Hans - Jürgen von Blumenthal Hans - Jürgen Graf von Blumenthal ( February 23 , 1907 – October 13 , 1944 ) was a German aristocrat and Army officer in World War II who was executed by the Nazi régime for his role in the July 20 Plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler . Biography . Blumenthal was born in Potsdam , to Graf Hans ( XII ) von Blumenthal , and christened Hans - Jürgen Adam Ludwig Oscar Leopold Bernard Arthur . His father was a colonel , who was wounded in the First World War and served as military governor of the Belgian district of Neufchâteau . His family , who had lost everything in the hyperinflation , moved to Neustrelitz in 1926 . Educated at the Potsdam Gymnasium until 1928 , followed by the Realgymnasium there . He studied Law and Economics for two years at the Universities of Königsberg and Munich . At a young age he was a leading light of the Stahlhelm , Bund der Frontsoldaten ( Steel Helmet Association ) , a conservative and fundamentally monarchist organisation originally for First World War veteran s , later extended to military men generally . He edited Stahlhelm ’ s journal until the Nazis took the Association over in 1935 . He was an instructor in the " covert " army . In 1928 he was approached by his relative the World War I hero Paul Emil von Lettow - Vorbeck with an idea to form a common front between the German National People ' s Party and the Stahlhem against the rise of National Socialism . The result was the so - called " Vorbeck - Blumenthal Pact " . In 1930 , he went on a three - month debating trip in the USA . At about this time , he began to take an interest in the question of how to establish international peace and the possible unification of Europe . He was at first an enthusiastic Nazi – he was Sturmbannführer ( equivalent to a Major ) in the SA . But he distanced himself from the Nazis more and more as he began to accept the view , common among the nobility , that war was contrary to Germany ’ s interests . After finishing his studies , in 1935 he went back to Neustrelitz where he joined the 48th Infantry Regiment as a Second Lieutenant . In December 1936 , he became a lieutenant . In Summer 1938 , he became a company commander and had a position for two months at the War School at Munich , and in that same year he wrote a contribution for the illustrated book for boys " Wir Soldaten " ( " We Soldiers " ) . It is impossible to tell which piece was written by him . As he was writing his contribution to it , he was already conspiring against Hitler . It was still well before the Sudeten Crisis and the invasion of Czechoslovakia that he became involved in the German Resistance . A group of officers led by General Beck was opposed to war , and it was not difficult to foresee Hitler ’ s intentions . Beck and his followers , Hans Oster and Erwin von Witzleben , therefore planned a coup . The idea was for a storm - party of officers including Hans - Jürgen to march into the Reich Chancellery , overcome the resistance of any SS guards they found there , and arrest the Führer . However , the policy of appeasement towards Hitler espoused by the British Prime Minister Chamberlain led the conspirators to conclude that the planned coup no longer had any future . In August 1939 , he became a captain . He kept contact with the resistance , based in the Abwehr under Admiral Canaris . War broke out , and on September 9 he married Cornelia von Kries , née von Schnitzler , a 34 - year - old divorcée . Her first husband , Otto von Kries , by whom she had a daughter , would die at Leningrad in 1941 . Her mother was a Borsig , a family of industrialists whose locomotive works in Berlin were among the largest enterprises in the country . From September 1939 to May 1940 during the so - called Phoney War , he was based at Saarbrücken in command of a machine - gun company . When this blissful calm ended , he took part in the offensive in Alsace , but in July the regiment was transferred to Tomaszew in Poland close to Warsaw , nearer to the Soviet frontier , where in spite of his junior rank he took command of a battalion . He was allowed home on leave during this period . When Operation Barbarossa began , his wife was pregnant . Their only son , Hubertus , was born in May 1942 . Hans - Jürgen led his battalion to the gates of Kiev , where he was badly wounded , his right arm rendered useless . He was in the army hospital in Leipzig until December 1942 . By this time , he was once again actively collaborating with the German Resistance . After his recovery , he joined the Führer Reserve in Berlin and worked at the General War Office . There he got to know other opponents of the regime and won the confidence of Count Claus von Stauffenberg , who was an intimate friend of Hans Jürgen ’ s cousin Albrecht von Blumenthal . The latter had introduced Stauffenberg to the mystical poet Stefan George , from whose circle other conspirators were drawn . Furthermore , Dietrich Bonhoeffer had held his illegal seminary in the late 1930s at Albrecht ' s estate at Schlönwitz . In April 1943 he was promoted to Major . He was the liaison officer between the Berlin Group and the Stettin High Command , Army District II , and was thus closely involved in the planning of the July 20 Plot of 1944 ) . In his book Geist der Freiheit ( 1956 , page 135 ) , Eberhard Zeller wrote : It is known that in the weeks before July 20th , Major Hans - Jürgen von Blumenthal was very frequently driven to Stauffenberg in the evening . His driver waited for him – he went in fatigues [ Trainingsanzug ] – to an appointed place close to the Barracks at Düppel , which was close to where his department ( General Weidemann ) was supposed to have been off the Bendlerstrasse . Elsewhere Zeller mentions that he worked in the department of Colonel Siegfried Wagner and was therefore in contact with Goerdeler . On the day von Stauffenberg planted his abortive bomb , von Blumenthal was on duty and it was his task thus to control the messages which were to mobilise Operation Valkyrie in favour of the coup . As his name was at the top of the duty roster , he was the first to be identified as a conspirator . He spent the weekend with his family at Kümmernitz in the West Prignitz , but on July 23 , 1944 he was arrested by three members of the Gestapo , who appeared in a car and took him away without him being able to say goodbye to his wife , who was thereafter unable to communicate with him . It all took place inside half an hour . What took place between then and his condemnation by the German " People ' s Court " ( " Volksgerichtshof " ) and immediate execution by hanging at Plötzensee Prison on October 13 , 1944 is almost unknown , apart from the slender details mentioned in his last letter to his wife , because the records of the People ’ s Court were destroyed . However , Zeller goes on : von Blumenthal came from the Potsdam Tradition , his father had been a tutor to the Hohenzollerns , but in the opinion of F . W . Heinz , the former editor of the Stahlhelm , he had from the beginning viewed the German nation ’ s pact with Hitler as a misfortune , an opinion which grew ever stronger and made him increasingly restless as the years passed . He was close to Dohnanyi and Oster , and a childhood friend of Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim . We know from eyewitnesses to his interrogation that he did not reveal the names of his accomplices . In Fabian von Schlabrendorff ’ s book " Offiziere gegen Hitler " he is mentioned only in the death - roll . In his last letter , Hans - Jürgen wrote : My Most Tender Love ! < br > < br > When these lines reach your good , lovely hands , I will no longer be in this world . I have been sentenced to death and am smoking a final cigarette . Shortly I will pass into eternity , where we will once again find each other and never again be separated . I take with me a deep gratitude for everything that you have been to me and given to me in these past years . . . Yesterday I dreamt that Papa was standing in the doorway with his coat and hat and he said , " Come , my boy , it is time ! " < br > < br > Give my love to the children . It is also a difficult fate for them and they will only begin to understand it much later . < br > < br > In my thoughts I take you once more in my arms . Soon that undying part of me will be with you and the children , until you all enter into eternity and you are once again united with < br > < br > Your sincerest loving < br > Peter Why he signed himself Peter is a mystery . It was possibly an agreed sign to his wife that the letter was either genuine or not genuine . It was , however , one of his son ' s Christian names . The children he refers to in his letter are his son , Hubertus Peter , then 3 years old , and his stepdaughter .