Axel von dem Bussche

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Axel von dem Bussche, 1943

Axel Ernst-August Clamor Franz Albrecht Erich Leo Freiherr von dem Bussche-Streithorst (born April 24, 1919 in Braunschweig , † January 26, 1993 in Bad Godesberg Bonn ) was a German professional officer , most recently in the rank of major , European politician and resistance fighter in the resistance group of July 20, 1944 .

Motivation to resist

Von dem Bussche was born in 1919 as the son of the officer and landowner Georg von dem Bussche-Streithorst (1883-1959), the gentleman of the Thale manor , and his Danish wife Jenny Lassen. He came from the East Westphalian noble family Bussche . He attended elementary school in Thale and passed his Abitur in Munich in 1937. After graduation he joined as a cadet in the Infantry Regiment 9 of the 23rd Infantry Division in Potsdam, which due to its high content of noble officers casually "Regiment Graf Nine" was called. A number of resistance fighters emerged from this regiment. In 1938/1939 he attended the war school in Hanover. During the Second World War , he first took part in the Polish and French campaigns , and later in the war against the Soviet Union . As early as 1940, during a stay in Wroclaw, he learned of pogroms against the civilian population. On 5 October 1942, the highly decorated was Lieutenant age of 23 at the airfield of Dubno predominantly - in Ukraine happened to witness a mass execution of more than three thousand civilians, men, women and children Jews  - during two days of eight SS - and several SD -People was systematically carried out. Von dem Bussche described this crime: “SS men led the Jews to a pit. There they had to undress, then climb into the pit, in which there was already a layer of twitching bodies: face down, obeying the order, they had to lie on the murdered people and were then shot in the back of the head. "

Until then, the professional officer Bussche had felt bound by the personal oath on Supreme Warlord Adolf Hitler . After these events, he asked himself and in the regiment in a small circle to which Richard von Weizsäcker belonged, why he should still be bound by this oath, which is based on respect and reciprocity, when the Führer has given it countless times through the one he ordered Crime had already broken. Three months after his traumatic experience of the mass execution of civilians, von Bussche's decision was made: it could no longer be about sacrificing one's own life on the battlefield, but about using it for Germany against Hitler. This experience, which had never been overcome until his death, motivated him to consciously join the resistance group around Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg against the Hitler regime through the mediation of Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenburg .

In October 1943 he traveled to Berlin to see Lieutenant Colonel Stauffenberg. Von dem Bussche, meanwhile promoted to captain and working as battalion commander with Grenadier Regiment 9, was deeply impressed by the encounter with Stauffenberg. He later spoke of "the bright shine of the sure serenity of this man". Bussche explained that in view of the crimes he involuntarily witnessed as a witness, there are only three ways for an officer to preserve his honor: "By joining the group of victims" - that is, falling, deserting or rebellion. Von dem Bussche was initiated into the conspiracy plans against Hitler through Stauffenberg. In response to Stauffenberg's question, he without hesitation declared that he was ready to sacrifice his life in a suicide attack on Hitler. He later justified his intention to kill with the emergency aid paragraph of the German Criminal Code (§ 32 StGB), which he had to learn by heart as a recruit in Potsdam.

Attempted assassination in December 1943

The main problem for a potential assassin was getting close to Hitler with a weapon or explosives. Henning von Tresckow , from the same regiment as von dem Bussche coming and next Stauffenberg the head of the conspiracy, suggested a demonstration of the eastern front to use modified uniforms, because in addition to Hitler and Goering and Himmler wanted to participate in the event. For the show at the Fuehrer's headquarters Wolf's Lair at Rastenburg first November 23, 1943, and later on Dec. 16, 1943 was determined. The Bussche was chosen to explain to those present the advantages of these new uniforms, which were to be presented by soldiers who were not privy to the assassination plans. He intended a suicide bombing to blow up Hitler. At a suitable moment he wanted to sharpen a mine hidden in his uniform, which he himself had equipped with a hand grenade detonator. He refused a chemical detonator bomb proposed by Stauffenberg because the ten-minute period from arming to explosion seemed too long. This assessment was based on the experience that Rudolf von Gersdorff had previously made. Hand grenade detonators, on the other hand, explode after four to five seconds. Bussche planned to cover up the inevitable hiss of the detonator by clearing his throat and hugging Hitler in order to kill him as a target.

