haeften was arrested on 23 July 1944, three days after the failed German Generals assassination attempt or the July 20 Plot against Hitler at the Wolfsschanze in East Prussia. His brother Lieutenant Werner von Haeften, the adjutant of Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, had been summarily shot along with von Stauffenberg in the early hours of 21 July at the Bendlerblock. On 15 August, von Haeften was brought before the Volksgerichtshof or People's Court and accused of treason in connection with the plot. He confessed to the charge, saying "Legally speaking it is treason; actually it is not. For I no longer feel an obligation of loyalty. I see in Hitler the perpetrator of evil in history."[2] He was sentenced to death and hanged the same day at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin.

Aftermath

In August of 1998, the German Bundestag cancelled the judgements of the Volksgerichtshofs and special courts with a law, zur Aufhebung nationalsozialistischer Unrechtsurteile in der Strafrechtspflege (overturning unjust National Socialist judgments and sentences).[3]

Footnotes

  1. ^ (Hoffman, 1995) p.231
  2. ^ (Fest, 1996) p.326
  3. ^ German Bundestag (August 29, 1998), Gesetz zur Aufhebung nationalsozialistischer Unrechtsurteile in der Strafrechtspfleg (PDF), Bundesministeriums der Justiz, retrieved 2016-07-17

See also

References

  • Fest, Joachim (1996), Plotting Hitler's Death (translation of 'Staatsstreich: Der lange Weg zum 20 Juli'), Weidenfeld & Nicolson, ISBN 0-297-81774-4
  • von Haeften, Barbara (1997), Nichts Schriftliches von Politik - Hans Bernd von Haeften: Ein Lebensbericht, Munich: C. H. Beck, ISBN 3-406-42614-X
  • Hoffmann, Peter (1995), Stauffenberg (translation of 'Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg und seine Brüder'), University of Cambridge, ISBN 0-521-45307-0
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