Wolf-Heinrich Graf von Helldorff
Wolf-Heinrich Julius Otto Bernhard Fritz Hermann Ferdinand Graf von Helldorff (14 October 1896 – 15 August 1944) was an SA-"Obergruppenführer", German police official and politician. He served as a member of the Landtag of Prussia during the Weimar Republic, as a member of the "Reichstag" for the Nazi Party from 1933, and as "Ordnungspolizei" Police President in Potsdam and in Berlin. From 1938 he became involved with the anti-Nazi resistance, and was executed in 1944 for his role in the 20th July plot to overthrow Adolf Hitler's regime. Early life. Helldorff was born  in Merseburg. A noble landowner's son, Helldorff was educated by private tutors in his youth, and then graduated from the gymnasium in Wernigerode in 1914. He volunteered for military service with the 12th Thuringian Hussars headquartered in Torgau. He served on both the western front and the eastern front in the First World War, attaining the rank of "Leutnant" and earning the Iron Cross first and second class. After the war, he was a member of the right-wing "Freikorps", seeing service with both the "Freikorps" Lutzow and Roßbach in 1919 and 1920. From 1920 to 1924 he was  a member of the nationalist paramilitary organisation "Stahlhelm". He became a member of the National Socialist Freedom Movement (NSFB) in 1924, which served as a legal front for the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), which had been banned after the Beer Hall Putsch, and he also joined its paramilitary force, the "Frontbann". He was elected to the Landtag of Prussia in 1924 on the NSFB list, representing constituency 11 ("Regierungsbezirk" Merseburg) until 1928. Nazi career. Helldorf formally joined the Nazi Party on 1 August 1930 (membership number 325,408) and in January 1931 he joined the "Sturmabteilung" (SA). By July  he became the leader of SA-"Gruppe" Greater Berlin with the rank of SA-"Oberführer" and, later that year, for all of Brandenburg. The scope of his work expanded when he was also given responsibility for the leadership of the "Schutzstaffel" (SS) in Brandenburg. In April 1932 Helldorff was returned to the Prussian Landtag as a member of the Nazi Party, this time representing constituency 3 (Potsdam II). In September 1932 he was promoted to SA-"Gruppenführer" and made leader of SA-"Obergruppe" I, commanding multiple SA "Gruppe" covering all northeast Germany. After the Nazi seizure of power, Helldorff was made Police President of  Potsdam on 25 March 1933. In November 1933, he was also elected to the "Reichstag". He remained in Potsdam until being named Police President of Berlin on 19 July 1935. In December 1935, he was made a member of the Prussian Provincial Council ("Provinzialrat"). In his new post, Helldorff was closely allied with Joseph Goebbels, "Gauleiter" of Berlin and Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. As chief of the Berlin police, Helldorff played an instrumental role in the harassment and plundering of Berlin's Jewish population in the early and the mid-1930s. In his diary entry of 19 June  1936, Goebbels commented: "Helldorff is now proceeding radically on the Jewish question ... many arrests ... We will free Berlin of Jews." Goebbels noted on 2 July 1938, that "Helldorff wants to construct a Jewish ghetto in Berlin. The rich Jews will be required to fund its construction". Helldorff was the organizational brains behind the arson and looting of Berlin's synagogues and Jewish businesses in the "November pogroms" 1938. On 8 November 1938, the day that "November pogroms" began, he was quoted in "The New York Times" as saying: "as a result of a police activity in the last few weeks  the entire Jewish population of Berlin had been disarmed". On 9 November 1938, Helldorff was promoted to SA-"Obergruppenführer". Though never officially a member of the SS, owing to his position as a Police President, he was authorized to wear the uniform of a "General der Polizei", (a rank equivalent to an "Obergruppenführer" in the SS.) Helldorff was additionally named as the Higher Police Leader of Greater Berlin in 1943. 20 July plot. It is asserted that Helldorff was in some form of communication with the military opposition to Hitler as early as 1938. Goebbels certainly ensured that Helldorf took the  blame for the November pogroms by declaring "the police act with an appearance of legality, the party provides spectators". The police took orders not to arrest or to treat too harshly rioters who beat up Jews. In contrast, Hans Gisevius's book "To the Bitter End" described as Helldorff playing an important role in a circle of conspirators and anti-Nazis. On 20 July 1944, he was in communication with the coup d'état plotters attempting to assassinate the Führer. His planned role would be to keep the police from interfering with the military takeover and then to aid the new  government. The fact that Helldorff sided with the anti-Hitler movement in its attempt to assassinate Hitler earned him a place in history as a German resistance fighter against the Nazi regime. Trial and execution. For his involvement in the 20 July plot to assassinate Hitler at the Wolf's Lair in East Prussia, Helldorff was arrested on 24 July and, under interrogation by the Gestapo, confessed his role in the plot. Expelled from the Party on 8 August and from the "Reichstag" two days later, he was put on trial and condemned by Roland Freisler at the People's  Court on 15 August. He was put to death at Plötzensee Prison that same day. So enraged was Hitler at Helldorff's participation in the plot that he insisted Helldorff be forced to watch his fellow conspirators being hanged before his own execution. Personal indebtedness. Helldorff was friends with the stage magician and psychic Erik Jan Hanussen, who constantly lent him money for his debts. "The count was always in debt, and his private life was a wreck. He was separated from his wife and was on bad terms with his mother after welching on his promise to pay her  rent. Sometimes he was behind in his own rent. On one occasion he 'forgot' to pay for a new Mercedes. And he was always late paying his personal tailor and the trainer he hired for his racehorse. There were other debts as well, all from a gambling habit Helldorff couldn't shake. Luckily, he could always count on a handout from Hanussen. All he had to do was sign an IOU, which Hanussen would add to his growing pile of chits he kept safe in his apartment".