Von dem Bussche spent three days and two nights in the guest barracks at the East Prussian Führer headquarters in Wolfsschanze in the second half of November 1943. On his arrival he had the co-conspirators Major i. G. Joachim Kuhn and Colonel Helmuth Stieff handed over the documents given to him by Stauffenberg for carrying out the coup. After the failure of the assassination plan, these documents were buried by Major Kuhn on the premises of the OKH together with the explosives, found by Soviet officers on February 17, 1945, based on Kuhn's information on the location of the hiding place, and partially as a copy in 1997 by Boris Yeltsin to the then handed over to German Chancellor Helmut Kohl . - On November 18, 1943, Stieff informed von dem Bussche that the railroad car with the demonstration uniforms had been destroyed on November 17, 1943 during an Allied air raid on Berlin . It was then said that the procurement of replacement uniforms would take at least until January 1944. Von dem Bussche therefore returned to his unit on the Eastern Front near Newel , with the intention of trying the assassination attempt again in January 1944. However, his superior (who was not informed about the plans), Paul Gurran, spoke out against the planned demonstration of the uniforms, saying: "My officers are not mannequins".

Wounded and escaped

Stauffenberg had already obtained von dem Bussche's marching orders for February 1944 from the Eastern Front to Berlin. Before the assassination attempt, von dem Bussche was badly wounded by a Soviet shrapnel on January 30, 1944. One leg was amputated. Because he had spent several months in the SS- Lazarett Hohenlychen as a bearer of the German Cross in Gold donated by Hitler as a privilege , von dem Bussche also escaped the wave of persecution after July 20, 1944. He was next to Fabian von Schlabrendorff , Philipp Freiherr von Boeselager , Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist-Schmenzin , Joachim Kuhn and Rudolf-Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff one of the few officers of the conspiratorial group who survived the war.

Awards

Next life

The Bussches owned a manor in Thale in the form of the former Wendhusen monastery . Immediately after the Second World War, after the expulsion from his property in the Soviet-occupied zone at the time , he studied law at the University of Göttingen and became the first post-war chairman of the AStA at the University of Göttingen . After completing his studies, he worked as a program assistant at the German department of BBC London . In 1948/49 he worked as a lecturer and advisor for advertising at Suhrkamp Verlag , until 1953 until he took over the management of the press office in the " Amt Blank ", which was involved in the preparation of new German armed forces . He then moved to the Federal Government's Press and Information Office as a member of the Commonwealth and USA Department. From 1954 to 1958 he served as counselor in the German embassy in Washington . From 1959 to 1962 he was the director of the Schloss Salem boarding school founded by Kurt Hahn , Karl Reinhardt and the Margrave of Baden .

After founding the Deutsche Entwicklungsdienst GmbH , he was appointed one of its two managing directors in early 1964; In this function, he played a major role in building up the German development aid organization until 1966. In addition and afterwards, he was a member of the Presidium of the German Evangelical Church Congress from 1964, member of the World Council of Churches , advisor to the World Bank , pioneer of the Stockholm UN Environment Conference of 1972 and a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin for one year . Here he was involved in the preparation of the first UN environmental conference.

In 1991 he was one of the unsuccessful plaintiffs against the federal government before the Federal Constitutional Court because of the non-return of his property in Thale, which was expropriated by the Soviet occupying power in 1946 . He felt the expropriation (de jure by the Soviet occupying power, de facto by German communists) as unjust and, in his case, not even justified according to Soviet standards, because according to their provisions only "fascists" should be affected by expropriations, which he did not agree to wanted to count. He did not understand why the government of the Federal Republic, who owned his former land in Thale after 1990, did not want to redress this injustice by returning the land to him as the rightful owner. The Federal Constitutional Court argued that the expropriation and eviction occurred before the Federal Republic of Germany was founded in 1949. The federal government should therefore not be held responsible for the consequences of the war that occurred before it was founded. Von dem Bussche found the court's argumentation scandalous. In his view, injustice cannot become right. Because of this matter, von dem Bussche had a quarrel with the then Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker , with whom he actually had a close friendship for decades. After von Bussche's death on January 26, 1993 in Bad Godesberg (burial in the family crypt of the Dietzsch-Doertenbach family in Lehrensteinsfeld ), his eldest daughter Nicola Dietzsch-Doertenbach bought back large parts of the former family property from the Federal Republic of Germany.

