Konstanze von Schulthess-Rechberg (born 27 January 1945) is a German author. She is the daughter of World War II colonel and resistance leader Claus von Stauffenberg.
Konstanze von Schulthess-Rechberg, born Konstanze Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg on 27 January 1945, is the youngest child of Operation Valkyrie leader Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (1907–1944), a member of the traditional German nobility, and his wife, Baroness "Nina" von Lerchenfeld (1913–2006). She was born in a Nazi maternity center in Frankfurt an der Oder, Brandenburg, where her mother had been transferred for childbirth from the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Countess Nina, who was pregnant with her fifth child at the time of the failed plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler and remove the Nazi Party from power on 20 July 1944, for which her father was summarily executed, had been arrested and imprisoned in the aftermath of the assassination attempt.
After the war, Konstanze and her four older siblings – Berthold (1934), Heimeran (1936–2020), Franz-Ludwig (1938), and Valerie (1940–1966), who had been placed in an orphanage in Bad Sachsa, Lower Saxony, under the surname of Meister, upon their mother’s arrest by the Gestapo – were reunited with their mother at the Stauffenberg family seat in Lautlingen in Baden-Württemberg. Together, they returned to their mother’s hometown of Bamberg, Bavaria.
Konstanze, who has lived in Switzerland since 1965, trained as a maternity nurse. She wrote a biography of her mother, Nina Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg: ein Porträt, that was published in 2008 (in German). [1]
Married since 1967, Konstanze and her husband Dietrich von Schulthess-Rechberg (1937) have four children. Their son, Philipp von Schulthess (born 1973), is an actor who played a supporting role in the 2008 film Valkyrie : [2] a depiction of the failed plot in which Philipp's grandfather was involved. When it was announced that the film would feature US actor Tom Cruise as Claus von Stauffenberg, Konstanze's brother Berthold, the eldest of the Stauffenbergs, expressed an apprehension that the film might become "horrible kitsch". [3]
Claus von Stauffenberg was a German army officer who is best known for his failed attempt on 20 July 1944 to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the Wolf's Lair.
The 20 July plot was a failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler, the chancellor and leader of Nazi Germany, and overthrow the Nazi regime on 20 July 1944. The plotters were part of the German resistance, mainly composed of Wehrmacht officers. The leader of the conspiracy, Claus von Stauffenberg, tried to kill Hitler by detonating an explosive hidden in a briefcase. However, due to the location of the bomb at the time of detonation, the blast only dealt Hitler minor injuries. The planners' subsequent coup attempt also failed and resulted in a purge of the Wehrmacht.
Berthold Alfred Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg was a German aristocrat and lawyer who was a key conspirator in the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler on 20 July 1944, alongside his younger brother, Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg. After the plot failed, Berthold was tried and executed by the Nazi regime.
Operation Valkyrie was a German World War II emergency continuity-of-government operations plan issued to the Territorial Reserve Army of Germany to implement in the event of a general breakdown in national civil order due to Allied bombing of German cities, or an uprising of the millions of foreign forced labourers working in German factories.
Guido Knopp is a German journalist and author. He is well known in Germany, mainly because he has produced a great number of TV documentaries, predominantly about the "Third Reich" and National Socialism, but also about other topics, such as Stalinism.
Henning Hermann Karl Robert von Tresckow was a German military officer with the rank of major general in the German Army who helped organize German resistance against Adolf Hitler. He attempted to assassinate Hitler on 13 March 1943 and drafted the Valkyrie plan for a coup against the German government. He was described by the Gestapo as the "prime mover" behind the plot of 20 July 1944 to assassinate Hitler. He committed suicide at Królowy Most on the Eastern Front upon learning of the plot's failure.
The Schenk von Stauffenberg family is a Roman Catholic Uradel German noble family from Swabia, Germany. The family's best-known recent member was Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg – the key figure in the 1944 "20 July plot" to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
Friedrich Olbricht was a German general during World War II. He is known for being one of the plotters involved in the 20 July Plot, an attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1944.
The Bendlerblock is a building complex in the Tiergarten district of Berlin, Germany, located on Stauffenbergstraße. Erected in 1914 as headquarters of several Imperial German Navy offices, it served the Ministry of the Reichswehr after World War I. Significantly enlarged under Nazi rule, it was used by several departments of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) from 1938, especially the Oberkommando des Heeres and the Abwehr intelligence agency.
Rudolf Graf von Marogna-Redwitz was a Colonel of the Wehrmacht, member of the German Resistance in Nazi Germany and the 20 July Plot against Adolf Hitler at the Wolf's Lair in East Prussia.
Peter Graf Yorck von Wartenburg was a German jurist and a member of the German Resistance against Nazism. He studied law and politics in Bonn and Breslau from 1923 to 1926, gaining his doctorate in Breslau in 1927 and passing the civil service entrance examination for lawyers in Berlin in 1930. He married Marion Winter that same year.
Countess Nina von Stauffenberg was the wife of Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, the leader of the failed plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler on 20 July 1944. Following the plot's failure, she was arrested and imprisoned, during which time she delivered her youngest child.
Melitta Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg was an aviator who served as a test pilot in the Luftwaffe before and during World War II.
Berthold Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg is a German retired Bundeswehr general. Early in his career, he commanded Germany's largest military base. At the time of his retirement in 1994 he was Germany's longest serving soldier, having served in the Heer (Army) for thirty-eight years. He is the son of World War II colonel and resistance leader Claus von Stauffenberg.
Count Alexander von Stauffenberg was a German aristocrat and historian. His twin brother Berthold Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and younger brother Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg were among the leaders of the 20 July Plot against Hitler in 1944.
Valkyrie is a 2008 thriller film directed by Bryan Singer, written by Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander, starring Tom Cruise. The film is set in Nazi Germany during World War II and depicts the 20 July plot in 1944 by German army officers to assassinate Adolf Hitler and to use the Operation Valkyrie national emergency plan to take control of the country. The film was released by American studio United Artists and stars Cruise as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, one of the key plotters. The supporting cast includes Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Eddie Izzard, Terence Stamp, and Tom Wilkinson.
Stauffenberg is a 2004 German–Austrian TV film by Das Erste, about Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and the 20 July 1944 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. The film was first broadcast on 25 February 2004 on German TV (ARD).
Count Franz-Ludwig Schenk von Stauffenberg is a German lawyer and politician from the CSU. He was a member of the Bundestag from 1976 to 1987 and of the European Parliament from 1984 to 1992. He is the son of World War II colonel and resistance leader Claus von Stauffenberg.
Colonel Georg Alexander Hansen was an Oberst (Colonel) in the Generalstab and one of the participants in the German Resistance against the Nazis.
Margarethe von Oven was a secretary in the Bendlerblock and an accomplice in the 20 July plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
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