Born in Potsdam , Germany , he was the fifth child of leading Prussian civil servant August Von Trott Zu Solz . Adam went to The UK in 1931 on a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Balliol College, Oxford where he became close friends with David Astor . Following his studies at Oxford, von Trott went on to spend six months in the United States . He was a great-great-great grandson of John Jay , one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. In 1937 von Trott was posted to China .
He took advantage of his travels to try to raise support outside Germany for the internal resistance against the Nazi s. In 1939 , he lobbied Lord Lothian and Lord Halifax to pressure the British Government to continue its policy of Appeasement towards Adolf Hitler , visiting London three times. He also visited Washington, D.C. in October of that year in an unsuccessful attempt to obtain American support.
Friends warned von Trott not to return to Germany but his conviction that he had to do something to stop the madness of Hitler and his henchmen led him to return. Once there, in 1940 von Trott joined the Nazi Party in order to access party information and monitor its planning. At the same time, he served as a Foreign Policy advisor to the clandestine group of intellectuals planning the overthrow of the Nazi regime known as the Kreisau Circle .
Von Trott was part of Claus Von Stauffenberg 's unsuccessful Plot Of July 20 1944 to Assassinate Hitler. He was arrested within days, placed on trial and found guilty. Sentenced to death on 15 August 1944 by the '' Volksgerichtshof '', he was hanged in Berlin's Plötzensee prison on August 26th.
Von Trott was the author of:
- ''Hegels Staatsphilosophie und das internationale Recht''; Diss. Göttingen (V&R), 1932
- James Bacque , ''Our Fathers' War'', Exile Editions, 2006 ISBN 1-55096-635-9 (A novel which mixes historical personages with fictional)
- Hedley Bull , Edited by: ''The Challenge of the Third Reich –The Adam von Trott Memorial Lectures'' Oxford University Press, 1986. ISBN 0-19-821962-8
- Christabel Bielenberg : ''The Past is Myself'', Corgi, 1968. ISBN 0-552-99065-5. Published in the US as ''When I was a German, 1934-1945,'' University of Nebraska Press, 1998. ISBN 0-8032-6151-9
- Sheila Grant Duff : ''Fünf Jahre bis zum Krieg'' (1934-1939), Verlag C.H.Beck, trans. Ekkehard Klausa, ISBN 3-406-01412-7.
- Sheila Grant Duff: ''The Parting of Ways—A Personal Account of the Thirties'', Peter Owen, 1982, ISBN 0-7206-0586-5.
- The Earl of Halifax: ''Fulness of Days'', Collins, 1957, London.
- Michael Ignatieff : ''A Life of Isaiah Berlin'', Chatto&Windus, 1998, ISBN 0-7011-6325-9.
- Diana Hopkinson: ''The Incense Tree'', Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968, ISBN 0-7100-6236-2.
- Annedore Leber, collected by: ''Conscience in Revolt—Sixty-four Stories of Resistance in Germany 1933-45'', Valentine, Mitchell & Co, London 1957 (Das Gewissen Steht Auf, Mosaik-Verlag, Berlin, 1954).
- Klemens von Klemperer: ''German Resistance Against Hitler—The search For Allies Abroad'', Clarendon press, Oxford, 1992, USA under Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-821940-7.
- Klemens von Klemperer (Editor): ''A Noble Combat—The Letters of Sheila Grant Duff and Adam von Trott zu Solz, 1932-1939'', 1988, ISBN 0-19-822908-9 (see discussion page).
- Giles MacDonogh: ''A good German—Adam von Trott zu Solz'', Woodstock, N.Y., Overlook Press, 1992, ISBN 0-87951-449-3.
- A. L. Rowse : ''All Souls And Appeasement—A Contribution to Contemporary history'', Macmillan & Co., London/New York, 1961.
- A. L. Rowse : ''A Man of The Thirties'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1979, ISBN 0-297-77666-5.
- A. L. Rowse: ''A Cornishman Abroad'', Jonathan Cape, 1976, ISBN 0-224-01244-4.
- Christopher Sykes: ''Troubled Loyalty—A biography of Adam von Trott zu Slz'', Collins, London, 1968.
- Marie Vassiltchikov (''aka'' Maria Vasilchilkova): ''Berlin Diaries 1940-1945'', 1988. ISBN 0-394-75777-7
- John W. Wheeler-Bennett: ''The Nemesis of Power—The German Army in Politics, 1918-1945'' Macmillan & Co, London/New York, 1953.
- Sir John Wheeler-Bennett : ''Friends, Enemies and Sovereigns—The Final Volume of his Auto-biography'', MacMillan, London 1976, ISBN 0-312-30555-9.
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