• Memorial Stone to Heinrich Graf von Lehndorff and the members of the »July 20 plot«
Since 2009 a memorial stone front of the baroque castle Steinort (Polish: Sztynort) near Angerburg (Węgorzewo) at the Mauersee (Mamry) in the southern part of former East Prussia remembers Heinrich Graf von Lehndorff and the »July 20 plot against Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist regime«. This refers to the failed assassination on Adolf Hitler by Lieutenant Colonel Graf von Stauffenberg on July 20, 1944 at the Führer Headquarters »Wolf's Lair«, 20 kilometres away and the subsequent coup.
Image: Steinort, undated, The castle, public domain
Steinort, undated, The castle, public domain

Image: Steinort, 2010, The Lehndorff castle in need of renovation, Stiftung Denkmal
Steinort, 2010, The Lehndorff castle in need of renovation, Stiftung Denkmal
From autumn 1940 Hitler had arranged the construction of a number of sheltered headquarters in Masuria for himself and the high command in formed the Third Reich's centre of power from June 1941 to November 1944. The Reich's foreign minister von Ribbentrop established his field headquarters »Westfalia« in the baroque castle of Steinort, dating back to the 1600s and ancestral home of the counts of Lehndorff. He moved into one of the castle's wings while the Lehndorffs continued to live in the other one. In October 1941, Heinrich Graf von Lehndorff witnessed a massacre on 7,000 jews in Borissow near Minsk – the decisive reason for him to join Graf von Stauffenberg's military opposition against National Socialism. As a first lieutenant in the reserves Lehndorff was the conspirators' liaison officer with the Wehrkreis I (Defence District I) in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russian Federation). On July 21, 1944, one day after the failed assassination of Hitler, the 35 year old Lehndorff was arrested, sentenced to death by the People's Court on September 3 and hanged the next day in Berlin-Plötzensee. His wife Gottliebe was committed to a concentration camp, three of their four daughters (Marie-Eleonore, Vera und Gabriele) to a children's home.
Image: Steinort, undated, The castle, public domain
Steinort, undated, The castle, public domain

Image: Steinort, 2010, The Lehndorff castle in need of renovation, Stiftung Denkmal
Steinort, 2010, The Lehndorff castle in need of renovation, Stiftung Denkmal
Stauffenberg's assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 in the East Prussian Führer Headquarters »Wolf's Lair« and the subsequent »Operation Valkyrie« are considered the highest-ranking and most extensive coup attempt of the military resistance against Adolf Hitler's National Socialist regime. About 200 conspirators like Heinrich Graf von Lehndorff were executed or pressured into committing suicide.
Image: No place given, 1936, Heinrich Graf von Lehndorff, Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand
No place given, 1936, Heinrich Graf von Lehndorff, Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand

Image: Steinort, 2010, Memorial stone and castle, Stiftung Denkmal
Steinort, 2010, Memorial stone and castle, Stiftung Denkmal
After the Red Army captured the Southern part of East Prussia in 1945 the region became part of Poland. Steinort was now merely 15 kilometres from the Soviet border. Until the beginning of 1947 Soviet soldiers were quartered in the undestroyed castle, later on it came into Polish hands. In the 1950s an agricultural cooperative's administration was housed there, followed by a sailing school. Then the building fell into decay.
In November 2009 the German-Polish foundation »Kulturpflege und Denkmalschutz« (German-Polish Foundation for the Preservation of Cultural Monuments) acquired the castle. After the renovation a meeting place will be established. On June 24 of the same year a memorial stone to Lehndorff and his fellow men of resistance was dedicated in the presence of Lehndorff's four daughters. Besides two memorial plaques at the site of the former »Wolf's Lair«, the memorial stone in front of castle Steinort is one of the few commemorations to German resistance on the territory of present-day Poland. The bilingual dedication reads: »A total transformation occurs, whereby the hitherto life gradually sinks and completely new standards apply« (From his farewell letter to his wife, written on the eve of his execution). In memory of the 100th birthday of Heinrich Graf Lehndorff (1909-1945), the last Lord of Steinort and active member of the July 20 plot against Hitler and the NS regime«.
Image: Steinort, 2010, Memorial stone, Stiftung Denkmal
Steinort, 2010, Memorial stone, Stiftung Denkmal

Image: Steinort, 2009, Heinrich Graf von Lehndorff's daughters, from the left: Catharina, Vera, Eleonore and Gabriele in front of the covered memorial stone, Kilian Heck
Steinort, 2009, Heinrich Graf von Lehndorff's daughters, from the left: Catharina, Vera, Eleonore and Gabriele in front of the covered memorial stone, Kilian Heck
Name
Pomnik Heinricha von Lehndorffa i »ruchu 20. lipca«
Address
Pałac Lehndorffów
11-600 Węgorzewo – Sztynort
Web
http://www.deutsch-polnische-stiftung.de/
E-Mail
deutsch-polnische-stiftung@denkmalschutz.de
Open
The memorial stone is accessible at all times.