Wolf-Heinrich Graf von Helldorf

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wolf-Heinrich Graf von Helldorf (born 14 October 1896 in Merseburg, died 15 August 1944 in Berlin) was a German resistance fighter against the Nazi régime.

A landowner's son, von Helldorf served as a lieutenant from 1915 in the First World War, and from 1918 was a member of a number of Freikorps, among them the well-known Freikorps Roßbach. In 1920, he took part in the so-called Kapp Putsch, and thereafter had to flee to Italy and stay there for several months.

Between 1921 and 1928, von Helldorf tried to distance himself from politics, and worked in farming.

Nevertheless, from 1924 to 1928, and again later in 1932, he was a member of state parliament (Mitglied des Landtages), first for the National Socialist Freedom Party (NSFP) in Prussia, and from 1925 for the NSDAP. In 1932, von Helldorf was their factional chairman.

Already by 1931, he had joined the SA, and functioned as an SA leader in Berlin. The scope of his work got bigger in 1933 when he was also given responsibility for the SS's Berlin-Brandenburg leadership. At the same time, he was also elected to the Reichstag.

In March of the same year, he was named Police President of Potsdam, and from July 1935, he took on the same function in Berlin.

From 1938, von Helldorf was in communication with the military resistance. For his participation in the July 20 Plot to assassinate Hitler at the Wolf's Lair in East Prussia, he was condemned by Roland Freisler at the Volksgerichtshof and later put to death at Plötzensee Prison.

Von Helldorf used his office for personal gain. In the Blomberg-Fritsch Affair, he openly leaked to the Wehrmacht leadership exculpatory evidence being withheld by the Gestapo.

On 20 July 1944, he supported the resistance action in Berlin through the police. His motivations are the subject of controversy, and may likely be traced more to opportunism than to any inner conviction on von Helldorf's part.