Wilhelm Graf Schwerin von Schwanenfeld

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Wilhelm Graf Schwerin von Schwanenfeld (born February 7, 1929 in Göhren ) is a German farmer and forester. He was president of the Johanniter-Unfall-Hilfe and governor of the Order of St. John .

family

Wilhelm Graf Schwerin von Schwanenfeld was one of five sons from the marriage of Marianne, née Sahm (1907–1988), and Ulrich Wilhelm Graf Schwerin von Schwanenfeld (1902–1944) and grew up on the family-owned estate Göhren in Mecklenburg-Strelitz (today part the city of Woldegk ) and on the Sartowitz estate in West Prussia . After the failure of the assassination attempt against Hitler on July 20, 1944, in which his father Ulrich Wilhelm played a key role, the family was arrested and torn apart. Two of his brothers died in childhood; the other two brothers are the publisher Christoph Andreas Graf von Schwerin (1933–1996) and the historian and police chief a. D. Detlef Graf von Schwerin .

Paternal grandfather was the diplomat Ulrich Carl Wilhelm Graf von Schwerin (1864–1930), the grandmother Freda Elisabeth Helene Countess von Schwerin, born v. Bethmann-Hollweg (1876-1959). The maternal grandfather, Heinrich Sahm (1877–1939), was President of the Senate of Danzig until 1931 . As Lord Mayor of Berlin, he was deposed by the Nazis in 1936 and sent to Oslo as envoy .

Wilhelm Graf Schwerin von Schwanenfeld was first married to Alexandra Countess von Posadowsky-Wehner (1937–1965); in second marriage with Astrid geb. Auffermann.

Life

After an agricultural apprenticeship and advanced agricultural school, Wilhelm Graf Schwerin specialized in fruit growing. From 1952 to 1956 he worked as a farmer in South Africa. In 1957 he completed a commercial apprenticeship at Siemens and in 1961 switched to John Deere Export in Mannheim. From 1961 until his retirement in 1994 he worked at the management level at John Deere, most recently as PR director in the European headquarters for Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Since 1994 he has lived with his wife Astrid, geb. Auffermann, back on the family-owned estate in Göhren.

In 1968 he became a member of the Johanniter-Unfall-Hilfe (JUH). From 1980 to 2001 he was honorary president of Johanniter-Unfall-Hilfe. During his tenure, the number of members of the evangelical aid organization grew to 1.3 million. Furthermore, he was committed to the expansion of the JUH in the new federal states after the fall of the Wall in 1989. He was the initiator of international aid and organized foreign missions of the Johanniter in Romania, Russia and Belarus, which coincided with the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. He significantly expanded the first aid training, rescue service and social services of the JUH. In 2001 Wilhelm Graf Schwerin was appointed honorary president of the JUH. At the same time he was president of the international association of Johanniter relief organizations worldwide from 2001 to 2005.

From 1952 he became involved in the Order of St. John , initially in South Africa. Wilhelm Graf Schwerin was accepted as a knight of honor in the Order of St. John in 1954 and made a legal knight of the Order of St. John in 1973. Among other things, he was head of the Subkommende Kurpfalz. In 1989 he was appointed honorary commander and in 1992 he was appointed governor of the Order of St. John.

Honors

In 1993 he was awarded the Order of Merit of the State of Baden-Württemberg . He was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit, 1st Class and, in 1998, the Great Federal Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

See also

swell

  • Who is who ?: Das Deutsche who's who , 2001, p. 1319.
  • Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, Volume 139 , Starke 2006, p. 422.
  • German Gender Book - Volume 168 , 1974, p. 21.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b The Children of July 20 , taz, July 20, 2004
  2. ↑ a b c "Wilhelm Graf v. Schwerin v. Schwanenfeld: Farmer with all my heart " , Order of St. John , accessed on September 22, 2017
  3. ↑ Annual report 2001: The performance report of Johanniter-Unfall-Hilfe eV , PDF file, p. 4.
  4. ↑ Order of Merit of the State of Baden-Württemberg: Order bearers 1975-2014 , Baden-Württemberg , accessed on September 22, 2017
personal data
SURNAME Schwerin von Schwanenfeld, Wilhelm Graf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German farmer and forester, President of Johanniter-Unfall-Hilfe
DATE OF BIRTH February 7, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Goehren