Background
Hans von Dohnanyi was born in Vienna on 1 January' 1902.
He was a son of a Hungarian pianist.
Hans von Dohnanyi was born in Vienna on 1 January' 1902.
He was a son of a Hungarian pianist.
From 1929 to 1938 he worked in the Reich Ministry of Justice, occupying himself with legal reform. Partly of Jewish descent, he was Arvanized' according to a special order of Hitler and was able to serve in important positions in various ministries though not to join the Nazi Party.' Appointed a judge of the Supreme Court, von Dohnanyi transferred a year later to the Abwehr and was employed as a special leader on the staff of the High Command of the Armed Forces under Major-General Hans Oster. The brother-in-law of Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, von Dohnanyi's connections with the Resistance dated back to before the war and on 5 April 1943 he was picked up by the Gestapo on suspicion of being involved in a conspiracy against Hitler. Released for lack of evidence, he was arrested again shortly before the July 1944 plot and this time removed to Sachsenhausen concentration camp where he was subjected to particularly brutal treatment. Shortly before the end of the war, on 8 April 1945, von Dohnanyi was murdered at the camp in circumstances that have never been clarified.