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 Loringhoven provided the detonator charge and explosives for the assassination attempt against Hitler on
20 July 1944. He was able to obtain captured British explosives from German intelligence (
Abwehr) sources. British explosives were used in order to make it harder to detect who had supplied them, and also to imply that the British were involved in the plot, thereby diverting attention from the actual conspirators. Nonetheless,
Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Chief of the
Reich Security Main Office (
Reichssicherheitshauptamt; RSHA), discovered the actions of Loringhoven. On 26 July 1944, immediately before he was to be arrested by the
Gestapo and fully aware of the
interrogation techniques utilized by them, Loringhoven committed suicide at
Mauerwald in
East Prussia.
Aftermath After his death, Loringhoven's wife was imprisoned along with relatives of the other members of the plot. Loringhoven's four sons were separated from their mother. All were eventually liberated by
Allied forces. A close cousin,
Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven, was not implicated only due to the intervention of General
Heinz Guderian. His cousin was an occupant of the
Führerbunker in
Berlin towards the
end of World War II in Europe. Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven escaped Berlin, was captured by the British, and survived the war. ==Notes==