22 Jul 2024
Great commemoration in Germany of the resistance against Adolf Hitler. Saturday, two days ago, marked the 80th anniversary of the failed assassination attempt of 20 July 1944 at the Führer's headquarters in the Wolf's Lair. Federal President Walter Steinmeier, Chancellor Olaf Scholz and many high-ranking representatives from politics, business and society took part in the central commemoration ceremony in Berlin.
There is a place in the Kalahari in Namibia that commemorates those tragic events every day: A gravestone for the German nobleman Friedrich Fürst zu Solms-Baruth. It stands on a hill in the Gondwana Kalahari Park, a private nature reserve about 30 kilometres east of Mariental.
The gravestone confirms what the German media repeatedly lament. Carl von Stauffenberg, who planted the bomb in the meeting room of the Führer's headquarters, is well known. However, the names of his comrades-in-arms, the many members of the resistance against Hitler, even the leader Ludwig Beck, have faded or been forgotten.
These included Friedrich Hermann Fürst zu Solms-Baruth. His story was researched by Gondwana co-founder and branding manager Mannfred Goldbeck. In 2006, it appeared in a booklet for guests of Kalahari Anib Lodge, and in 2021 in an abridged form on Facebook. Goldbeck was also the one who had the gravestone erected. Directly in front of the wooden cross that marked the site of the grave.
Exhausted and anxious the man ran his eyes over the red dunes and yellow grass plains. Will this country give him and his family a chance for a new life? His mind recalled dark pictures: the detention cell, the faces of the interrogating officers, the smouldering ruins of the city. A narrow escape, first from the Nazis, then from the Russians. The foundations of a centuries-old family tradition lost within a few years.
But one look at his son, and the dark pictures are gone. He and his loved ones were alive, they owned some land and some livestock. Now they just had to roll up their sleeves. Then his son would be able to continue his line of the family...
The man was Fürst (Prince) Friedrich Hermann zu Solms-Baruth, 62 years old and descendant from an aristocratic family that could trace its roots back to the Middle Ages. Until 1944 he and his wife Adelheid lived at Baruth Castle near Berlin. Apart from the 70,000 ha castle estate, his family also owned Klitschdorf Hunting Manor (20,000 ha) in Silesia.
Like his grandfather, who was raised to the rank of prince in 1888, and his father, he felt beholden to the emperor. When his son Friedrich Wilhelm was born in 1926, William II became his godfather even though he had abdicated long since and gone into exile.
Friedrich Hermann disapproved of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. Despite increasing pressure he refused to raise the swastika flag at his castle or to tolerate the Nazi salute; he kept his son out of the Hitler Youth for a long time.
Small wonder that the Nazis accused him of running a state within the state. Finally Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels openly slandered him as a desecrator and public enemy in the newspaper 'Völkischer Beobachter'.
Goebbels was not altogether wrong: Fürst Friedrich Hermann zu Solms was indeed an enemy of the state – of the National Socialist state. He was part of the group around colonel general Ludwig Beck, who openly opposed Hitler's expansionism and in 1938 stepped down as chief of staff of the armed forces during the 'Sudeten crisis'.
Beck became the leader of the resistance movement and eventually planned an attempt on Hitler's life. Three days prior to the assassination attempt on 20 July 1944, Beck ws staying at Baruth and went for a hack with Friedrich Hermann. "My father wore his belt and pistol", his son Friedrich Wilhelm recalled later. "He told me to keep my distance... I knew that something exceptional and dangerous was going on."
The attempt, carried out by Claus von Stauffenberg, failed. Hitler survived and hit back mercilessly. Beck, Stauffenberg and their comrades-in-arms were arrested and executed on the spot. Friedrich Hermann, however, whose cousin was married to the Crown Prince of Sweden, was protected by SS leader Heinrich Himmler.
At that stage Himmler was desperate to make contact with the Allied Forces via Count Bernadotte af Wisborg, the vice-president of the Swedish Red Cross, and arrange special peace terms. Thus Himmler saw to it that for the time being Friedrich Hermann remained in custody for interrogation. In March 1945 he was released on condition that he leaves the country immediately. In the chaos of the Third Reich's collapse he managed to go into hiding.
The castles, confiscated by the Nazis, were now in areas occupied by the Russians. Big landowners were persecuted in places. Friedrich Herrmann barely escaped execution. So what to do now? The division of Germany was looming on the horizon and with it the irrevocable loss of the family estates. All that remained was a piece of land which he had bought in 1937 – in South West Africa, far from Europe, where already at that time he had seen the spectre of war unfolding.
However, as was the case everywhere in the world, Germans were not welcome there. Only his reputation as a staunch antagonist of Hitler opened the door to South Africa for him. Prime Minister Jan Smuts himself saw to it that he and his wife were granted permanent residence in South Africa's mandated territory.
And so it happened that in 1948 Friedrich Hermann, now 62 years old, together with his 22-year-old son, set foot onto the last little piece of his estate: the sheep farm Dabib north-east of Mariental, in the middle of the Kalahari.
The size of the 'little piece' was 49,582 ha though – nearly 500 km². The land was extremely well suited for Karakul sheep. Their pelts were regarded as 'black diamonds' in those days. Furthermore, the farm was close to the railway line so that transport costs remained low. This he had his friend Albert Voigts to thank for who earlier had advised him to buy Dabib instead of Duwisib, which also had been for sale.
Still, hard years were in store for the Solms family. Initially they lived in a small hut and started off with 1,700 sheep, some of them not the best breeding stock. But step by step son Friedrich Wilhelm increased the flock to 10,000 animals.
Friedrich Hermann died in 1951 after a difficult operation. Before being taken to the hospital in Windhoek, he paid a farewell visit to his favourite spot under the Shepherd's Tree on the hillock. The spot is still called 'Solmscher Posten' today. His wife spent her last years after his death in Austria.
But his most fervent wish came true: his son continued the family line. In 1963 Friedrich Wilhelm married Princess Birgitta of Berchem-Königsfeld who bore him two sons.
In the 1960s Friedrich split three pieces off Dabib and sold them. One of the three pieces was Anib, 10,000 ha in size. Sheep farming continued on Anib and in 1992 the farm branched out into the hospitality business as well.
The Gondwana Collection bought Anib in 2004 and transformed it into the Gondwana Kalahari Park: They ended sheep farming and set up watering places suitable for game. Since then guests on a drive around the park keep wondering about the cross at Solmscher Posten. Until Gondwana erected the gravestone and told the story...
Sven-Eric Stender
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