Friedrich Karl Klausing (24 May 1920 – 8 August 1944) was a
resistance fighter in
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
, and one of the
20 July Plot
On 20 July 1944, Claus von Stauffenberg and other conspirators attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Führer of Nazi Germany, inside his Wolf's Lair field headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia, now Kętrzyn, in present-day Poland. Th ...
ters.
Biography
Friedrich Klausing was born in
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...
,
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...
. During his teens he served in the
Hitler Youth
The Hitler Youth (german: Hitlerjugend , often abbreviated as HJ, ) was the youth organisation of the Nazi Party in Germany. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926. ...
and
Reichsarbeitsdienst
The Reich Labour Service (''Reichsarbeitsdienst''; RAD) was a major organisation established in Nazi Germany as an agency to help mitigate the effects of unemployment on the German economy, militarise the workforce and indoctrinate it with Naz ...
(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 ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previou ...
'' in the autumn of 1938, belonged to the Potsdam
Infantry Regiment 9
Infantry Regiment 9 of Potsdam (I.R. 9) was an infantry regiment in Weimar Republic's Reichswehr and Nazi Germany's Wehrmacht, descended from famed 1st Prussian Regiment of Foot Guards in the German Empire's Deutsches Reichsheer.
Garrisoned a ...
and fought and was wounded at the
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad (23 August 19422 February 1943) was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II where Nazi Germany and its allies unsuccessfully fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad (later re ...
. 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'' and was drawn into the plan to
assassinate
Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have ...
Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...
by
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 Lond ...
.
On 11 July 1944, on the first attempt on Hitler's life, Klausing went along with
Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg
Colonel Claus Philipp Maria Justinian Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (; 15 November 1907 – 21 July 1944) was a German army officer best known for his failed attempt on 20 July 1944 to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the Wolf's Lair.
Despite ...
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 Berchtesgaden; th ...
) 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'' (german: Wolfsschanze; pl, Wilczy Szaniec) served as Adolf Hitler's first Eastern Front military headquarters in World War II.
The headquarters was located in the Masurian woods, near the small village of Görlitz in Ostp ...
near
Rastenburg in
East Prussia
East Prussia ; german: Ostpreißen, label= Low Prussian; pl, Prusy Wschodnie; lt, Rytų Prūsija was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 1 ...
, 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 district of Berlin, Germany, located on Stauffenbergstraße (formerly named ''Bendlerstraße''). Erected in 1914 as headquarters of several Imperial German Navy (''Kaiserliche Marine'') ...
in Berlin while Stauffenberg went to the Wolf's Lair to try again, and was jointly responsible for forwarding
Operation Valkyrie
Operation Valkyrie (german: Unternehmen Walküre) was a German World War II emergency continuity of government operations plan issued to the Territorial Reserve Army of Germany to execute and implement in the event of a general breakdown in civ ...
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 German publisher and convenor of the Munich Conference on Security Policy until 1998. A member of the von Kleist family and an of ...
. 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 (), 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 Prussia into one or ...
.
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 (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correc ...
in Berlin.
See also
*
List of members of the 20 July plot
On 20 July 1944, Adolf Hitler and his top military associates entered the briefing hut of the Wolf's Lair military headquarters, a series of concrete bunkers and shelters located deep in the forest of East Prussia, not far from the location of t ...
External links
Book published in 2013(Currently available only in German)
Stauffenberg's companions, The fate of the unknown conspirators
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