ABSTRACT
Yorck von Wartenburg, Peter Graf (1903–44) A prominent member of the German Resistance and direct descendant of the famous Prussian general of the Napoleonic era who had helped bring down Bonaparte, Peter Yorck von Wartenburg was born in Klein Oels, Silesia, on 17 November 1903. The son of one of Germany's most renowned and aristocratic families, he studied law and politics at Bonn and Breslau, then worked in the civil service, rising to the rank of senior government Councillor. He served as a Lieutenant in the Polish campaign during World War II and from 1942 he was attached to the War Economy Office. One of the founders of the Kreisau Circle and a cousin of Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg (q.v.), he shared the latter's contempt for Hitler and National Socialism. One of the first conspirators to be arrested after the abortive plot of 20 July 1944, Yorck von Wartenburg's conduct in the People's Court was both dignified and brave, in the face of Roland Freisler's (q.v.) insults and provocations. Asked why he had never joined the NSDAP, he answered simply: ‘Because I am not and never could be a Nazi.’ His Resistance activity, like that of other members of the Kreisau Circle, was based on Christian conviction, the rejection as he explained to Freisler of ‘the totalitarian claim of the State on the individual which forces him to renounce his moral and religious obligations to God’. He was hanged on 8 August 1944.
