Hans von Dohnányi

Hans von Dohnanyi (; originally Johann von Dohnányi ; 1 January 1902 – 8 or 9 April 1945) was a German jurist. He used his position in the Abwehr to help Jews escape Germany, worked with German resistance against the Nazi régime, and after the failed 20 July Plot, he was accused of being the "spiritual leader" of the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler, and executed by the SS in 1945.

Early life

Hans von Dohnanyi was born to the Hungarian composer Ernő Dohnányi and his wife, 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. Dohnányi protected Dietrich Bonhoeffer from conscription by bringing him into the Abwehr with the claim Bonhoeffer's numerous ecumenical contacts could be useful for Germany. Dohnányi covertly went to Switzerland to make certain the refugees would be admitted. The bomb that was smuggled aboard Hitler's plane in Smolensk after being carried there by Dohnányi, however, failed to go off. Hirsch said the 1956 ruling was shameful because as a result, not a single one of the Nazi-era judges who sentenced 50,000 Nazi opponents to their deaths was found guilty after the war.

On 23 October 2003, Israel honoured Dohnányi by recognizing him as one of the Righteous Among the Nations for saving the Arnold and Fliess families, at risk to his own life. His name has been inscribed in the walls at the Holocaust remembrance centre Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

His grandson Justus von Dohnányi starred as Wilhelm Burgdorf in the 2004 film Downfall.