Kurt von Plettenberg
In the circle of the Stauffenberg conspirators
A path of life leading to resistance
Shortly before the end of the war in 1945, Kurt von Plettenberg jumped from the fourth floor of the Gestapo prison in Berlin because he didn’t want to give away his fellow conspirators under torture. Together with leading figures of the resistance he had remained undiscovered for a long time and he struggled to find the right way forwards between code of honour and personal conviction – until only one conclusion remained: »We have to kill Hitler.« The political scientist Eberhard Schmidt depicts the extraordinary life of the confidant to Marion Dönhoff and chief representative of the former Prussian royal dynasty. The result is a fascinating portrait of an upright man who follows his conscience right to the end.
Eberhard Schmidt, Prof., born in Berlin in 1939, studied German, history, and philosophy and has a PhD in political science. In 1973, he was appointed professor. In 2004, he retired as the director of the Institute for Political Science at the University of Oldenburg. This biography was written in close collaboration with Kurt von Plettenberg’s children.
A path of life leading to resistance
Shortly before the end of the war in 1945, Kurt von Plettenberg jumped from the fourth floor of the Gestapo prison in Berlin because he didn’t want to give away his fellow conspirators under torture. Together with leading figures of the resistance he had remained undiscovered for a long time and he struggled to find the right way forwards between code of honour and personal conviction – until only one conclusion remained: »We have to kill Hitler.« The political scientist Eberhard Schmidt depicts the extraordinary life of the confidant to Marion Dönhoff and chief representative of the former Prussian royal dynasty. The result is a fascinating portrait of an upright man who follows his conscience right to the end.
Eberhard Schmidt, Prof., born in Berlin in 1939, studied German, history, and philosophy and has a PhD in political science. In 1973, he was appointed professor. In 2004, he retired as the director of the Institute for Political Science at the University of Oldenburg. This biography was written in close collaboration with Kurt von Plettenberg’s children.
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