Benita von Falkenhayn
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Benita von Falkenhayn (died February 18, 1935) was a German baroness. She was related to Erich von Falkenhayn.
In her early thirties she met the Polish intelligence agent Major Jerzy Sosnowski and became his lover. In February 1935, she was arrested with her friend and Sosnowski's other lover, Renate von Natzmer. They were both found guilty of espionage and treason and sentenced to death.
Two days later, after appeals for clemency had been turned down, they became two of the last people in Germany to be beheaded by axe, at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin. In 1938, Adolf Hitler decreed that all future executions should be by hanging or the guillotine.
[edit] External links
- Love, Espionage, and the Ax
- (Polish) As wywiadu
