After seeing Valkyrie the other day, and doing a bit of additional reading on the plot to assassinate Hitler, it seems to me that people whose last names were ‘von-something’ (e.g. von Tresckow, von Boeselager, etc.) may have been overrepresented in the plot. In fact, Stauffenberg himself was also a “von”.
I recognize that the prefix ‘von’ in Germany at that time often did indicate families who were members of the aristocracy, and possibly even true nobility. I recognize further that many members of these families served as officers in the German army. This led to a high number of "von"s, an excess if you will, among German officers in general.
So, given that there was, indeed, an excess of "von"s in the German officer corps, was the presence of so many "von"s among the July 20 conspirators simply a reflection of the high proportion of officers of aristocratic descent or was it truly disproportionately high? Since the erstwhile nobility and aristocracy tended to dislike, and even loathe, Hitler and Nazism, I suspect there is a real excess of "von"s among the plotters. Am I right?
I think you’re right on both counts – representative of some true bluebloods, but also out of proportion with the general population (and even that of the armed forces).
FWIW, I’ve read that at least a few Germans tried to dress up their class identity by affecting a “von”; General Friedrich Paulus, commander of the ill-fated 6th Army in Stalingrad, called himself “von Paulus” even though his parentage was bourgois middle class. (He was also said to have been a stickler for being smartly turned out – that is, being very concerned with personal hygiene and the presentability of his uniform.)
Keep in mind that the conspirators were a self-selected group. They were most likely to trust and recruit officers who came from the same background as they did.
Nazi diplomat Joachim von Ribbentrop was another self-styled aristocrat; I believe he was really just Joachim Ribbentrop. It seems to me that the National Socialists in general continued to regard the aristocracy in somewhat better esteem than vice versa, and they did share some common ground, such as being anti-leftist. This would have been more the case after the more populist, “socialist” wing of the party was eliminated in The Night Of Long Knives in 1934.
One should keep in mind that, in the German system of nobility, lower level aristos might have the “von” prefix but would be on par with mere squires or other representatives of the gentry in Great Britain, where the gentry is not usually considered part of the nobility. I point this out lest anyone think that all these “vons” are counts or barons with castles and huge tracts of land and so forth. Also there are a few noble German families, very old and noble, who do not use the “von”, and again, a few other non-noble families who have the “von”, much like “van” in The Netherlands.
He was born as the commoner Joachim Ribbentrop. As an adult he was adopted by a noble relative. This did not make him a nobleman but he was legally a von Ribbentrop. Although he probably enjoyed the confusion, I can’t believe that he actually claimed nobility. That would have been a pretty serious issue and an officer of the time would have been expected to put a bullet through his head for less than that.
That’s an important point. Most of those families were essentially farmers. They might have been the most important landowners in their respective villages but for most that meant neither fabulous wealth nor the cushy court life that people often imagine – especially not for younger sons.
Well, technically Ribbentrop was a retired officer but of course he wasn’t exactly famous for that. Sorry, somehow I was still in “aristocratic officer” mode.
I didn’t know about the adoption. Was the relative’s name von Ribbentrop or von “something else”? If it was ‘von R.’, then does it/did it frequently happen that there would be common and noble branches of the same family, using the same name with or without the ‘von’ depending?
The relative’s father (Karl Ribbentrop) had been knighted in 1884, so his daugter Gertrude had the surname von Ribbentrop. Gertrude was the one who adopted the famous Nazi, in return for his promise to pay her a pension (which he then broke).
I suppose there’s a pretty close parallel here to the fictional Bennetts in Pride And Prejudice. They and their type are often described in fiction of the period as “the principal inhabitants” of whatever village. But they certainly don’t come off as stereotypical nobles (aside from the fact that they aren’t in the UK system).
Did being knighted entitle the honoree and his family to start calling themselves ‘von’? I recall that the French had a similar system, from reading that the Montgolfier brothers, for their achievement, were ennobled and this gave them the right to call themselves ‘de Montgolfier’ instead of just ‘Montgolfier’.
It was mutual. One of the main reasons Hitler showed preference to the Waffen SS over the regular Germany army. The aristicracy were firmly entrenched in the military. From long before Hitler. They didn’t like him. They looked down on him as just an Austrian Corporal. Hitler knew this and hated them right back. He saw the plot as a way to clean house. BTW the person that Cruise plays in the movie was not just a “von”, he was a Graf.
Not only was he a “von” and a “Graf,” he was also a “Schenk”… Claus Philipp Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg [whew!]. Here’s the Wiki on the German nobility titles system, which was officially disbanded in 1919 under the Weimar govt., so the titles were no longer reigning, even if the nobles still enjoyed trotting them out for social/class reasons. Note that just as in other languages, the titles themselves became popular surnames (Kaiser, Koenig, Kurfurst, Prinz, Herzog, Furst, Pfalzgraf, Schenk, Graf, Ritter, etc.).
