Stauffenberg

Stauffenberg

The Schenken von Stauffenberg are an aristocratic Roman Catholic family from Swabia in Germany, whose best-known member was Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg – the key figure in the 1944 "20 July plot" to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

The recorded history of the family Schenk von Stauffenberg begins in Swabia in the 13th century, when the family, who belonged to the Reichsrittern (Imperial Knights), originated from the settlement Cell, where they owned extensive estates surrounding the village and the Zollerberg long before the Counts of Zollern took possession of the mountain and acquired lands there.

Its first known member is mentioned in 1251 as Wernherus Pincerna de Celle, who in 1255 was appointed to the ceremonial court office of Schenk (cupbearer, sommelier, butler) with the Counts of Zollern. The officeholder was in charge of his lord’s wine cellars and vineyards, and when the office of Schenk later became hereditary within the family the title was adopted into the family name.

Surnames were appended according to the officeholder's place of residence, and so the family name varied between Schenk von Zell, Schenk von Neuenzell, Schenk von Andeck, Schenk von Erpfingen and Schenk von Stauffenberg. By the end of the 15th century the family’s permanent name was Schenk von Stauffenberg, which refers to Burg Stauffenberg, a former castle situated by a small cone-shaped mountain of the same name between the small town of Hechingen and its suburb Rangendingen in Land Württemberg. A tradition in the family also associates it with the Staufen dynasty.

The Stauffenbergs rose in the world in 1698 when Emperor Leopold I conferred upon the brothers Maximilian Gottfried and Johann Philipp the hereditary title of Reichsfreiherr (Imperial Baron). The family was later split into four branches; the Katzensteiner, Bacher, Wilflinger and Amerdinger ones. The former two became extinct during the 18th century, while a member of the Wilflingen branch was raised to the rank of hereditary Reichsgraf (Imperial Count) by Emperor Leopold II in 1791. Since the Wilflinger branch also became extinct in 1833, only the baronial Amerdinger branch remained. All now living members of the family are descendants of the brothers Franz Ludwig and Friedrich of the Amerdingen branch. Franz Ludwig was made a hereditary Graf (Count) in the Kingdom of Bavaria by King Ludwig II. Since then there exist two subbranches; one which holds the title of Count and one which bears the title of Imperial Baron.

In the 16th century the Stauffenberg family acquired the castle Amerdingen near Nördlingen through marriage. Before that the Stauffenbergs were owners of Wilflingen and Jettingen. Over the course of the years further estates were added to the family’s possessions, such as Schloss Greifenstein and Schloss Burggrub in Heiligenstadt near Bamberg, the Lautlingen castle near Ebingen on the southern slopes of the Schwäbische Alb, Ristissen some twenty kilometers south of Ulm and the Straßberg and Wildentierberg estates in Lautlingen near Albstadt.

After 1918, when the constitution of the Weimar Republic abolished all noble titles in Germany and declared them to be part of the family name, the family came to have two names in order to preserve the former titles of Schenk, Graf ( Count ) and Freiherr ( Baron ) as parts of the surnames.

Since the title of Schenk is considered to be of superior rank due to being a hereditary office title, it is placed before the noble title, which in turn is placed before the surname. The correct versions of the family’s surnames are thus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and Schenk Freiherr von Stauffenberg respectively. Two of the family’s members also served as Prince-Bishops of Bamberg (Marquard Sebastian) and Augsburg and Konstanz (Johann Franz) and thus used the title Fürst (Prince) instead of their other noble titles.