Axel Freiherr von dem Bussche-Streithorst

Axel von dem Bussche-Streithorst
Axel von dem Bussche-Streithorst
Born	24 April 1919(1919-04-24) Braunschweig, Weimar Germany
Died	26 January 1993(1993-01-26) (aged 73) Bonn, Germany
Allegiance	Nazi Germany
Service/branch	Wehrmacht
Years of service	1937–1945
Rank	Major
Battles/wars	World War II
Awards	Iron Cross Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross German Cross
Other work	Diplomat, scholar

Axel Freiherr (Baron) von dem Bussche-Streithorst (24 April 1919 – 26 January 1993), usually referred to as Axel von dem Bussche in English, was a German nobleman, professional Army officer and member of the German Resistance. He tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler in coordination with Count Stauffenberg in November 1943 at the Wolfsschanze.

Army career

Born in Braunschweig, to his German father and to his Danish mother Jenny Lassen, he joined the German Army in 1937 at the age of 18 as a professional officer and was posted as a junior officer of the elite Infantry Regiment 9 Potsdam (IR 9) to the eastern front in Poland. In 1942 Captain von dem Bussche witnessed by chance an SS-organised massacre of more than 3,000 Jewish civilians carried out by the SD at the old Dubno airport. This experience traumatized him all his life and was enough to turn him decidedly against Hitler. He joined an ad hoc resistance group within Army Group Centre later (Sept.1943) to be led by Count Stauffenberg. After this experience he declared that there were only three ways left to preserve his honor as an officer: to die in battle, to desert, or to rebel against the government that had ordered this and all other massacres. He chose the last alternative justifying his intention to kill Hitler by his legal right to defend others against unlawful, ongoing, criminal attacks.

Resistance

In November 1943 von dem Bussche, personally motivated by Count Claus Stauffenberg, undertook to carry out a suicide bombing to kill Hitler. Hitler was due to inspect new Army winter uniforms at his Führerhauptquartier Wolfsschanze near Rastenburg then in Eastern Prussia (today in Poland), and Bussche, over two meters tall, blond and blue eyed, and thus corresponding to the looks of Hitler's ideal of a perfect "germanic" German, planned to model the uniforms. Anticipating the proximity to Hitler which his role involved, Bussche equipped a landmine with a fast reacting hand grenade detonator, which he intended to hide in the deeper pockets of his uniform trousers. He planned to detonate this bomb whilst embracing Hitler, thus killing both Hitler and himself. The plan failed when on 16 November 1943 an Allied air raid on Berlin destroyed the railway truck with the new uniforms on the day before the planned assassination attempt. Bussche returned on the 18th of November 1943 to his unit at the eastern front in Russia. He had spent three terrible nights at the Führerhauptquartier.

Captain von dem Bussche volunteered to repeat the attempt in February 1944, when new uniforms would be at hand.

In January 1944 however, von dem Bussche was seriously wounded in Russia and lost one of his legs. On February 11, 1944 another young officer, Ewald Heinrich von Kleist instigated by Count Stauffenberg tried to assassinate Hitler in a similar way as von dem Bussche had been planning. However Hitler repeatedly cancelled and postponed the event that would have allowed Kleist to approach him.

By then, von dem Bussche had spent many months in the Waffen-SS hospital in Lychen and, as a result, he wasn't involved at all in Stauffenberg's July 20th 1944 plot to kill Hitler. Bussche's role in the earlier assassination plots was not suspected, and he was not betrayed by any of the officers who knew of his involvement. Consequently, he was one of the extremely few Army plotters to survive the Second World War.

After the war

After the war, Baron Axel von dem Bussche studied law at Göttingen University and later became a diplomat, serving from 1954 to 1958 in the German embassy in Washington. Then he was headmaster of the Kurt Hahn boarding school "Schule Schloss Salem" located near the lake of Constance in Southern-Germany. In 1968, he was admitted to the Swiss commandery of the Order of Saint John as an Ehrenritter ("Knight of Honor").

In addition, he was also a member of the presidency of the Evangelical Church in Germany, an adviser to the World Bank, and a delegate to the Stockholm UN environment conference of 1972.

In 1950, he married Lady Mildred Camilla Nichola Acheson, eldest daughter of the 5th Earl of Gosford and Mildred Carter (of Virginia), who before had been married to Baron Hans Christoph Schenk von Stauffenberg. Von dem Bussche had two daughters with Lady Camilla, (Mrs.) Nicola Dietzsch-Doertenbach and Baroness Jane von dem Bussche.

Axel von dem Bussche was a godfather to Prince Constantijn of the Netherlands. He was a friend and distant relative of Prince Claus of the Netherlands.

Axel von dem Bussche was first cousin of the Danish Victoria Cross recipient Anders Lassen, who fought with the British against the Germans. Anders Lassen was killed in action in 1945 in Italy.

See also

• Assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler

References

• Fellgiebel, Walther-Peer. Die Träger des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes 1939–1945. Friedburg, Germany: Podzun-Pallas, 2000. ISBN 3-7909-0284-5.
• Fest, Joachim; Plotting Hitler's Death – The Story of the German Resistance, Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1996. ISBN 0-8050-4213-X
• Fest, Joachim; "Hitler – Eine Biographie", Propilaeen, Berlin, 2.Aufl. 2004. ISBN 3-549-07172-8
• Roger Moorhouse; "Killing Hitler", Jonathan Cape, London, ISBN 0-224-07121-1
• Marion Graefin Doenhoff in "Axel von dem Bussche", Gevinon von Medem; v. Hase und Koehler Verlag, Mainz/Muenchen,1994. ISBN 3-7758-1311-X
• Josef Tal: Ein Mensch-zu-Mensch-Erlebnis im Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin (1994) in Axel von dem Bussche, Hase&Koehler Verlag, pp 125–131 ISBN 3-7758-1311-X