My Ties to the July 20th Plot of 1944.

I walked into the room where there was a beam on the ceiling connecting two walls. The beam had five metal hooks, spaced equally apart, each hanging down above the blood stained, cement floor. I vividly remember I was wearing a white dress, a white sweater, and black patent leather shoes. I looked up and tried to imagine my great-grandfather, neck broken, hanging from one of the hooks.

The service concluded and everyone began to silently and respectfully make their way out of Plötzensee Prison, but I remained standing, staring at the hooks. While the other children, standing around me, went to find their parents, I sat and thought to myself, “If I don’t learn his story in depth, who will tell it in the future?”. It was a lightbulb moment and the bulb has been on ever since.

I arrived back home with a new role model, a new source of courage, and a vision for my goal for the future, to document my family history on the von Steinau-Steinrück and the von der Schulenburg sides.

Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenburg, a devout protestant, was part of the inner circle of planning a failed plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler on July 20, 1944; a mission also known as Operation Valkyrie. My great-grandfather was a major figure in fighting Nazi oppression and ultimately sacrificed his life trying to eradicate its evil. If one of Hitler’s officers had not moved the briefcase containing the bomb, my great-grandfather and his collaborators would have successfully assassinated Hitler and he would have become Germany’s new Minister of the Interior. Instead, Hitler tried and hung him from one of the five hooks.

Over the years, I have heard bits and pieces as to the man my great-grandfather was, but I never asked my own questions until that day. The day I visited the hooks in Berlin in 2009, the 65th anniversary of the July 20th Plot.

I ‘geek out’ when it comes to telling what I know of his story along with other heroic family members from before I was born. I know there is so much more for me to discover; whether it is the cold facts or lessons that I can incorporate into my personal daily life and value system. I do not want to overlook a single detail. I have found my life’s purpose; researching and documenting my personal German history. I feel a compelling duty to write down our family story so that it is never forgotten. I am slowly collecting and categorizing the stories. Chronicling my family’s past will be my lifelong passion project and will hopefully serve as an inspiration to the future generations to remember sacrifices of the past. It is this story that I grew up learning that gave me the appreciation in the power of Art and History.

In order to do this project justice, I will have to master German. While I have a working use of German, in terms of writing and understanding, I want to perfect my comprehension in order to personally translate German historical documents, rather than depending on a translator. Then, I want to interview all living family members, each who hold a different story and viewpoint of our collective history; whether it is information passed down orally or their own personal experiences of the Nazi occupation. I want to combine our family story together with historical facts. This way the future members of our bloodline will understand his purpose, learn from his utter respect for all humans and draw inspiration from our courageous and heroic forbearer.

Throughout my life, I have researched to ensure his legacy remains alive.