Werner von Haeften

Infobox Person
name = Werner von Haeften


image_size = 180px
caption =
birth_date = birth date|1908|10|09
birth_place = Berlin, German
death_date = death date and age|1944|07|21|1908|10|09
death_place = Berlin, Germany
death_cause = Execution by firing squad
other_names =
known_for = German Resistance
occupation = German Army Adjutant

Werner Karl von Haeften (9 October 1908 - 21 July 1944 [(Fest, 1996) pp.277-278 puts the date of the four executions as "after midnight" and so Werner's death was on the 21st July.] ) was an Oberleutnant in the Wehrmacht, who took part in the military-based conspiracy against Adolf Hitler known as the July 20 Plot.Haeften and his brother Hans Bernd von Haeften were born in Berlin to Hans von Haeften, an army officer and President of the "Reichsarchiv". He studied law in his hometown and then worked for a bank in Hamburg until the outbreak of World War II, when he joined the German army.

In 1943, having recovered from a severe wound he had suffered on the eastern front, Haeften became adjutant to Oberstleutnant Claus von Stauffenberg, one of the leading figures in the German Resistance.

On 20 July 1944 Haeften accompanied Stauffenberg to the military high command of the Wehrmacht near Rastenburg, East Prussia, where the latter planted a briefcase bomb in Hitler's Wolfsschanze bunker. After the detonation, Stauffenberg and Haeften rushed to Berlin and, not knowing that Hitler had survived the explosion, engaged in a coup d'état, which would swiftly fail.

On the same day, Haeften, along with Stauffenberg and fellow conspirators General Friedrich Olbricht and Oberst Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim, was arrested and condemned to death by General Friedrich Fromm. All four were shot after midnight by a ten man firing squad from the Grossdeutschland Guard Battalion in the courtyard of the War Ministry, the Bendlerblock. [(Moorhouse, 2006) p.207] When Stauffenberg was about to be shot, in a last dramatic gesture of defiance, Haeften threw himself into the path of the bullets. [(Fest, 1996) p.278]

His brother Hans Bernd von Haeften was executed on the 15th August at Plötzensee Prison.

Haeften is portrayed by Jamie Parker (The History Boys) in the upcoming movie, Valkyrie.

Footnotes

References

*Citation
first=Roger
last=Moorhouse
year=2006
title=Killing Hitler
publisher=Jonathan Cape
isbn=0224071211
*Citation
first=Joachim
last=Fest
year=1996
title=Plotting Hitler's Death (translation of 'Staatsstreich: Der lange Weg zum 20 Juli')
publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson
isbn=0297817744

External links

*imdb character|0042771|Werner von Haeften (Character) film and TV matches for Werner von Haeften