Hans von Dohnanyi

Hans von Dohnányi
Hans von Dohnányi
Born	(1902-01-01)1 January 1902 Vienna, Austria-Hungary
Died	8/9 April 1945 (aged 43) Sachsenhausen concentration camp, Nazi Germany
Nationality	German
Occupation	Jurist
Spouse(s)	Christel Bonhoeffer
Children	Klaus von Dohnányi Christoph von Dohnányi Barbara von Dohnányi

Hans von Dohnányi (1 January 1902 – 8 or 9 April 1945) was a German jurist of Hungarian ancestry, rescuer of Jews, and German resistance fighter against the Nazi régime.

Hans von Dohnányi was born to the Hungarian composer Ernő Dohnányi and his wife, the pianist Elisabeth Kunwald. After his parents divorced, he grew up in Berlin. He went to the Grunewald Gymnasium there, becoming friends with Dietrich and Klaus Bonhoeffer. From 1920 to 1924, he studied law in Berlin. In 1925, he received a doctorate in law with a dissertation on "The International Lease Treaty and Czechoslovakia's Claim on the Lease Area in Hamburg Harbour".

After taking the first state exam in 1924, he married Christel Bonhoeffer, sister of his school friends, in 1925. About this time, he began putting the stress on the "a" in his last name (which is of Hungarian origin, stressed on the first syllable). He and his wife had three children: Klaus, (mayor of Hamburg from 1981 to 1988), Christoph, (a musical conductor) and Barbara.

Dohnányi worked at the Hamburg Senate for a short time and in 1929, began a career at the Reich Ministry of Justice, working as a personal consultant with the title of prosecutor to several justice ministers. In 1934, the title was changed to Regierungsrat ("government adviser"). In 1932, he was adjutant to Erwin Bumke, the Imperial Court President (Reichsgerichtspräsident; at this time, Germany was still officially the German Empire, Deutsches Reich), in which capacity he put together Prussia's lawsuit against the Empire, which Prussia had brought after the Preußenschlag, Franz von Papen's dissolution of the Prussian social-democratic government through an emergency decree in 1932. As an adviser to Franz Gürtner from 1934–38, Dohnányi became acquainted with Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler and Hermann Göring. He had access to the justice ministry's most secret documents.