Nina Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg

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Elisabeth Magdalena (Nina) Schenk Gräfin^{[#endnote_grafin]} von Stauffenberg (27 August, 1913 – 2 April, 2006) was the wife of Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, the leader of the failed plot to assassinate Hitler on July 20, 1944.

Nina Freiin^{[#endnote_freiin]} von Lerchenfeld was born in Kaunas, Russia (now Kaunas, Lithuania), to General Consul Gustav Freiherr von Lerchenfeld (1871–1944) and the Baltic-German noblewoman Anna Freiin von Stackelberg (1880–1945). She met Claus von Stauffenberg, a Roman Catholic, at the age of sixteen while attending a girls' boarding school in Wieblingen, Heidelberg.

They were engaged on his twenty-third birthday and married three years later on 26 September, 1933, in Bamberg. In accordance with von Stauffenberg tradition, the couple's children were raised Catholic, even though Nina, as well as Claus von Stauffenberg's mother, were Protestant. The marriage produced five children:

Berthold Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (b. 1934)
Heimeran Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (b. 1936)
Franz-Ludwig Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (b. 1938)
Valerie von l'Estoq (1940–1960)
Konstanze von Schultheiss-Rechberg (b. 1945)

After her husband's failed attempt to assassinate Hitler (von Stauffenberg was executed the night of 21 July), Nina was arrested by the Gestapo and taken into custody along with her children and all other bearers of the Stauffenberg name (cf. the practice of Sippenhaftung). The government placed her children in an orphanage in Bad Sachsa, Lower Saxony, under false names.

Nina von Stauffenberg (who had been pregnant at the time of her arrest) gave birth to her fifth child, Konstanze, on 17 January, 1945, while imprisoned in a Nazi maternity center in Frankfurt an der Oder. That same year, her mother Anna died in a Russian camp.

By the war's end, she had been moved to South Tyrol, where she was held as a hostage in return for the redemption of Nazi property. After the war, she was reunited with her family at the Stauffenberg family seat in Lautlingen, Baden-Württemberg.

In the post-war era, she applied herself to the harmonious coexistence of Germans and American soldiers stationed in Germany.

Nina von Stauffenberg died on April 2, 2006, aged 92, near Bamberg, Bavaria.

References

For English-language references, see the article on Claus von Stauffenberg.

() Zeller, Eberhard (1994). Oberst Claus Graf Stauffenberg. Ein Lebensbild. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh. ISBN 3506797700.
() Steffahn, Harald (2002). Stauffenberg. Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag Reinbek. ISBN 3-499-50520-7.
() Ueberschär, Gerd R. (2004). Stauffenberg. Der 20. Juli 1944. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag. ISBN 3100860039.
() Von Hassel, Fey. "Niemals sich beugen". dtv.
() Von Meding, Dorothee (1997). Mit dem Mut des Herzens – Die Frauen des 20. Juli. btb Verlag. ISBN 3-442-72171-7.

Notes

↑ Note regarding personal names: Gräfin is a title, translated as Countess, not a first or middle name. The male form is Graf.
↑ Note regarding personal names: Freiin is a title, translated as Baroness, not a first or middle name. The title is for the unmarried daughters of a Freiherr.

External links

["Widow of Hitler's Would-Be Assassin Dies"] – AP, 4 April 2006
() ["Stauffenberg-Witwe gestorben"] – Netzzeitung, 4 April 2006

This article is based on a translation of its German equivalent.

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