Barbara von Haeften, the daughter of Julius and Adda Curtius, was born in 1908 in Duisburg, Germany. Her father held the positions of Minister of Economics and Foreign Minister in the period of the Weimar Republic. In 1930, Barbara married Hans-Bernd von Haeften, a lawyer and diplomat who later became a legation counselor at the Ministry of Culture. Barbara and Hans-Bernd von Haeften were members the Confessing Church that fought Nazi control of the churches.

Hans-Bernd von Haeften became active in the Kreisau Circle resistance group in the early 1940s and was closely connected to the July 20, 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler. In fact, his brother, Werner von Haeften, was Claus von Stauffenberg’s aide; he helped von Stauffenberg carry out the assassination attempt. Both Werner von Haeften and Claus von Stauffenberg were executed on the day of the failed attempt.

Hans-Bernd von Haeften was arrested shortly thereafter and hanged on August 15, 1944. Barbara von Haeften was arrested on July 25, 1944 and was not allowed to take her newborn baby, her fifth child, to prison with her. She was released on September 30, 1944.

“Nichts Schriftliches von Politik.” Hans Bernd von Haeften: Ein Lebensbericht (C. H. Beck, 1997) is Barbara von Haeften’s only published work. She moved to Lake Constance after 1945 and later to Heidelberg. In 1975, she moved in with her daughter near Munich. She died in 2006.