Joachim von Willisen

Joachim Freiherr von Willisen
Born	(1900-01-31)31 January 1900 Bärenwalde, West Prussia, German Empire (modern Bincze, Poland)
Died	5 April 1983(1983-04-05) (aged 83) Munich, Germany
Nationality	German
Other names	Achim von Willisen
Occupation	forester

Joachim Freiherr von Willisen^{[nb 1]} (31 January 1900 – 5 April 1983) was a German public official and member of the Resistance against the Nazi régime.

Biography

Willisen was born in Bärenwalde, West Prussia, German Empire (modern Bincze, Poland),^[1] he served in the German Army in World War I. In 1923 Willisen graduated in forestry and worked in the public forest service.^[2]

Willisen became an opponent of the Nazi regime after his uncle Herbert von Bose was murdered in the Night of the Long Knives in 1934.^[3] In 1938 he was transferred to the Reich Ministry of Economics and was conscripted to the Wehrmacht Infantry Regiment 9 in Potsdam in World War II, where he met future participants of the 20 July plot. Unfit for service after he was wounded twice, he worked in the Reich Forest Office. Influenced by Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenburg he became department chief at the Mecklenburg Ministry of State in Schwerin in 1943.^[2]

Willisen was designated as a political commissioner in military district II (Stettin) after a successful coup against Hitler. Willisen was arrested on 21 July 1944 after the plot had failed but was released from custody some weeks later because the Gestapo was unable to prove his knowledge about his future role in the plotter's plans. Willisen returned to Schwerin and survived the war.^[2]

After World War II Willisen led the forestry office of Reinhausen near Göttingen. He retired in 1964 and died in 1983 in Munich.^[3]

Notes

1. Regarding personal names: Freiherr was a title before 1919, but now is regarded as part of the surname. It is translated as Baron. Before the August 1919 abolition of nobility as a legal class, titles preceded the full name when given (Graf Helmuth James von Moltke). Since 1919, these titles, along with any nobiliary prefix (von, zu, etc.), can be used, but are regarded as a dependent part of the surname, and thus come after any given names (Helmuth James Graf von Moltke). Titles and all dependent parts of surnames are ignored in alphabetical sorting. The feminine forms are Freifrau and Freiin.

References

1. Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand
2. Biography at Memorial to the German Resistance
3. Niemann, Mario (2007). Widerstand gegen das NS_Regime in den Regionen Mecklenburg und Vorpommern (PDF) (in German). Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. p. 92.