Ulrich von Hassell
Christian August Ulrich von Hassell (12 November 1881 – 8 September 1944) was a German diplomat during World War II. A member of the German Resistance against German dictator Adolf Hitler, Hassell proposed to the British that the resistance overthrow Hitler, under the condition that Germany would keep all of its territorial conquests. He was executed in the aftermath of the failed 20 July plot.
Von Hassell was descended from ancient landed nobility, born the son of First Lieutenant Ulrich von Hassell and Margarete (née von Stosch).
His mother was a niece of Albrecht von Stosch, the Prussian Minister of State and chief of the Admiralität. She was furthermore the great granddaughter of Henriette Vogel, whom Heinrich von Kleist had accompanied in November 1811 in suicide. Ulrich v. Hassell has not excluded later that his ever growing admiration for the writer has been increased by this fact.
His grandfather on the mother's side was the godson of count August Neidhardt von Gneisenau. This explains the special interest of Hassell in the Prussian reformer, which found its expression in some publications, among other things.
His grandfather on his father's side, Christian von Hassell, born in 1805, chose a lawyer's career, an exception in their old Hanoverian family. Their members had exclusively been landowners or had taken a career in the military.
Hassell is the father of Wolf Ulrich von Hassell, who helped the German resistance to Hitler during World War II. As ambassador and deputy head of mission to the United Nations from 1971 to 1978, he oversaw the Federal Republic of Germany regaining its status from observer to full member. His previous diplomatic postings were in the Foreign Office in Bonn, in Belgium and in Italy.
He is also the grandfather of Agostino von Hassell, a noted author on military and war history; and of Corrado Pirzio-Biroli, former civil servant of the European Commission and ambassador of the EU to Austria during the Austrian European Union membership referendum, 1994.
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