Friedrich Karl Klausing (24 May 1920 – 8 August 1944) was a resistance fighter in

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

, and one of the

20 July Plot The 20 July plot, sometimes referred to as Operation Valkyrie, was a failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler, the chancellor and leader of Nazi Germany, and overthrow the Nazi regime on 20 July 1944. The plotters were part of the German r ...

ters.

Biography

Friedrich Klausing was born in

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. During his teens he served in the

Hitler Youth The Hitler Youth ( , often abbreviated as HJ, ) was the youth wing of the German Nazi Party. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926. From 1936 until 1945, it was th ...

and

Reichsarbeitsdienst The Reich Labour Service (''Reichsarbeitsdienst''; RAD) was a major paramilitary organization established in Nazi Germany as an agency to help mitigate the effects of unemployment on the Economy of Nazi Germany, German economy, militarise the wo ...

(State Labour Service).

Military career

He joined the ''

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the German Army (1935–1945), ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmac ...

'' in the autumn of 1938, belonged to the Potsdam Infantry Regiment 9 and fought and was wounded at the

Battle of Stalingrad The Battle of Stalingrad ; see . rus, links=on, Сталинградская битва, r=Stalingradskaya bitva, p=stəlʲɪnˈɡratskəjə ˈbʲitvə. (17 July 19422 February 1943) was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II, ...

. In July 1943 Klausing was wounded again during the Battle of Wolchow (Volkhov) near Lake Ladoga (Leningrad). He was subsequently posted to be an office assistant at the ''

Oberkommando der Wehrmacht The (; abbreviated OKW

ː kaːˈve The colon alphabetic letter is used in a number of languages and phonetic transcription systems, for vowel length in Americanist Phonetic Notation, for the vowels and in a number of languages of Papua New Guinea, and for grammatical tone in s ...

Armed Forces High Command) was the Command (military formation), supreme military command and control Staff (military), staff of Nazi Germany during World War II, that was directly subordinated to Adolf ...

'' and was drawn into the plan to

assassinate Assassination is the willful killing, by a sudden, secret, or planned attack, of a personespecially if prominent or important. It may be prompted by political, ideological, religious, financial, or military motives. Assassinations are orde ...

Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenburg Fritz-Dietlof Graf von der Schulenburg (5 September 1902 – 10 August 1944) was a German government official and a member of the German Resistance in the 20 July Plot against Adolf Hitler. Personal development Schulenburg was born in Lon ...

. On 11 July 1944, on the first attempt on Hitler's life, Klausing went along with

Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg Claus Philipp Maria Justinian Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (; 15 November 1907 – 21 July 1944) was a German army officer who is best known for his failed attempt on 20 July 1944 to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the Wolf's Lair, part of Oper ...

as his adjutant to the Obersalzberg (''i.e.'' the Berghof near

Berchtesgaden Berchtesgaden () is a municipality in the district Berchtesgadener Land, Bavaria, in southeastern Germany, near the border with Austria, south of Salzburg and southeast of Munich. It lies in the Berchtesgaden Alps. South of the town, the Be ...

) and made sure that a car and a plane were standing by, ready to whisk the plotters away to Berlin after the job had been done. The Obersalzberg plan was, however, put off, as was a second attempt on 15 July at the

Wolf's Lair The Wolf's Lair (; ) was Adolf Hitler's first Eastern Front (World War II), Eastern Front military headquarters in World War II. The headquarters was located in the Masurian woods, near the village of Görlitz (now Gierłoż, Kętrzyn County, ...

near Rastenburg in

East Prussia East Prussia was a Provinces of Prussia, province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1772 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 1871); following World War I it formed part of the Weimar Republic's ...

, where Klausing made the same preparations for Stauffenberg. On 20 July, Captain Klausing stayed behind at the

Bendlerblock The Bendlerblock () is a building complex in the Tiergarten (Berlin), Tiergarten district of Berlin, Germany, located on Stauffenbergstraße (formerly named ''Bendlerstraße''). Erected in 1914 as headquarters of several Imperial German Navy (''Ka ...

in Berlin while Stauffenberg went to the Wolf's Lair to try again, and was jointly responsible for forwarding

Operation Valkyrie Operation Valkyrie () was a German World War II emergency Continuity of government, continuity-of-government operations plan issued to the Replacement Army, Territorial Reserve Army of Germany to implement in the event of a general breakdown in n ...

orders. He forwarded the orders to, among others,

Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist-Schmenzin Ewald-Heinrich Hermann Konrad Oskar Ulrich Wolf Alfred von Kleist-Schmenzin (10 July 1922 – 8 March 2013) was a Germans, German publisher and convenor of the Munich Conference on Security Policy until 1998. A member of the von Kleist family a ...

. On the night of 20–21 July, after it had become apparent that Stauffenberg's briefcase bomb had not killed Hitler, Klausing was the only one to escape the firefight at the Bendlerblock subsequent to which Stauffenberg and several other conspirators were captured, but the next morning, he gave himself up to the

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

Death

In a show trial before the Volksgerichtshof on 8 August 1944, he was sentenced to death. The sentence was carried out the same day at Plötzensee

Prison A prison, also known as a jail, gaol, penitentiary, detention center, correction center, correctional facility, or remand center, is a facility where Prisoner, people are Imprisonment, imprisoned under the authority of the State (polity), state ...

in Berlin.

External links

Book published in 2013(Currently available only in German)
Stauffenberg's companions, The fate of the unknown conspirators
Article published in 2018(in German)

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Klausing, Friedrich Karl 1920 births 1944 deaths Military personnel from Munich Executed members of the 20 July plot People from Bavaria executed at Plötzensee Prison Hitler Youth members Reich Labour Service members German Army officers of World War II

Biography

Military career

Death

See also

External links

References