Fabian von Schlabrendorff

From 1 September 1967 until 7 November 1975, he was a judge of the Federal Constitutional Court of West Germany, the country's supreme constitutional court, serving in its second senate. Schlabrendorff died on 3 September 1980.

Schlabrendorff was admitted to the Protestant Order of Saint John (Bailiwick of Brandenburg), in which he served as Captain of the Order (legal counsellor to the Herrenmeister, head of the Order) from 1957 to 1964.

He was brought before the People's Court of Nazi Germany (Volksgerichtshof) on the 3rd of February 1945. However, while Schlabrendorff was awaiting trial, the courtroom took a direct hit from a bomb during an American air raid led by Lt. Col. Robert Rosenthal. The bomb killed Roland Freisler, the president of the People's Court, who was found crushed by a beam, still clutching Schlabrendorff's file.

Schlabrendorff did not escape, however, and was arraigned before the court again the following month, now headed by Wilhelm Crohne, the vice president of the People's Court. Following an intense defence, conducted by himself on both legal and procedural grounds (claiming his torture had made the process outrageously unworthy of justice) and in an exceptionally rare instance in its final nine months of existence, the People's Court acquitted von Schlabrendorff on 16 March 1945. His death was later demanded by Hitler's decree, but the order was defied insofar that it was never carried out.

After his second trial, Schlabrendorff was moved from one concentration camp to another: Sachsenhausen and Flossenbürg, then Dachau near Munich. In late April 1945 he was transferred to Tyrol together with about 140 other prominent inmates of Dachau, where the SS-Guards fled after being confronted by a regular German Wehrmacht unit led by Wichard von Alvensleben and told to stand down by the Supreme Commander of all SS troops in Italy, who took responsibility for the order. Schlabrendorff was eventually liberated by the Fifth U.S. Army on 5 May 1945.

Schlabrendorff was arrested following the failed 20 July 1944 Plot. He was sent to Gestapo prison where he was tortured, but refused to talk. While imprisoned he met fellow imprisoned co-conspirators Wilhelm Canaris, Hans Oster, Ulrich von Hassell, Johannes Popitz, Carl Goerdeler, Josef Mueller, and Alexander von Falkenhausen.

On 13 March 1943, during a visit by Adolf Hitler to Army Group Centre Headquarters in Smolensk, Schlabrendorff smuggled a time bomb, disguised as bottles of Cointreau, onto the aircraft which carried Hitler back to Germany. The bomb detonator failed to go off, however, most likely because of the cold in the aircraft luggage compartment. Schlabrendorff managed to retrieve the bomb the next day and elude detection.

He was trained as a lawyer, later joining the German Army. As a reserve lieutenant-colonel (Oberstleutnant der Reserve), he was promoted to serve as adjutant (Ordonnanzoffizier) to Colonel Henning von Tresckow in January 1941, a major leader in the resistance against Adolf Hitler, and held this position until July 1944.

He married Luitgarde von Bismarck, born at Frankenstein in Silesia (now Ząbkowice Śląskie, Poland) in 1939 and had the following children:

Fabian Ludwig Georg Adolf Kurt von Schlabrendorff (German: [ˈfaːbi̯aːn fɔn ˈʃla.bʁənˌ̯dɔʁf] (listen); 1 July 1907 – 3 September 1980) was a German jurist, soldier, and member of the German resistance against Adolf Hitler. From 1967 to 1975 he was a judge of the German Federal Constitutional Court.

Schlabrendorff was born on 1 July 1907 in Halle. He was the son of Carl Ludwig Ewald von Schlabrendorff (born Berlin, 1854, died Detmold, 1923) by his marriage to Ida von Stockmar (1874–1944), a great-great-granddaughter of William I, Elector of Hesse by his mistress Rosa Dorothea Ritter.