| Helmuth Stieff | |
|---|---|
| Born | 6 June 1901 Deutsch Eylau (Iława) in West Prussia. |
| Died | 8 August 1944 (aged 43) Berlin, Germany |
| Allegiance | Weimar Republic (to 1933) Nazi Germany |
| Service/branch | Heer |
| Years of service | 1922–1944 |
| Rank | Generalmajor |
| Commands held | Chief of Organization at OKH |
| Battles/wars | World War II |
Helmuth Stieff (6 June 1901 – 8 August 1944) was a German general and a member of the OKH (German Army General Staff) during World War II. He took part in attempts by the German resistance to assassinate Hitler, on July 7 and on July 20, 1944.
Stieff was born in Deutsch Eylau (Iława) in West Prussia. He graduated at Infanterieschule München in 1922 and was commissioned as Leutnant. As soon as 1927 he served for the General Staff of the Reichswehr. Stieff joined the General Staff in 1938.
Recognized for his excellent organizational skills he was appointed Chief of Organization at OKH headquarters in October 1942 in spite of Hitler's personal dislike for him, calling the young, diminutive Stieff a "poisonous little dwarf."
During the war, e.g. when in Warsaw in November 1939, Stieff wrote many letters to his wife illustrating his disgust and despair over Hitler's conduct of the war and the atrocities committed in occupied Poland. He wrote that he had become the "tool of a despotic will to destroy without regard for humanity and simple decency".[1]
Asked by Henning von Tresckow, he joined the German resistance. Taking advantage of being in charge of "Organisationsabteilung" [coordination department], he was able to acquire and keep all sorts of explosives, including foreign ones.
As one of the officers who had occasional access to Hitler, he volunteered to kill Hitler in a suicide attack, but later backed away despite repeated requests from Tresckow and Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg to carry out the assassination. On 7 July 1944, during a demonstration of new uniforms to Hitler at Schloss Klessheim, a palace near Salzburg, Stieff felt himself undisposed to trigger the bomb. Stauffenberg therefore decided to personally kill Hitler.[2]
Stieff on July 20 had been flying with Stauffenberg in a He 111 plane provided by Wagner from Berlin to Rastenburg. He was arrested on July 21, 1944 at the Wolf's Lair and brutally interrogated under torture. He held out for several days against all attempts to extract the names of fellow conspirators. Tried by the Volksgerichtshof (People's Court), he was sentenced to death August 8, 1944 and executed the same day in Plötzensee prison in Berlin.