family

Axel Freiherr von dem Bussche-Streithorst came from the old East Westphalian noble family von dem Bussche and was the son of Georg Freiherr von dem Bussche-Streithorst and his Danish wife Jenny Lassen. He had two siblings. His older brother Cuno died in World War II. Since 1950 he was himself married to the English lady Camilla Mildred Nicola Acheson (daughter of Archibald Acheson, 5th Earl of Gosford and Mildred Carter), divorced Schenk Baroness von Stauffenberg . With her he had the daughters Nicola Dietzsch-Doertenbach, nee. Freiin von dem Bussche-Streithorst, and Jane (Johanna) Freiin von dem Bussche-Streithorst. From Lady Camilla's first marriage to Hans Christoph Schenk Freiherr von Stauffenberg come her three sons Sebastian, Patrick and Damian Freiherr Schenk von Stauffenberg. Axel von dem Bussche was the cousin of the Danish resistance hero Anders Lassen , who fought against Germany in the British army during World War II.

literature

  • Joachim Fest : Hitler - A Biography . Propylaen Verlag, 2nd edition 2004, ISBN 3-549-07172-8 , p. 957.
  • Joachim Fest: Coup. The long way to July 20th . Siedler Verlag, 1994, ISBN 3-88680-539-5 , p. 226 ff.
  • Marion Countess Dönhoff in: Axel von dem Bussche . v. Hase & Koehler Verlag 1994, ISBN 3-7758-1311-X .
  • Josef Tal : A person-to-person experience at the Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin . In: Axel von dem Bussche . Hase & Koehler Verlag, 1994, ISBN 3-7758-1311-X , pp. 125-131 ff.
  • Gevinon von Medem: Axel von dem Bussche . v. Hase & Koehler Verlag, 1994, ISBN 3-7758-1311-X .
  • Peter Hoffmann : Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and his brothers . DVA, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-421-06533-0 .
  • The security of the dictator. Hitler's bodyguards, protective measures, residences, headquarters . Munich 1975.
  • Resistance, coup, assassination. The fight of the opposition against Hitler . Munich 1979.
  • Guido Knopp : You wanted to kill Hitler . Munich 2004, ISBN 3-570-00664-6 , p. 132 ff.
  • Ines Reich: Potsdam and July 20, 1944. On the trail of the resistance against National Socialism. Accompanying document to the exhibition of the Military History Research Office and the Potsdam Museum . Rombach, Freiburg im Breisgau 1994, ISBN 3-7930-0697-2 , p. 68 ff.
  • Biography about Axel von dem Bussche-Streithorst, Munzinger archive in: http://munzinger.de/document/00000005298

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ after Marion Countess Dönhoff in Axel von dem Bussche . von Hase and Koehler Verlag, 1994, ISBN 3-7758-1311-X , p. 32
  2. ↑ Martin Doerry , Klaus Wiegrefe : Mirror conversation: "It was horrible" . In: Der Spiegel . No. 35 , 2009, p. 70–73 ( online - here: p. 72). Quote: “But a friend of mine in the regiment, Axel von dem Bussche, had observed in the rear of the army how Jewish and non-Jewish residents of the area had to dig a deep ditch, lay down in it and then were shot. He came back to the regiment in a moment and I will remember how he said the only thing he failed to do was lay down. Axel was a giant of a man, highly decorated. He was deeply influenced by this experience, and if you had heard that from him, then you could only take part in resistance plans as far as possible. "
  3. ↑ maria-trunschke.gurran.eu
  4. ↑ Stefan Wolter : Pastor's Children in World War I (series Denk-MAL- Prora , Vol. 6), Halle, 2014, p. 353.
personal data
SURNAME Bussche, Axel von dem
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bussche-Streithorst, Axel Ernst-August Clamor Franz Albrecht Erich Leo von dem (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German professional officer, most recently in the rank of major, and resistance fighter in the resistance group on July 20, 1944
DATE OF BIRTH April 24, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Braunschweig
DATE OF DEATH January 26, 1993
Place of death Bonn