Count Peter Yorck von Wartenburg (Ohlau, Silesia , 13 of November of 1904 - Prison Plötzensee , Berlin , 18 of August of 1944 ) was a nobleman, landowner and lawyer German member of the German resistance against Nazism , executed in 1944 . It was one of the leaders of the Kreisau Circle ( Kreisauer Kreis ) and was hanged for their involvement in the plot of July 20 of 1944 against Hitler .
Biography
Descendant of the general prince Luis Fernando de Prusia (1772-1806) and of Ludwig Yorck von Wartenburg , was the grandson of the philosopher Paul Yorck von Wartenburg and married in 1930 with Marion Winter , that would be its biographer. 1
He studied law in Thuringia , Bonn and Breslau . He belonged to the Corps Borussia Bonn Studentenverbindung and in 1932 was an official of the Osthilfe , of the Republic of Weimar .
By resisting to join the Nazi Party he stopped being promoted in its positions. Through his close friendship with Helmuth James Graf von Moltke , he came in contact with several opponents of the regime, such as the cousin of Moltke Berthold von Stauffenberg and Adam von Trott zu Solz , in addition to Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenburg and Ulrich Wilhelm Graf Schwerin Von Schwanenfeld , founding the movement known as the Kreisau Circle .
In 1942, Yorck was sent to the Ministry of War and declared unfit for a vertebral injury. When the department of Moltke was bombed in 1943, it moved to his in the district of Lichterfelde in Berlin. After Moltke’s arrest with his cousin Claus von Stauffenberg , Yorck began planning Operation Valkyrie to eliminate Adolf Hitler .
When the plot of July 20 failed , he was arrested and sentenced by Judge Roland Freisler of the Volksgerichtshof and hanged at Plötzensee Prison .
References
- Back to top↑ Yorck von Wartenburg, Marion (1998), Die Stärke der Stille. Erzählung eines Lebens aus dem deutschen Widerstand (in German) , Moers, Germany: Joh. Brendow & Sohn Verlag GmbH, ISBN 978-3-87067-717-6