Kunrat von Hammerstein-Equord

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Kunrat Freiherr von Hammerstein-Equord (born June 14, 1918 in Berlin ; † June 13, 2007 in Bonn ) was one of the sons of Colonel General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord , an officer in the armored force and personally connected to many of those involved in the July 20 assassination attempt 1944 on Adolf Hitler .

family

Kunrat von Hammerstein-Equord was born as the fourth of seven children of General and Hitler's opponent Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord (1878–1943; called "Red General") and his wife Maria, nee. Freiin von Lüttwitz (1886–1970), born. Kunrat had been in a relationship with Ingrid born in 1956. von Lüttwitz, married John von Freyend, who had children Diana and Horatio from their first marriage. Kunrat and Ingrid married on July 6, 1965 and together had three children Adelaide (1957), Oliver (1959) and Benjamin (1964–1989). In 1971 they divorced. Ingrid married Rüdiger Altmann for the third time ; she died a few days before her third husband in February 2000.

Life

Kunrat von Hammerstein's father, head of the army command since 1930 , was in a crucial position at the time of Hitler's appointment as Reich Chancellor in 1933; Although Hitler and National Socialism were skeptical about it, he feared a civil war between the Reichswehr , which was limited to 100,000 men (among whose younger officers Hitler also had sympathizers) and the more than 400,000 members of the SA . For this reason, he did not prevent Hitler's appointment as Reich Chancellor and even afterwards did not seize the opportunity to putsch against him, although he had considered several times. Nevertheless, until his death in 1943 he sympathized (and conspired) with Hitler's opponents from the circles of resistance fighters .

Kunrat von Hammerstein attended the Bismarck High School in Berlin. His sisters Marie Luise and Helga had approached the KPD early on and secretly conspired for it. In 1937 he stayed for a school year at the invitation of the former American military attaché Colonel Wuest in California . On his return he joined the 14th Cavalry Regiment as a flag boy . In 1939 he passed his officer examination at the war school in Dresden. After the outbreak of World War II, he was deployed as a scout leader of the 5th Panzer Division in Poland in 1939 and on the Western Front in 1940. He was for his missions u. a. Awarded the Iron Cross, 2nd and 1st class. After an injury, he was found to be unsuitable for the front.

He then studied law in Berlin, Leipzig and Bonn. He also took on tasks in the Army High Command and on the teaching staff of the School for the Rapid Troops in Potsdam-Krampnitz .

Kunrat von Hammerstein and his family, especially his sister Maria Therese and his brother Ludwig , had close personal relationships with the resistance of July 20, 1944 , in particular with Carl Goerdeler , Philipp von Boeselager , Ewald von Kleist , Axel von dem Bussche , and Fabian von Schlabrendorff as well as the families of Lynar , von Hardenberg , von Hassell , von Falkenhausen and others. On July 11, 1944, Fritz-Dietlof Graf von der Schulenburg sent a request to Ludwig von Hammerstein to come to Berlin and be ready for an attempted coup. This news did not reach him, but Kunrat, who followed her. Because of his local knowledge, Kunrat managed to leave the Bendler block undetected after the attempted coup failed .

At the end of 1944, his mother Maria von Hammerstein and other family members were arrested for their ties to the resistance. Maria, Franz and Hildur, together with family members of the conspirators, were taken to a shielded special camp of the Buchenwald concentration camp on July 20 , later deported via a Regensburg prison to Innsbruck (Franz) and Niederdorf (South Tyrol) (Maria and Hildur). Kunrat and his brother Louis were considered deserters Wehrmacht wanted, but by Oskar Huth equipped with forged documents. Kunrat von Hammerstein fled to the Rhineland, went into hiding and survived as a tramp.
Kunrat von Hammerstein recorded his experiences and hid them as manuscripts with relatives in Denmark from 1942 to 1944. In 1963 he published his book Spähtrupp .

From 1953 he worked for Otto Wolff AG in Cologne. He had a personal friendship with Otto Wolff von Amerongen . Since 1983 he lived in retirement in Bonn.

Fonts

  • Patrol. Henry Goverts Verlag, Stuttgart 1963
  • Escape. Records after July 20th. Walter Verlag, Olten, Freiburg im Breisgau 1966

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Birthday of Kurt Freiherr von Hammerstein-Equord" ( Memento from June 25, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), WDR, September 26, 2003.
  2. ↑ a b c http://www.diakonie.de/de/print/aktuelles/3892_3932.php ( Memento from February 7, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) , Diakonie, January 16, 2006.
  3. ^ Kunrat von Hammerstein-Equord . Short biography in the finding aid of the Institute for Contemporary History Munich / Berlin ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF file; 190 kB)
  4. ^ "A German Journey through Life" , Die Welt, June 15, 2001
  5. ^ Ines Reich: Potsdam and July 20, 1944. Accompanying publication to the exhibition of the Military History Research Office and the Potsdam Museum. Rombach Verlag, 1994, p. 75.
  6. ↑ Review in Die Zeit 11/1964
  7. ↑ Review in Der Spiegel 50/1966

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Hammerstein-Equord, Kunrat von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hammerstein-Equord, Kunrat Freiherr von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer and 1944 participant in the coup d'état against Adolf Hitler
DATE OF BIRTH June 14, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH June 13, 2007
Place of death Bonn