Heinrich Graf von Lehndorff-Steinort
Heinrich Manfred Ahasuerus Adolf Georg Graf von Lehndorff Steinort (* 22. June 1909 in Hannover , † 4. September 1944 in Berlin-Plötzensee ) was a German officer and one of the participants in the conspiracy of 20 July 1944 against Adolf Hitler . He was a grandson of Heinrich von Lehndorff .
Life
Heinrich von Lehndorff came from the East Prussian counts of Lehndorff . After graduating from high school, he studied economics and business administration at the Roßleben monastery school in Frankfurt am Main and, after the death of his uncle Carl in 1936, took over the management of the Steinort family estate on Lake Mauersee ( Angerburg district , Masuria ) in East Prussia .
Steinort Castle
Lehndorff took care of the estate and had the neglected Steinort Castle thoroughly renovated with the help of Berlin restorers. From 1941 he shared the castle with the Reich Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop , who resided in a wing. Hitler's Führer headquarters, Wolfsschanze, was 25 km to the southwest.
Lehndorff and his sister Sissi were close friends with their cousin Marion Countess Dönhoff . Another cousin of the Lehndorff siblings was Alexandra von Alvensleben , who was married to the resistance fighter Wilhelm Roloff .
Resistance to the Nazi regime
During the German attack on the Soviet Union in World War II , Lehndorff was an orderly officer in Army Group Center , including field marshal Fedor von Bock . A massacre of 7,000 Jews in Borissow in October 1941 became the decisive reason for him to join the military resistance against the Nazi regime. As a first lieutenant in the reserve , Lehndorff was the liaison officer of the " Company Walküre " to military district I in Königsberg . He was on leave from the Wehrmacht to run his very large farm. Henning von Tresckow , Fabian von Schlabrendorff and Helmuth James Graf von Moltke visited his Steinort Castle . Conspiratorial conversations were held during carriage rides or in the park behind the castle. Lehndorff was arrested one day after the failed assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944 in the nearby "Wolfsschanze". He was able to escape twice, in Steinort and in Berlin.
Heinrich von Lehndorff was sentenced to death by the People's Court on September 3rd and hanged the following day . The Plötzensee memorial commemorates him and other victims of National Socialism .
1986 was treasurer of Kriebstein on the Castle Kriebstein discovered. Heinrich Graf von Lehndorff had some of his precious possessions moved from East Prussia to Kriebstein at the end of the Second World War in order to protect them from the Russian troops.
Commemoration
On June 22, 2009, a memorial stone was inaugurated on the 100th birthday of Heinrich Graf von Lehndorff at Steinort Castle in Masuria.
progeny
Heinrich von Lehndorff left his wife Gottliebe, née Countess von Kalnein (1913–1993), who survived an internment camp , and four daughters:
- Maria-Eleonore 'Nona', who lived as an interior designer on Mallorca, was married from 1957 to 1974 to Jan von Haeften , a son of the resistance fighter Hans Bernd von Haeften . She died on September 19, 2018.
- Vera Gottliebe Anna, was and is known as the photo model and actress Veruschka von Lehndorff .
- Gabriele Pauline Agnes married Armin Edler Herr and Freiherr von Plotho in 1968 and also worked as a homeopath.
- Catharina was with Hendrik Kappelhoff-Wulff married, she's belt designer and lives in the district Harvestehude in Hamburg .
The youngest daughter was taken into kin custody like her mother . The three older children were sent to a children's home in the Borntal near Bad Sachsa . From there, on the intervention of Heinrich von Lehndorff's cousin Marion Countess Dönhoff (whose grandmother and sister-in-law came from the von Lehndorff family) after the war, they returned to the care of their family.
Heinrich von Lehndorff's wife Gottliebe inherited and later sold Gut Conow from her mother. In the late 1960s she bought a courtyard complex, the old rectory in Peterskirchen, near Wasserburg / Bavaria , where she lived with the action artist and philosopher Fritz Schranz and held courses in art and philosophy.
A cousin of Heinrich von Lehndorff was Hans Graf von Lehndorff , the author of the "East Prussian Diary" (1945–1947).
See also
literature
- Antje Vollmer : double life. Heinrich and Gottliebe von Lehndorff in the resistance against Hitler and von Ribbentrop. Eichborn Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2010, ISBN 978-3-8218-6232-3 .
Web links
- Works by and about Heinrich Graf von Lehndorff-Steinort in the German Digital Library
- Short biography of the German Resistance Memorial Center
- My dearest! A condemned man bids farewell to his wife (last letter from Heinrich Graf von Lehndorff-Steinort, written on the eve of his execution)
Individual evidence
- ^ Antje Vollmer : double life. Heinrich and Gottliebe von Lehndorff in the resistance against Hitler and von Ribbentrop. Eichborn Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2010, ISBN 978-3-8218-6232-3 , pp. 151-153.
- ^ Judith Leister: Where Count Lehndorff fled through the window. In: Tagesspiegel , July 18, 2019, p. 22.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lehndorff-Steinort, Heinrich Graf von |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Lehndorff-Steinort, Heinrich Ahasverus Graf von (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German military, participant in the military resistance against Adolf Hitler |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 22, 1909 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Hanover |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 4, 1944 |
| Place of death | Berlin-Plötzensee |