Hans Bernd von Haeften

Hans-Bernd August Gustav von Haeften
Born	(1905-12-18)18 December 1905 Berlin, Germany
Died	Berlin, Germany
Cause of death	Execution by hanging
Occupation	Diplomat
Known for	German Resistance

Hans-Bernd August Gustav von Haeften (18 December 1905 – 15 August 1944) was a German jurist and member of the German Resistance against Adolf Hitler.

Biography

Von Haeften was born in Berlin to Agnes (née von Brauchitsch, a relative of Walther von Brauchitsch) and Hans von Haeften, an army officer and President of the Reichsarchiv. His siblings were Elisabeth and Werner (1908–1944). After studying law, which had led him as an exchange student to Oxford University, he first found himself busy with the Stresemann Foundation, and then in 1933, he joined the Foreign Service. He worked mainly for the cultural-political department of the Foreign Office and as a cultural attaché in Copenhagen, Vienna and Bucharest.

In 1940, von Haeften became the department's leader, but refused to join the Nazi Party. From 1933, he belonged to the Confessing Church. He had contacts with the Kreisau Circle, especially through Ulrich von Hassell and Adam von Trott zu Solz. He refused on religious and moral grounds to have anything to do with any attempt on Adolf Hitler's life, but supported the attempt to overthrow Hitler and stood ready to take power at the Foreign Ministry for the plotters.

In January 1944 he stopped his brother, Lieutenant Werner von Haeften, from shooting Hitler with a pistol with the argument that this would break the Fifth Commandment.

Von Haeften was arrested on 23 July 1944, three days after the failed German Generals assassination attempt or the July 20 Plot against Hitler at the Wolfsschanze in East Prussia. His brother Lieutenant Werner von Haeften, the adjutant of Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, had been summarily shot along with von Stauffenberg in the early hours of 21 July at the Bendlerblock. On 15 August, von Haeften was brought before the Volksgerichtshof or People's Court, where he described Hitler as "a great perpetrator of evil." He was sentenced to death and hanged the same day at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin.

See also

• German Resistance
• List of members of the 20 July plot

Related movies

• The Restless Conscience (USA 1991)

External links

• Hans Bernd von Haeften in the German National Library catalogue
• Hans-Bernd von Haeften at Jewish Virtual Library
• (German) Die Gedenkstätte Plötzensee: Der 20. Juli 1944 (title translated into English: July,20 1944); 2003; p. 12–13
• (German) Andreas Möckel: Zum 100. Geburtstag von Hans-Bernd von Haeften (title translated into English: 100th anniversary); Website of Kreisau-Initiative Würzburg e.V.
• (German) Michael Stürmer: Barbara von Haeften: Abschied; in: Die Welt, Ausgabe April 8, 2006.