Family
Stauffenberg married Nina Freiin von Lerchenfeld on 26 September 1933 in Bamberg. They had five children: Berthold; Heimeran; Franz-Ludwig; Valerie; and Konstanze, who was born in Frankfurt on the Oder after Stauffenberg's execution. Berthold, Heimeran, Franz-Ludwig and Valerie, who were not told of their father's deed, were placed in a foster home for the remainder of the war and were forced to use new surnames, as Stauffenberg was now considered taboo. Nina died at the age of 92 on 2 April 2006 at Kirchlauter near Bamberg, and was buried there on 8 April. Berthold went on to become a general in West Germany's post-war Bundeswehr. Franz-Ludwig became a member of both the German and European parliaments, representing Bavaria. In 2008, Konstanze von Schulthess-Rechberg wrote a best-selling book about her mother, Nina Schenk Graefin von Stauffenberg.
Describing her late husband, Nina von Stauffenberg said:
He let things come to him, and then he made up his mind ... one of his characteristics was that he really enjoyed playing the devil's advocate. Conservatives were convinced that he was a ferocious Nazi, and ferocious Nazis were convinced he was an unreconstructed conservative. He was neither.
Read more about this topic: Claus Von Stauffenberg
Famous quotes containing the word family:
“Do not let your bachelor ways crystallize so that you can’t soften them when you come to have a wife and a family of your own.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“There was books too.... One was “Pilgrim’s Progress,” about a man that left his family it didn’t say why. I read considerable in it now and then. The statements was interesting, but tough.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“It is as when a migrating army of mice girdles a forest of pines. The chopper fells trees from the same motive that the mouse gnaws them,—to get his living. You tell me that he has a more interesting family than the mouse. That is as it happens.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)