Adam von Trott zu Solz (born August 9, 1909 in Potsdam, Germany - died August 26, 1944 in Berlin, Germany) was a lawyer and diplomat who opposed the Nazi regime.

The fifth child of leading Prussian civil servant August von Trott zu Solz, Adam went to the UK in 1931 on a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Balliol College, Oxford where he became close friends with David Astor. Following his studies at Oxford, Adam von Trott went on to spend six months in the United States and in 1937 he was posted to China and used his frequent trips to seek outside help for resistance against the Nazis.

In 1939, von Trott visited London on three occasions in an effort to persuade Lord Lothian and Lord Halifax pressure the British government to continue its policy of appeasement towards Adolf Hitler. He also visited Washington, D.C. in October of that same year in an unsuccessful attempt to obtain American support for his internal resistance.

Friends warned von Trott not to return to Germany but his conviction that he had to do something to stop the madness of Hitler and his henchmen led him to return. Once there, in 1940 von Trott joined the Nazi Party, using his membership as a way to access party information and monitor their planning. At the same time, he served as a foreign policy advisor to the clandestine group of intellectuals planning the overthrow of the Nazi regime known as the Kreisau Circle.

Charged with complicity in the Claus von Stauffenberg July 20, 1944 Plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, he was immediately placed on trial and found guilty. Sentenced to death, he was hanged in Berlin's Plötzensee prison on August 26th.

Literature

• Hedley Bull, Edited by: The Challenge of the Third Reich-The Adam von Trott Memorial Lectures Oxford University Press, 1986. ISBN 0-19-821962-8
• Shiela Grant Duff: Funf Jahre bis zum Krieg (1934-1939), Verlag C.H.Beck, trans. Ekkehard Klausa, ISBN 3-406-014127.
• Shiela Grant Duff: The Parting of Ways-A Personal Account of the Thirties, Peter Owen, 1982, ISBN 0-7-7206-05865.
• The Earl of Halifax: Fulness of Days, Collins, 1957, London.
• Michael Ignatieff: A Life of Isaiah Berlin, Chatto&Windus, 1998, ISBN 0-7011-6325-9.
• Diana Hopkinson: The Incense Tree, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968, ISBN 0-7100-6236-2.
• Annedore Leber, collected by: Conscience in Revolt—Sixty-four Stories of Resistance in Germany 1933-45, Valentine, Mitchell & Co, London 1957 (Das Gewissen Steht Auf, Mosaik-Verlag, Berlin, 1954).
• Klemens von Klemperer: German Resistance Against Hitler—The search For Allies Abroad, Clarendon press, Oxford, 1992, USA under Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-821940-7.

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• Klemens von Klemperer (Editor): A Noble Combat—The Letters of Sheila Grant Duff and Adam von Trott zu Solz, 1932-1939, 1988, ISBN 0198229089 (see discussion page).
• Giles MacDonogh: A good German—Adam von Trott zu Solz, Woodstock, N.Y., Overlook Press, 1992, ISBN 0879514493.
• A.L.Rowse: All Souls And Appeasement—A Contribution to Contemporary history, Macmillan & Co., London/New York, 1961.
• A.L.Rowse: A Man of The Thirties, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1979, ISBN 0-297-776665.
• A.L.Rowse: A Cornishman Abroad, Jonathan Cape, 1976, ISBN 0-224-01244-4.
• Christopher Sykes: Troubled Loyalty&mdashA biography of Adam von Trott zu Slz, Collins, London, 1968.
• John W. Wheeler-Bennett: The Nemesis of Power—The German Army in Politics, 1918-1945 Macmillan & Co, London/New York, 1953.
• Sir John Wheeler-Bennett: Friends, Enemies and Sovereigns—The Final Volume of his Autobiography, MacMillan, London 1976, ISBN 0312305559.

External links

• Adam von Trott zu Solz
• Adam von Trott zu Solz
• Adam von Trott zu Solz