A while back I wrote about the German exile enclave in Vermont. One of the most famous was Freya von Moltke – the wife of the conservative anti-fascist Helmut James Graf von Moltke, who was executed by Hitler for discussing peace and democracy with a small group of like minded intellectuals which became known as the Kreisau Circle.
The Burlington (Vermont) Free Press announced last week that Freya von Moltke had died in Norwich on January 1:
Freya von Moltke, a prominent member of the Nazi resistance in World War II, has died at the age of 98, her son said.
Von
Moltke, who was born in Germany but had lived in Vermont since 1960,
died Friday after suffering a viral infection, her son Helmuth von
Moltke told the Lebanon Valley News.In
her writings after the war, von Moltke described her life in the
resistance with her husband, Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, who
co-founded the anti-Nazi Kreisau Circle and was executed for his
activities.She was
born into a banking family in 1911 in Cologne as Freya Deichmann and
met her future husband when she was 18. They were married in 1931, and
both received law degrees.The
couple settled on his Silesian estate, Kreisau, located in present-day
Poland. In 1932, they moved to Berlin, where he set up an international
law practice. He was an opponent of Adolf Hitler's regime from its
start, and he helped Jews and other victims of Nazism in his early law
practice.He was
drafted into the German army in 1939 as a specialist in international
and martial law, but during his military service he advocated the
humane treatment of prisoners of war and civilians in German-occupied
territories under the Geneva Conventions.The
Kreisau Circle included several dozen clergy members, economic experts
and diplomats. Freya von Moltke hosted meetings in 1942 and '43 at the
family estate at which the group discussed plans for the democratic
Germany they hoped would follow the collapse of the Third Reich.
Since her death was announced in Vermont tributes have poured in from around the world including the Telegraph in London, the New York Times, and Ha'aretz in Tel Aviv. Jochen Thies, writing in Die Welt, sees it as a loss for Germany that Freya von Moltke spent the last half of her life in Vermont rather than contributing to the building of the Federal Republic:
Hat die Bundesrepublik leidenschaftliche Anstrengungen unternommen,
dieser außergewöhnlichen Frau, die für höchste Ämter in Staat und
Gesellschaft geeignet war, eine Perspektive in Deutschland zu bieten? (Did the Federal Republic do everything in its power to sway this extraordinary woman – who was suited for the highest offices in the government and society – to consider returning to Germany?)
In 1942 Dorothy Thompson delivered a series of radio broadcasts directed to her friend Helmuth James Graf von Moltke about the prospects for democracy and peace in Germany. These broadcasts were transcribed and published in book form as Listen, Hans. Not long after, von Moltke was arrested by the Gestapo and tried for treason. No Hollywood blockbuster starring Tom Cruise will be made about him and his resistance to tyranny. As Christians, von Moltke and his wife Freya rejected violence and worked in the realm of ideas and discourse.
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“Die Humanität liegt in der Kürze des Verfahrens.” Diesen Ausspruch des Urgroßonkels GeneralFeldmarschall Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke nahm Hitler als Rechtfertigung, im Kriege zu den brutalsten Mitteln zu greifen. Hätte es Moltke den Älteren nicht gegeben, vieles wäre anders gelaufen. Er allein begründete Preussens Glorie auf den Schlachtfeldern des 19. Jahrhunderts. Aber an dem, was darauf alles folgte, konnten seine Nachfahren nichts mehr korrigieren. Das Verhängnis nahm unerbittlich seinen Lauf.
It is astonishing how one family can embody the worst and the best of the German tradition.