Axel Freiherr von dem Bussche-Streithorst

Axel Freiherr von dem Bussche-Streithorst [German title Freiherr] (24 April 1919 - 26 January 1993), usually referred to as Axel von dem Bussche in English, was a German professional Army officer and member of the German Resistance who tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler in November 1943.

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 (IR 9) to the eastern front in Poland. In 1942 Captain von dem Bussche witnessed by chance an SS-organised 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 honour 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 unlawfull, criminal attacks.

Awards

* Wound Badge in Gold
* German Cross in Gold
* Iron Cross (1939) 2nd and 1st Class
* Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (7 March 1944)

Resistance

In November 1943 Baron Axel von dem Bussche, personally motivated by Count Claus Stauffenberg undertook to carry out a suicide bombing to kill Hitler. At that time, 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 2 meters tall, blond and blue eyed and thus corresponding to the looks of Hitler's ideal of a perfect "germanic" German, planned to demonstrate the uniforms with a landmine which he had personally equipped with a fast reacting detonator from a hand grenade and which he intended to hide in the deeper pockets of his uniform trousers. He wanted to detonate this bomb whilst embracing Hitler and thus killing both Hitler and himself. The plan failed when in late 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 one day later to his unit at the eastern front in Russia.

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 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 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 addition, he was also a member of the German Evangelical Church presidency, an advisor 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, who before had beenmarried 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 first cousin of the Danish war hero Anders Lassen, who during the second world war fought with the British against Germany.

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
* Moorhouse, Roger; "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