Ulrich Wilhelm Graf Schwerin von Schwanenfeld

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Schwerin in 1927

Ulrich-Wilhelm Graf Schwerin von Schwanenfeld (21 December 1902 – 8 September 1944) was a German landowner, officer, and

resistance fighter against the Nazi
régime. His name is commonly shortened to Schwerin.

Biography

Count Schwerin von Schwanenfeld was born in the Danish capital, Copenhagen, the son of the German diplomat Ulrich Graf von Schwerin (1864–1930) and his wife Freda von Bethmann-Hollweg, a cousin of Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg. The Uradel House of Schwerin, named after the Mecklenburg capital, was first documented in the 12th century; the family held large estates in the Brandenburgian Uckermark region and the adjacent lands of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.

Schwerin's family moved to Dresden when he was twelve years old. He finished school at the convent of Roßleben, Thuringia in 1921 and went to study agronomy at the Technische Hochschule of Munich. As a witness of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, he found Nazism loathsome to his Christian and social convictions (he was a Knight of Justice in the Protestant Order of Saint John, to which he had been admitted in 1933[1]). Schwerin was graduated at Breslau in 1926 and administered his family's manors in Göhren (today part of Woldegk, Mecklenburg) and Sartowice near Świecie, Pomerelia in Poland. In 1928, he married Marianne Sahm, a daughter of Heinrich Sahm, then president of the Free City of Danzig senate.

By 1935, Schwerin had come to believe that the only way

Utrecht until in March 1943, Major General Hans Oster appointed him to the Abwehr office at the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht in Berlin
.

Defendant before the Volksgerichtshof, 1944

Schwerin participated in the failed

Volksgerichtshof, with Roland Freisler presiding. The recordings of the show trial attest how a doomed Schwerin, ravaged by the conditions of his detention and brought to court without a belt and tie, tried to preserve his dignity. He stated that his opposition to Hitler was due to "the many murders (...) in Germany and abroad". He was constantly interrupted by a furious Freisler, who finally shouted him down in rage.[2]

Ulrich Wilhelm Schwanenfeld during his trial in 1944.

On 8 September, Schwerin was hanged at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin. He is buried at the Waldfriedhof Dahlem.

See also

Notes

Regarding personal names:

Gräfin
.

Literature

  • Detlef Graf von Schwerin, Die Jungen des 20. Juli 1944. Brücklmeier, Kessel, Schulenburg, Schwerin, Wussow, Yorck; Berlin 1991
  • Hans-Joachim Ramm: ... stets einem Höheren verantwortlich. Christliche Grundüberzeugungen im innermilitärischen Widerstand gegen Hitler; Neuhausen u, Stuttgart (Hänssler) 1996 (
    ISBN 3-7751-2635-X
    )

References

  1. ^ Robert M. Clark, Jr., The Evangelical Knights of Saint John; Dallas, Texas: 2003; p. 46.
  2. ^ Judge Freisler's People Court 1944 (YouTube)
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