Arthur Yu
HR: Sources cited
Adam Von Trott
Adam Von Trott was born on 9 August 1909 into an aristocratic protestant Hessian family in Postdam, Germany. He was the 5th child of the Prussian Minister of Culture and Education. At a young age, Von Trott and his family moved to their country estate in Imshausen at the countryside of Hesse-Kassel. It was then that Van Trott developed a strong sense of patriotism.
When the Nazis took over Germany, he was deeply affected by it. He was loyal to the country of Germany, but not to the Nazi Party that was running Germany. In 1929, Van Trott studied at Mansfield College, Oxford in the UK. Then in 1931, he returned to the UK on a Rhodes scholarship to study at Balliol College, Oxford. After his studies, he went to the United States for 6 months. Van Trott was a great-great-great grandson of John Jay, one of the Founding Fathers of the US and the first Chief Justice.
Von Troll resumed his international travels in 1937 where he went to China. In 1939 he went to Britain and Washington, D.C. in October of that year. This time, his travels were not just for schooling. By 1937, Hitler had already named himself the Fuhrer, outlawed everything not Nazi, banned trade unions, and sent his political opponents to concentration camps. In Britain, Van Trott tried to pressure Lord Lothian and Lord Halifax to get rid of the appeasement policy towards Adolf Hitler. However, Britain didn’t believe his warning of imminent war and the US thought he was a Nazi spy. Adam Von Trott had clear intension of warning others about Adolf Hitler and his plans, but no one believed it.
Von Trott’s friends warned him not to return to Germany, but he made it clear that he would try and stop Hitler, so he decided to go back to Germany. Von Trott knew that if he was going to have a chance of stopping the Nazi Party, he was going to have to stop it from the inside out. In 1940, Von Trott joined the Nazi Party in order to access their information and monitor its planning. The Nazi Party also made him a foreign policy to the Kreisau Circle since they knew that Van Trott traveled so much before. Trott used the cover of the organization to travel to Scandinavia, Switzerland, Turkey, and all Nazi-occupied countries of Europe to try and form an Anti-Nazi group.
On 20 July 1944, Adam Von Trott was one of the leaders of Colonel Claus Von Stauffenberg’s plot to assassinate Hitler. After the attempt failed, he was arrested, placed on trial, and found guilty. On 15 August 1944, Von Trott was sentenced to death by the Volksgerichtshof. He was hanged in Plotzensee Peison on 26 August of that year.
Adam Von Trott’s priorities were very clear from the beginning. He loved his country, but hated the Nazi’s. He felt like it was his duty to do all that he could to stop the Nazi party from spreading. After he made his travels to many countries to ask for help, he even came back to Germany to join the Nazi party so he could infiltrate them from the inside, but failed. However, he did try all that he could to stop the spread of the Nazi Party.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_von_Trott_zu_Solz
http://archives.balliol.ox.ac.uk/Modern%20Papers/von%20Trott/trott1.asp