"Nina" Schenk Gräfin [1] von Stauffenberg (27 August 1913 – 2 April 2006) collaborated with her husband, Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, the leader of the failed plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler on 20 July 1944, for which she was arrested and placed in custody, where she delivered her youngest child. Later in life, she revealed her husband's full story.
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She was born as Magdalena Elisabeth Vera Lydia Herta von Lerchenfeld, but known as "Nina" in Kowno, Russian Empire (now Kaunas, Lithuania) to General Consul Gustav Freiherr von Lerchenfeld (1871–1944) and a Baltic-German noblewoman, Anna Freiin von Stackelberg (1880–1945).
Nina and Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg first met around 1930 and were married on 26 September 1933 in Bamberg. In accordance with von Stauffenberg's father's tradition, the couple's children were raised as Catholics, although Nina and Stauffenberg's own mother were Protestant. The marriage produced five children:
After her husband's failed attempt to assassinate Hitler (von Stauffenberg was executed the night of 21 July), the Countess von Stauffenberg was arrested by the Gestapo and taken into custody (according to the new Nazi law reinstating the ancient practice of Sippenhaft.) The government placed her four children in an orphanage in Bad Sachsa, Lower Saxony, under the false surname Meister.
Nina von Stauffenberg had been pregnant at the time of Stauffenberg's death, and gave birth to her fifth child, Konstanze, in January 1945, while imprisoned in a Nazi maternity center in Frankfurt an der Oder. That same year, her own mother, Anna, died in a Russian camp.
By the end of WWII, Nina had been moved to the Italian province of Bolzano-Bozen, where she was held as a hostage in return for the redemption of Nazi property. After the war, she was reunited with her family at the Stauffenberg family seat in Lautlingen, Baden-Württemberg.
Nina Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg died on 2 April 2006, aged 92, at Kirchlauter near Bamberg, Bavaria and was buried there six days later.
The Dutch actress Carice van Houten portrayed Nina Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg in the 2008 film, Valkyrie.
In 2008, Konstanze von Schulthess-Rechberg, von Stauffenberg's youngest daughter, wrote Nina Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg - Ein Porträt. Pendo Verlag: Munich, 2008, ISBN 3-858-42652-0/ISBN 9-783-85842-652-9
For additional English-language references, see the article on Claus von Stauffenberg.
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