Heinrich Graf von Lehndorff-Steinort
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Heinrich Ahasverus Graf von Lehndorff-Steinort (22 June 1909 – 4 September 1944) was a member of the July 20 Plot against Adolf Hitler.
Born in Hanover, Germany, Heinrich studied economics and business administration in Frankfurt am Main, and in 1936, took on the management of the family assets in East Prussia. After the Second World War broke out, he was first deployed in Poland, and later, as a reserve lieutenant, posted to General Fedor von Bock's staff, who later became supreme commander of Army Group Middle (Heeresgruppe Mitte). During the German attack on the Soviet Union, Lehndorff became an eyewitness to a massacre of the Jewish population near Barysaŭ in Belarus by Einsatzgruppen. Thereupon, Henning von Tresckow won him over to the cause of military resistance against Hitler. As a first lieutenant in the reserves, Lehndorff was deployed as liaison officer to Defence District I (East Prussia) in Königsberg (nowadays Kaliningrad in Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast). One day after the failed attempt on Hitler's life at the Wolf's Lair on 20 July 1944, Lehndorff was arrested. On 3 September he was sentenced to death by the Volksgerichtshof. He was hanged the next day at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin. His wife, the former Gottliebe Gräfin von Kalnein (b. 1913), and their four daughters (Marie Eleanore, Vera, Gabriele, and Katharina) spent the remainder of the war confined to labor camps.
His daughter Vera von Lehndorff (1939– ) became well-known as a photographic model and an actress.
[edit] Notes
Regarding personal names: Graf is a title, translated as Count, not a first or middle name. The female form is Gräfin.
