Career and Coup Attempt
In 1939, he joined the German Navy, working in the High Command as a staff judge and advisor for international law.
Berthold's apartment at Tristanstraße in Berlin, where his brother Claus also lived for some time, was a meeting place for the July 20 conspirators, including their cousin Peter Yorck von Wartenburg. As Claus had access to the inner circle around Hitler, he was assigned to plant a bomb at the Führer's briefing hut at the military high command in Rastenburg, East Prussia on July 20, 1944. Claus then flew to Rangsdorf airfield south of Berlin where he met with Berthold. They went together to Bendlerstraße, which the coup leaders intended to utilize as the centre of their operations in Berlin.
Hitler survived the bomb blast and the coup failed. Berthold and his brother were arrested at Bendlerstraße the same night. Claus was executed by firing squad shortly afterwards.
After his arrest, Stauffenberg was questioned by the Gestapo about his views about the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question". Stauffenberg told the Gestapo that “He and his brother had basically approved of the racial principle of National Socialism, but considered it to be exaggerated and excessive” Stauffenberg went on to state,
The racial idea has been grossly betrayed in this war in that the best German blood is being irrevocably sacrificed, while simultaneously Germany is populated by millions of foreign workers, who certainly cannot be described as of high racial quality
Berthold was tried in the Volksgerichtshof ("People's Court") by Roland Freisler on 10 August and was one of eight conspirators executed by strangulation, hanged in Plötzensee Prison, Berlin, later that day. Before he was killed Berthold was strangled and then revived multiple times. The entire execution and multiple resuscitations was filmed for Hitler to view at his leisure.
Read more about this topic: Berthold Schenk Graf Von Stauffenberg
Famous quotes containing the words career and/or attempt:
“I began my editorial career with the presidency of Mr. Adams, and my principal object was to render his administration all the assistance in my power. I flattered myself with the hope of accompanying him through [his] voyage, and of partaking in a trifling degree, of the glory of the enterprise; but he suddenly tacked about, and I could follow him no longer. I therefore waited for the first opportunity to haul down my sails.”
—William Cobbett (1762–1835)
“Death is too much for men to bear, whereas women, who are practiced in bearing the deaths of men before their own and who are also practiced in bearing life, take death almost in stride. They go to meet death—that is, they attempt suicide—twice as often as men, though men are more “successful” because they use surer weapons, like guns.”
—Roger Rosenblatt (b. 1940)