Fabian von Schlabrendorff

Schlabrendorff was the son of Carl Ludwig Ewald von Schlabrendorff (born Berlin, 1854, died Detmold, 1923) by his marriage to Ida von Stockmar (1874–1944), a great-great-granddaughter of William I, Elector of Hesse by his mistress Rosa Dorothea Ritter.

He was trained as a lawyer, later joining the German Army. As a lieutenant in the reserves, he was promoted to serve as adjutant to Colonel Henning von Tresckow, a major leader in the resistance against Adolf Hitler.

He joined the resistance and acted as a secret liaison between Tresckow in Russia and Ludwig Beck, Carl Goerdeler, Hans Oster, and Friedrich Olbricht in Berlin, taking part in various coup d'état plans and plots.

On 13 March 1943, during a visit by Adolf Hitler to Army Group Centre Headquarters in Smolensk, Schlabrendorff smuggled a time bomb, disguised as bottles of Cointreau, onto the aircraft which carried Hitler back to Germany. The bomb detonator failed to go off, however, most likely because of the cold in the aircraft luggage compartment. Schlabrendorff managed to retrieve the bomb the next day and elude detection.

Schlabrendorff was arrested following the failed 20 July Plot. He was sent to Gestapo prison where he was tortured, but refused to talk. While imprisoned he met fellow imprisoned co-conspirators Wilhelm Canaris, Hans Oster, Ulrich von Hassell, Johannes Popitz, Carl Goerdeler, Josef Mueller, and Alexander von Falkenhausen.[1]

He was brought before the Nazi People's Court (Volksgerichtshof) on February 3, 1945. However, while Schlabrendorff was awaiting trial, the courtroom took a direct hit from a bomb during an American air raid led by Lt. Col. Robert Rosenthal.[2] The bomb killed Judge-President Roland Freisler, who was found crushed by a beam, still clutching Schlabrendorff's file[3].

Schlabrendorff did not escape, however, and was arraigned before the court again in March, now headed by Nazi lawyer Wilhelm Crohne. Following an intense defence, conducted by himself on both legal and procedural grounds (claiming his torture had made the process outrageously unworthy of justice) and in an exceptionally rare instance in its final nine months of existence, the People's Court acquitted von Schlabrendorff. His death was later demanded by Hitler's decree, but the order was defied insofar that it was never carried out.[4][5]

After his second trial, Schlabrendorff was moved from one concentration camp to another: Sachsenhausen, Flossenbürg, Dachau, Innsbruck. In late April 1945 he was transferred to Tyrol together with about 140 other prominent inmates of the Dachau concentration camp, where the SS-Guards fled after being confronted by a regular German Wehrmacht unit led by Wichard von Alvensleben. He was eventually liberated by the Fifth U.S. Army on 5 May 1945.[6]

After the war, Schlabrendorff was admitted to the Protestant Order of Saint John (Bailiwick of Brandenburg), in which he served as Captain of the Order (legal counsellor to the Herrenmeister, head of the Order) from 1957 to 1964.[7]

From 1967 to 1975, he was a judge of the Constitutional Court of West Germany, the country's highest tribunal. Schlabrendorff died in 1980.[8]

Schlabrendorff's grave

He married Luitgarde von Bismarck, born at Frankenstein in Silesia (now Ząbkowice Śląskie, Poland) on 12 May 1914,[9] and had the following children:

• Herzeleide von Schlabrendorff (born Berlin, 28 February 1940), married to Andreas Stökl[10] (b. Hamburg, 15 June 1939 – 2 May 2006), four children.
• Dieprand Ludwig Carl Hans-Otto von Schlabrendorff (born Stettin, 18 May 1941), married to Eva von Polenz (born Karlsruhe, 10 June 1950), one child.
• Jürgen-Lewin Hans von Schlabrendorff (born Lasbeck, 3 February 1943), married to Beate Everth (born Meldorf, 6 November 1946), and had two children.
• Fabian Gotthard Herbert von Schlabrendorff (born Berlin, 23 December 1944), married to María de la Cruz Caballero y Palomero (b. Plasencia, 20 December 1954), two children.
• Maria von Schlabrendorff (born Buch am Forst, 12 November 1948), married Christian Eick (born Baden-Baden, 7 July 1947), three children; married to Gottfried von Bismarck.
• Carl Joachim Henning von Schlabrendorff (born Wiesbaden, 18 September 1950), married to Mechthild von von Hülst, with two children.

"To prevent this success of Hitler in all circumstances and by all means, even at the expense of a heavy defeat of the Third Reich, was our most urgent task. (Diesen Erfolg Hitlers unter allen Umständen und mit allen Mitteln zu verhindern, auch auf Kosten einer schweren Niederlage des Dritten Reiches, war unsere dringlichste Aufgabe.)" – from his book, Offiziere gegen Hitler (Officers Against Hitler), Zurich: Europa-Verlag, 1946, p. 38.

• Assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler

• Schlabrendorff, Fabian von "Offiziere gegen Hitler", Fischer Bücherrei, FRG(BRD) 1959
• Schlabrendorff, Fabian von, Hilda Simon. The Secret War Against Hitler (Der Widerstand : Dissent and Resistance in the Third Reich), Westview Press, September, 1994. ISBN 0-8133-2190-5 (English version of the 1959 book – possibly expanded?)
• Roger Moorhouse, Killing Hitler, Jonathan Cape, 2006. ISBN 0-224-07121-1
• Roger Manvell, The Conspirators: 20 July 1944, Pan Macmillan, 1972. ISBN 0-345-09729-7

• Newspaper clippings about Fabian von Schlabrendorff in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW