Wessel Freytag von Loringhoven

Wessel Oskar Karl Johann Freiherr Freytag von Loringhoven ( – 26 July 1944), was a Baltic German colonel in the High Command of the German Armed Forces (OKW) and a member of the German Resistance (Widerstand) against Adolf Hitler. Loringhoven was a friend of Claus von Stauffenberg, who was the leader of the 20 July Plot to assassinate Hitler in 1944. Biography Loringhoven came from an aristocratic Baltic German family in Courland, the Frydag, that was descended from Westphalia. He was born in the Groß Born Manor, Courland Governorate (in now Lielborne) but grew up in Adiamünde Manor (in now Skulte) in Livonia. After his Final Exams (Abitur), Loringhoven joined the Baltic-German Army (Baltische Landeswehr) in 1918, and with the formation of independent Latvia he became an officer of the 13th Infantry Regiment of Latvia and participated in liberation of Latgale. After Latvian agrarian reforms in 1920 and subsequent nationalisation of manor lands he decided to leave Latvia in 1922 in order to enter the Army of Weimar Germany (Reichswehr). Loringhoven initially sympathized with the National Socialist program for Germany. But, in 1934, he was disaffected by the Night of the Long Knives. After more negative experiences with war crimes during the German invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa), Loringhoven joined the resistance against Nazi Germany. In 1943, with the help of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, Loringhoven was relocated to the High Command of the German Armed Forces (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, or OKW) as a colonel. 20 July plot