Hans Bernd von Haeften

Hans Bernd von Haeften (1935)

Hans Bernd August Gustav von Haeften [ ˈhaftn̩ ] (* December 18, 1905 in Charlottenburg ; † August 15, 1944 in Berlin-Plötzensee ) was a German diplomat and resistance fighter against National Socialism .

Life

Hans Bernd von Haeften was born as the son of Agnes von Brauchitsch (1869 - 1945 in Herdwangen-Schönach ) and Hans von Haeften . His father was an officer in the Great General Staff, most recently major general and then director of the historical department (most recently president) of the Reichsarchiv . Von Haeften had two siblings: Elisabeth Charlotte Agnes Hedwig (1903–1980), who married the doctor and social hygienist Hans Harmsen in Potsdam in 1928 , and Werner Karl Otto Theodor (1908–1944). In 1924 von Haeften passed the Abitur at the Bismarck High School in Berlin-Wilmersdorf . After studying law , which had also taken him to Trinity College as an exchange student , he initially worked for the Stresemann Foundation and joined the Foreign Service in April 1933 . His missions abroad were in the legations in Copenhagen (1934), Vienna (1935–1937) and Bucharest (1937–1940). From 1940 he worked in the Foreign Office as a lecturer in the Legation Council in the Germany Department, where he dealt with foreign propaganda matters in the “ Krümmer Special Department ”. He continued to refuse to join the NSDAP . In 1942 he became deputy head of the cultural policy department.

First page of the judgment of the People's Court, the other defendants are Bernhard Klamroth , Hans Georg Klamroth , Egbert Hayessen , Wolf-Heinrich von Helldorff and Adam von Trott zu Solz

On September 2, 1930, he married Barbara Curtius (1908-2006), a daughter of Julius Curtius and his wife Adda nee Carp. The couple had five children: Jan von Haeften (1931–2017), Dirk von Haeften (1934–2006), and three other daughters born until 1944: Adda-Benita, Eberhard von Hofacker (the eldest son of Caesar von Hofacker , participant married on the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944, cousin of Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg ), Dorothea and finally Ulrike, who married Konrad Graf von Moltke (the younger son of Helmuth James Graf von Moltke , the founder of the Kreisau district ).

Von Haeften belonged to the Confessing Church since 1933 . He had contacts with the Kreisau Circle, primarily through the diplomats Ulrich von Hassell and Adam von Trott zu Solz . He rejected the planned assassination attempt on Hitler for religious and moral reasons, but supported the attempt to overthrow and stood ready to take power in the foreign ministry for the conspirators. It was after the failed assassination attempt on 20 July 1944 , in which his younger brother Werner von Haeften as a first lieutenant of the reserve and aide Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg by a court martial convicted and in Berlin's Bendler Block shot had been arrested on 23 July. On August 15th he stood before the People's Court and described Adolf Hitler as the “great executor of evil”. Hans Bernd von Haeften was sentenced to death and hanged on the same day in Plötzensee .

In a resolution on January 25, 1985, the German Bundestag unanimously assessed the People's Court as a “terrorist instrument to enforce arbitrary National Socialist rule ” and denied its judgments any legal effect in the Federal Republic of Germany . The judgments of the People's Court and the Special Courts were not legally repealed until 1998, so that one can speak of murder (or judicial murder ).

Honors

Cenotaph of Hans Bernd von Haeftens and the grave of his wife in the St.-Annen-Kirchhof in Berlin-Dahlem (2010)

• In the Foreign Office in Berlin, close to the offices of ministers and state secretaries, there is a memorial wall to commemorate those diplomats who lost their lives as resistance fighters against National Socialism, including Hans Bernd von Haeften.
• In 1957, near the Plötzensee execution site, the Haeftenzeile was named after him and his brother.
• In Sibiu (Hermannstadt) in Romania , the conference center of the Evangelical Academy Transylvania was named after Hans Bernd von Haeften. The laying of the foundation stone in 1997 was attended by the widow and son Dirk.
• On July 20, 2016, a memorial plaque for her two sons, the resistance fighters Hans-Bernd and Werner, was fixed on the grave of Agnes von Haeften in the Herdwangen-Schönach cemetery in the Großschönach district. The grave now has the status of a memorial of the community and was accepted by the memorial board of NS-Documentation Oberschwaben.
• Hans Bernd von Haeften's widow Barbara von Haften found her final resting place in the St. Annen churchyard in Berlin-Dahlem . Her tombstone also reminds of her murdered husband.

See also

• Personalities of July 20, 1944

literature

• Frédérique Dantonel:  Haeften, Hans-Bernd. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 27, Bautz, Nordhausen 2007, ISBN 978-3-88309-393-2 , Sp. 582-585.
• Barbara von Haeften: Nothing written about politics - Hans Bernd von Haeften: A life report . CH Beck, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-406-42614-X ( review by Frank Lille ( memento of February 25, 2005 in the Internet Archive )).
• Maria Keipert (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945. Published by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Volume 2: Gerhard Keiper, Martin Kröger: G – K. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2005, ISBN 3-506-71841-X .
• Ralf Retter: Theological-Political Resistance. The Role of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Hans-Bernd von Haeften in the German Resistance against Hitler . Logos Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8325-2096-0 .

Web links

Commons : Hans Bernd von Haeften  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Hans Bernd von Haeften in the catalog of the German National Library
• The Plötzensee Memorial: July 20, 1944 ; 2003, pp. 12-13.
• Andreas Möckel: On the 100th birthday of Hans-Bernd von Haeften ; Website of the Kreisau-Initiative Würzburg eV
• (en) Hans-Bernd von Haeften
• Michael Stürmer: Barbara von Haeften: Farewell. In: The world. April 8, 2006.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ On the grave of Agnes von Haeften: DENKStättenkuratorium NS-Documentation Oberschwaben: Herdwangen-Schönach: The grave of Agnes von Haeften. Memorial Curatorium NS Documentation Oberschwaben, accessed on July 19, 2018 . 
2. ↑ Johannes Kasper: Christian resistance against Hitler . In: Transylvanian newspaper . August 15, 2009.
3. ↑ Moltke, Helmuth Caspar von, 1937-, Moltke, Ulrike von, 1944-: Farewell letters, prison Tegel: September 1944-January 1945 . Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-61375-3 .
4. ↑ Thomas Mentzel: Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and July 20, 1944 ( Memento of the original from January 22, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; Working group Shoa.de eV; Retrieved March 12, 2009. 
5. ^ Text of the Act to Repeal National Socialist Injustice Judgments in the Administration of Criminal Justice (NS-AufhG) .
6. ↑ Helmut Ortner: The executioner. Roland Freisler. Murderer in the service of Hitler ; Steidl-Verlag, 1995, ISBN 3-88243-355-8 .
7. ↑ Claudia Fröhlich: "Against the tabooing of disobedience". Fritz Bauer's concept of resistance and the coming to terms with Nazi crimes. Campus Verlag, 2004, ISBN 3-593-37874-4 .
8. ↑ Haeftenzeile. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )
9. ↑ Herdwangen-Schönach: Agnes von Haeften's grave is a memorial . In: SÜDKURIER Online . July 21, 2016 ( suedkurier.de [accessed July 19, 2018]).