Background
Ulrich von Hassell was born in Anklam, Pomerania on November 12, 1881 to an old aristocratic North German family.
Ulrich von Hassell was born in Anklam, Pomerania on November 12, 1881 to an old aristocratic North German family.
After studying law, he entered the Foreign Office in 1908 and after 1911 held many important posts abroad, beginning as Vice-Consul in Genoa. After World War I he was embassy Councillor in Rome (1919), Consul-General in Barcelona (1921-6), Ambassador in Copenhagen (1926-30) and Belgrade (1930-2) and finally in Rome between 1932 and his deposition in 1938. A gentleman of the old school, married to the daughter of the founder of the German Imperial navy, Grand Admiral von Tirpitz. when von Ribbentrop became Foreign Minister.
Disillusioned by his experiences, von Hassell joined forces with General Beck and Goerdeler as the diplomatic head of the anti-Hitler Resistance. After his retirement he travelled widely in Europe seeking contacts and engaging in endless negotiations on behalf of the Resistance.
On 27 April 1942 von Hassell was informed by his old colleague, Ernst von Weiszacker, that he was being closely watched by Himmler’s secret police. By early 1943 several other members of his circle were also under observation. Henceforth the focal point of the Resistance shifted to the eastern front and the efforts of General Henning von Tresckow and then Claus von Stauffenberg to assassinate Hitler. With the failure of the plot of 20 July 1944 von Hassell knew that the Gestapo would shortly arrest him and received them calmly, while working at his desk, on 28 July. He was tried and sentenced to death by the People’s Court and hanged at Plotzensee prison on 8 September 1944.
After the war his diaries Vom Andern Deutschland. A us den Nachgelassenen Tagebiichern 1938-1944 (The Other Germany: Diaries 1938-1944), which had been buried in the garden of his Bavarian home, were published and provided a uniquely detailed source of information about the daily activities of the German Resistance.
Von Hassell was a representative figure of the German nobility whose deep-rooted Prussian patriotism and militarism was modified by a Christian outlook and feeling for European solidarity. Initially, mildly tolerant and even sympathetic to Nazism, von Hassell became increasingly worried by Hitler’s adventurist policies abroad and the moral disintegration of Germany at home.As Ambassador to Italy he became convinced that the Italo-German rapprochement and war against Britain and France would be disastrous for Germany. His cultivated contempt for the vulgarity of the Nazis led to his removal from the diplomatic service during the shakeup of 4 February 1938.
After World War II began, he strove manfully to win over the top generals, including Haider, von Brauchitsch, Rommel and Fromm, to the principle of a negotiated peace. Failing to persuade them to carry out a military coup d'etat in which Hitler would be arrested and brought to trial, he became increasingly disgusted by their lack of moral fibre and firm resolve. Von Hassell was also disappointed by the absence of British response to his plans for a post-Hitler Germany, which would still have retained almost all of the Fuhrer's conquests, including Austria, the Sudetenland and the 1914 border with Poland. (In 1914 Poland did not exist, which meant that in effect his group envisaged the old border with Tsarist Russia.) No less anachronistic was his idea of a restored Hohen- zollern monarchy and his belief that the western Allies would militarily support a Hitlerless Germany against the supreme danger - the Bolshevization of Europe.