Hans-Jürgen von Blumenthal
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (January 2011) |
Hans-Jürgen von Blumenthal | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 23 February 1907 Potsdam, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire |
| Died | 13 October 1944 (aged 37) Plötzensee Prison, Berlin, Nazi Germany |
| Cause of death | Execution by hanging |
| Service/ | German Army |
| Years of service | 1935–1944 |
| Rank | Major |
| Battles/wars | Second World War |
Hans-Jürgen Graf von Blumenthal (23 February 1907 – 13 October 1944) was a
Biography
Hans-Jürgen was born in
The Blumenthal family, who had lost everything in
At a young age he was a leading light of
In 1930, Graf Hans-Jürgen went on a three-month debating trip to the United States, including a visit to
In 1935, after finishing his studies, Graf Hans-Jürgen went back to Neustrelitz, where he joined the 48th Infantry Regiment as a second lieutenant. In December 1936, he was promoted to lieutenant. In the army he remade the acquaintance of his childhood friend, Mertz von Quirnheim, and came into contact with other members of the German Resistance such as Hans Oster.
In the summer of 1938, Graf Hans-Jürgen became a company commander and had a position for two months at the War School in Munich. In that same year he wrote a contribution for the illustrated book for boys Wir Soldaten ("We Soldiers") but it is impossible to tell which piece was written by him. As he was writing his contribution to the book, he was already conspiring against Hitler. He had come to accept the view, common among the nobility, that the war was contrary to Germany's interests.
It was still well before the
In August 1939, Graf Hans-Jürgen became a captain. He kept contact with the Resistance, based in the Abwehr under Admiral Canaris. War broke out, and on 9 September Graf Hans-Jürgen married Cornelia von Kries, née Schnitzler, a 34-year-old divorcée. Her first husband, Otto von Kries, by whom she had a daughter, would die at Leningrad in 1941. Her mother was a Borsig, a family of industrialists whose locomotive works in Berlin were among the largest enterprises in the country.
From September 1939 to May 1940, during the so-called Phoney War, Graf Hans-Jürgen was based at Saarbrücken in command of a machine-gun company. When this blissful calm ended, he took part in the offensive in Alsace, but in July his regiment was transferred to Tomaszew in central Poland, close to Warsaw, nearer to the new Soviet frontier, where in spite of his junior rank he took command of a battalion.
Graf Hans-Jürgen led his battalion to the gates of
By this time, he was once again actively collaborating with the German Resistance.
After his recovery, he joined the Führer Reserve in Berlin and worked at the General War Office. There he got to know other opponents of the regime and introduced Mertz von Quirnheim to Count Claus von Stauffenberg, who was an intimate friend of Graf Hans-Jürgen's cousin Albrecht von Blumenthal. The latter had introduced Stauffenberg to the mystical poet Stefan George, from whose circle other conspirators were drawn. Furthermore, in the late 1930s Dietrich Bonhoeffer had operated an underground seminary for training Confessing Church pastors at Albrecht's estate at Schlönwitz.
In April 1943 Graf Hans-Jürgen was promoted to Major. He was the liaison officer between the Berlin Group and the
It is known that in the weeks before 20 July, Major Hans-Jürgen von Blumenthal was frequently driven to Stauffenberg in the evening. His driver waited for him – he went in fatigues [Trainingsanzug] – to an appointed place close to the Barracks at Düppel, which was close to where his department (General Weidemann) was supposed to have been off the Bendlerstrasse.[2]
Elsewhere Zeller mentions that he worked in the department of Colonel Siegfried Wagner and which gave him contact with Goerdeler.
On the day Stauffenberg planted his abortive bomb, Graf Hans-Jürgen was on duty at
He spent the weekend with his family at Kümmernitz in the West
However, Zeller goes on:
...von Blumenthal came from the Potsdam Tradition, his father had been a tutor to the
Hohenzollerns, but in the opinion of F. W. Heinz, the former editor of the Stahlhelm, from the beginning he had viewed the German nation's pact with Hitler as a misfortune, an opinion which grew ever stronger and made him increasingly restless as the years passed. He was close to Dohnanyi and Oster, and a childhood friend of Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim. We know from eyewitnesses to his interrogation that he did not reveal the names of his accomplices.
In Fabian von Schlabrendorff's book Offiziere gegen Hitler, he is mentioned only in the death-roll.
In his last letter, Hans-Jürgen wrote:
My Most Tender Love!
When these lines reach your good, lovely hands, I will no longer be in this world. I have been sentenced to death and am smoking a final cigarette. Shortly I will pass into eternity, where we will once again find each other and never again be separated. I take with me a deep gratitude for everything that you have been to me and given to me in these past years... Yesterday I dreamt that Papa was standing in the doorway with his coat and hat and he said, "Come, my boy, it is time!"
Give my love to the children. It is also a difficult fate for them and they will only begin to understand it much later.
In my thoughts I take you once more in my arms. Soon that undying part of me will be with you and the children, until you all enter into eternity and you are once again united with
Your sincerest loving
Peter[3]
Why he signed himself Peter is a mystery. It was possibly an agreed sign to his wife that the letter was either genuine or not genuine. It was, however, one of his son's Christian names. The children he refers to in his letter are his son, Hubertus Peter, then three years old, and his stepdaughter.
Notes
- Regarding personal names: Until 1919, Graf was a title, translated as Count, not a first or middle name. The female form is Gräfin. In Germany, it has formed part of family names since 1919.
References
- ^ Biography at German Resistance Memorial Center
- ^ Eberhard Zeller, Geist der Freiheit (1956), p. 135
- ^ Excerpt from Hans-Jürgen Count von Blumenthal's final letter to his wife, October 13, 1944, GKS 132. He was executed the same day.
- Eberhard Zeller, Geist der Freiheit (1956)
- Fabian von Schlabrendorff, Offiziere gegen Hitler (1959)
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
