Melitta von Stauffenberg

Melitta von Stauffenberg: 9 January 1903 — 8 April 1945

In 1937, Melitta Schiller, who was of Jewish descent, married Claus von Stauffenberg’s older brother Alexander.

A highly regarded test pilot, Melitta’s ability saved her and her family from the Holocaust.

Aware of Claus’s proposed coup, she was asked to fly Claus to and from the Wolf’s Lair – but she did not have access to a suitable aircraft.

Following the Plot’s collapse she was arrested under Sippenhaft (kin vengeance), but released in September 1944 to continue her test flight duties. The Nazis thereafter required her to be referred to as Gräfin (Countess) ‘Schenk’.

Melitta played a key role flying between Claus’s wife Nina (pregnant in hospital and in custody) and the various camps where members of the Stauffenberg family were held, keeping them in touch with each other and bringing them food and other necessities. She found the children in the orphanage in Bad Sachsa, but also brought Nina the ominous news that they were being transferred to Buchenwald.

Unknown to either, the children were unable to make the journey to the concentration camp due to bomb damage to the transport infrastructure.

Her husband Alexander was in Athens when the July plot took place. The two were able to speak by telephone before they were arrested, but Alexander was not released until the end of the war - narrowly surviving Himmler's instructions that he be shot.

On 8 April 1945, Melitta’s slow moving unarmed trainer aircraft was attacked by a US fighter. She was able to land the aircraft but died soon after from her wounds.

This is an edited extract from TREASON: Claus von Stauffenberg and the Plot to Kill Hitler

Hans von Herwarth

Captain Hans-Heinrich (‘Johann’ or ‘Johnny’) Herwarth von Bittenfeld

14 July 1904 – 21 August 1999

Herwarth was a lawyer and economist who entered the German Foreign Office in 1927, and served in several important foreign posts, including the German embassies in Paris and, from 1931 to 1939, Moscow.

He worked actively against the Nazis, and in particular, along with Friedrich-Werner von der Schulenburg (the German ambassador to Moscow - and not to be confused with conspirator Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenburg), urged foreign powers in the late 1930s not to give in to Hitler’s territorial demands. He gave important information to foreign diplomats:

• He kept the British informed on the progress of negotiations between the Germans and Soviets in 1939
• On 24 August 1939, the day after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed, he gave the full text of its secret protocol, concerning, amongst other things, the division of Poland, to US diplomats
• He warned the Allies of the impending launch of Operation Barbarossa (the German invasion of the Soviet Union).

He married his wife Elisabeth in 1935 and they had one daughter.

After the war began, he joined the army where he served in staff posts, mostly in the east. He helped convey explosives for the resistance.

His grandmother was Jewish. He was a cousin by marriage of Claus von Stauffenberg, and worked with him compiling reports of Nazi atrocities against Jews in the occupied east.

He survived the war, and was the first West German ambassador to London. He was later ambassador to Rome. He served in a number of prominent positions, including as president of the Goethe Institute from 1971 – 1977.

This is an edited extract from TREASON: Claus von Stauffenberg and the Plot to Kill Hitler

The Haeften brothers

Hans-Bernd August Gustav von Haeften (at his trial)

Born 18 December 1905

Lawyer

Diplomat

Werner Karl von Haeften

Born 9 October 1908

Claus von Stauffenberg’s aide

The Haeften brothers were nephews of Walther von Brauchitsch, the commander-in-chief of the German army from 4 February 1938 to 10 December 1941.

Hans-Bernd was a lawyer and worked for the Foreign Office. He was deeply religious, belonging to the Confessing Church (established by Karl Barth, Martin Niemöller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, amongst others), and associated with the so-called Kreisau Circle – although he rarely attended, as his senior position made this too risky.

Werner was a lawyer who worked for a bank. He joined the army at the outbreak of war. From late 1943, having been wounded twice, he served as adjutant to Claus von Stauffenberg. He held the rank of First Lieutenant. A friend described him as ‘a kind of Siegfried with a sense of humour’.

In early 1944, Stauffenberg asked Werner to consider assassinating Hitler. Werner thought he could shoot Hitler with a pistol.

However, Hans-Bernd refused to have anything to do with killing Hitler. He persuaded his brother not to shoot Hitler as this would break the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ (the fifth commandment in the Lutheran division of the Decalogue). Thereafter, Werner remained troubled as to the morality of assassinating Hitler.

The effect of this dissuasion persisted. It is probably the reason that Werner took no part in the complicated process of arming the bomb on 20 July 1944.

However, Hans-Bernd did support overthrowing Hitler, and was ready on the day of the coup to help deliver control of the Foreign Office to the resistance.

Prior to 20 July 1944 Claus von Stauffenberg took the bomb to Hitler on (at least) two

occasions (11 and 15 July), but was prevented from using it. On those days Werner was ill, and Claus took another young officer of the conspiracy with him – Captain Friedrich Klausing.

On 20 July 1944, Werner accompanied Claus to the Wolf’s Lair. At various times that day he carried the plastic explosive.

Werner did not help arm the bomb – which was left to Claus despite the difficulties due to his injuries. As noted, it was probably Werner’s scruples about the assassination which prevented his involvement. The result was that Claus was able to arm only half the explosive before he was interrupted by one of the worst-timed phone calls in history.

After placing the briefcase, Claus joined Werner and two others to watch the explosion. Satisfied that Hitler must be dead, Werner travelled with Claus in their car to the airfield. On the way he threw from the car a parcel containing the unused plastic explosive – an action observed by the driver. When the driver reported what he had seen, the unused explosive was recovered, pointing to the involvement of the two officers in the bombing.

Throughout the afternoon and evening of 20 July, Werner remained with Claus at the Bendlerblock (Home Army headquarters) in Berlin.

Hans-Bernd waited with Adam von Trott and others in the Foreign Office. They expected an armed escort to Broadcasting House, where they would make broadcasts on behalf of the new regime. When they saw the roadblocks being removed as the plot unravelled, a friend described it as a ‘ghastly moment’ and said Hans-Bernd went ‘white as a sheet’.

In the early hours of 21 July 1944, General Fromm summarily sentenced Claus von Stauffenberg, along with Werner, as well as General Olbricht and Colonel Mertz, to death by firing squad – a sentence carried out forthwith.

Werner died when he threw himself in front of the volley meant for Claus.

With his brother Werner so deeply involved in the July plot, Hans-Bernd was an early suspect. 

On 23 July 1944, he was arrested.

On 15 August 1944, he was brought before the Nazi 'People’s Court'. During his trial he described Hitler as ‘the incarnation of evil in history’. 

He was hanged that day in Plötzensee prison.

This is an edited extract from TREASON: Claus von Stauffenberg and the Plot to Kill Hitler