Background
Dohna-Schlobitten was born in Waldburg (now Nikolajewka, Russia) near Königsberg, East Prussia, the son of a famous Prussian noble family.
Dohna-Schlobitten was born in Waldburg (now Nikolajewka, Russia) near Königsberg, East Prussia, the son of a famous Prussian noble family.
Also in 1919, Dohna-Schlobitten became a member of the Baltische Landwehr but on ethical grounds he chose to leave the military for good, which he succeeded in doing at first.
He was a Knight of Justice of the Order of Street John, which was regarded with disfavour by the Nazis. He began his career as a professional soldier and was already an ensign (Fahnenjunker) by 1901. In the First World War, he served as a General Staff officer, but had to leave the shrunken army in 1919.
He acted as a corps leader in France, Norway and Finland.
Dohna-Schlobitten"s last post was as major general and Chief of the Acting General Command in Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland), before leaving the Wehrmacht at his own request in 1943. Thereafter, he earned his livelihood from farming in Tolksdorf (now Tołkiny, Poland) in East Prussia.
Dohna-Schlobitten maintained contacts with resistance leader Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, and was soon involved in Helmuth James von Moltke"s Kreisau Circle through fellow aristocrat Peter Yorck von Wartenburg. Had the attempt on Hitler"s life on 20 July 1944 succeeded coup d"état, Dohna-Schlobitten was foreseen as East Prussia"s new provincial administrator.
The day after Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg"s failed assassination attempt with a briefcase bomb, Dohna-Schlobitten was arrested, and on 14 September 1944, he was sentenced to death in Roland Freisler"s infamous Nazi Volksgerichtshof (People"s Court).
He was executed the same day at Plötzensee prison, along with Nikolaus von Üxküll-Gyllenband, Hermann Josef Wehrle and Michael Graf von Matuschka.
Later on he opposed Nazism and found himself active in the Confessing Church"s Bruderrat ("brother council") in the old-Prussian Ecclesiastical Province of East Prussia.
