Freya Von Moltke - Wartime Kreisau

Wartime Kreisau

In 1939, World War II began with the German invasion of Poland. Von Moltke’s husband was immediately “drafted at the beginning of the Polish campaign by the High Command of the Armed Forces, Counter-Intelligence Service, Foreign Division, as an expert in martial law and international public law.” In his travels through German-occupied countries, her husband observed many human rights abuses, which he attempted to thwart by insisting that Germany observe the Geneva Convention (it continued not to) and through local actions in creating more benign outcomes for local inhabitants, citing legal principles. In October, 1941, her husband wrote, "Certainly more than a thousand people are murdered in this way every day, and another thousand German men are habituated to murder... What shall I say when I am asked: And what did you do during that time?" In the same letter he said, "Since Saturday the Berlin Jews are being rounded up. Then they are sent off with what they can carry.... How can anyone know these things and walk around free?"

In 1941 von Moltke gave birth to their second son, Konrad, at Kreisau.

In Berlin von Moltke’s husband had a circle of acquaintances who opposed Nazism and who met frequently there, but on three occasions met at Kreisau. These three incidental gatherings were the basis for the term “Kreisau Circle.” The meetings at Kreisau had an agenda of well-organized discussion topics, starting with relatively innocuous ones as cover. The topics of the first meeting of May, 1942 included the failure of German educational and religious institutions to fend off the rise of Nazism. The theme of the second meeting in the Fall of 1942 was on post-war reconstruction, assuming the likely defeat of Germany. This included both economic planning and self-government, developing a pan-European concept that pre-dated the European Union. The third meeting in June, 1943 addressed how to handle the legacy of Nazi war crimes after the fall of the dictatorship. These and other meetings resulted in “Principles for the New Order” and “Directions to Regional Commissioners” that her husband asked von Moltke to hide in a place that not even he knew.

On January 19, 1944 the Gestapo arrested von Moltke’s husband for warning an acquaintance of that person’s impending arrest. She was allowed to visit him under benign conditions and found that he could continue to work and receive papers. On July 20, 1944 there was an attempt on Hitler's life, which the Gestapo used as a pretext to eliminate perceived opponents to the Nazi regime. In January 1945, Helmuth von Moltke was tried, convicted, and executed by a Gestapo “People’s Court” for treason, having discussed with the Kreisau Circle group the prospects for a Germany based on moral and democratic principles that could develop after Hitler.