World War II Database

Hans von Dohnanyi was the son of the Hungarian composer Ernő Dohnányi and his wife the pianist Elisabeth Kunwald. He grew up in Berlin and studied law, receiving his doctorate in law in 1925. Between 1925 and 1932, he held increasingly more important roles in the German justice system, finally becoming an advisor to high government officials such as Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels. He became disillusioned with the Nazi regime after the Night of the Long Knives in 1934 where the Nazi Party murdered political opponents and purged the government. After making connections with the resistance movement against the Nazi Party, he began maintaining records that he had privileges to access due to his position for future use of evidence against the Nazi regime. During the reign of the Nazi Party, he also assisted prominent Jews to flee Germany into the neighboring neutral Switzerland. In Feb 1943, Dohnanyi and Henning von Tresckow were involved in a failed assassination attempt on Hitler's life involving setting up a time bomb on Hitler's flight close to Russian territory. In 1944, he was sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp for alleged breach of monetary exchange laws, and in Jul 1944 his involvement with the resistance came to light after the failed July Plot coup d'etat. On 9 Apr 1945, he was executed by hanging on orders of a SS court judge.

For his efforts in aiding Jewish lawyers Friedrich Arnold and Julius Fliess in their escape to Switzerland, the nation of Israel honors Dohnanyi as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.

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