Solf Circle - The Fate of Some Members of The Solf Circle

The Fate of Some Members of The Solf Circle

Most members of the Solf Circle were tried and convicted in Roland Freisler's Volksgerichtshof, and eventually executed. Kiep himself was subjected to severe torture; while being interrogated after his conviction, the Gestapo learned of his involvement with the July 20 Plot. He was executed in Plötzensee Prison on August 15, 1944. Elisabeth von Thadden also met the same fate on September 8. Arthur Zarden, knowing what was in store for him and afraid to implicate others under torture committed suicide on January 18, 1944 by throwing himself out a window at the Gestapo interrogation center. His daughter, Irmgard Zarden after spending five months in Ravensbrück concentration camp was acquitted for lack of evidence.( add reference to Irmgard Zarden Ruppel's book, Memories, Finanzverlag

Bernstorff was confined to Ravensbrück together with Solf and repeatedly tortured. He was then sent to the prison in Prinz Albrecht Straße to stand trial in the Volksgerichtshof, but Freisler did not have the satisfaction of sentencing him, for he was killed in an air raid on February 3, 1945. When the Red Army liberated the prison on April 25, he was not among the living. Together with Richard Kuenzer, Bernstorff was taken out of the prison two days before to the vicinity of the Lehrter Bahnhof, and presumably shot upon the orders of Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Nazi Foreign Minister.