Helmuth caspar von moltke wikipedia

German resistance member (1907–1945)

For the German military commander of the 19th century, see Helmuth von Moltke the Elder. For the German chief of staff at the start of the First World War, see Helmuth von Moltke the Younger.

Helmuth James Graf von Moltke (11 March 1907 – 23 January 1945) was a German jurist who, as a draftee in the German Abwehr, acted to subvert German human-rights abuses of people in territories occupied by Germany during World War II. He was a founding member of the Kreisau Circleopposition group, whose members opposed the government of Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany, and discussed prospects for a Germany based on moral and democratic principles after Hitler. The Nazis executed him for treason for his participation in these discussions.

Moltke was the grandnephew of Helmuth von Moltke the Younger and the great-grandnephew of Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, the victorious commander in the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian Wars, from whom he inherited the Kreisau estate in Prussian Silesia, now Krzyżowa in Poland.

Early life

Moltke was born in Kreisau (now Krzyżowa, Świdnica County, Poland) in the Prussian Province of Silesia. His mother, Dorothy (née Rose Innes), was a South African of British descent, the daughter of Sir James Rose Innes, Chief Justice of the Union of South Africa from 1914 to 1927, and his wife Jessie Rose-Innes.

Moltke's parents were Christian Scientists, his mother adopting his father's religion after marriage. His father became a Christian Science practitioner and teacher, and both parents were in the group that translated the first German edition of the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. For reasons of family tradition, Moltke decided to become confirmed in the Evangelical Church of Prussia when he was 14.

Edu

Noble family

"Moltke" redirects here. For other uses, see Moltke (disambiguation).

The Moltke family is an old German noble family. The family was originally from Mecklenburg, but apart from Germany, some of the family branches also resided throughout Scandinavia. Members of the family have been noted as statesmen, high-ranking military officers and major landowners in Denmark and Prussia.

History

The family is descended from Fridericus Meltiko, a knight from Mecklenburg who lived in the mid 13th century. The family was awarded with the title of Count on 13.12.1834 in Denmark. They were also created Counts in Prussia on 17.2.1868 by King William I of Prussia.

Notable members

• Adam Gottlob Moltke (1710–1792), Danish courtier, statesman and diplomat
• Caspar Herman Gottlob Moltke [da] (1738–1800), Danish general
• Joachim Godske Moltke (1746–1818), Prime Minister of Denmark, son of Adam Gottlob Moltke
• Friedrich Philipp Victor von Moltke (1768–1845), German Generalleutnant in Danish service
• Adam Wilhelm Moltke (1785–1864), Danish Prime Minister, son of Joachim Godske Moltke
• Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (1800–1891), Chief of the Prussian, and then German, General Staff
• Adam Friedrich Adamson von Moltke (1816–1885), Danish administrative lawyer and district president
• Kuno von Moltke (1847–1923), German general
• Helmuth von Moltke the Younger (1848–1916), Chief of the German General Staff
• Otto von Moltke (1851–1881), German-Danish military officer
• Heinrich Karl Leonhard von Moltke (1854–1922), German-Danish vice admiral in the Imperial German Navy
• Harald Moltke (1871–1960), Danish painter and Arctic explorer
• Hans-Adolf von Moltke (1884–1943), German diplomat
• Else Moltke (1888–1986), Danish writer and feminist
• Erik Moltke (1901–1984), Danish art historian
• Helmuth James Graf von Moltke (1907–1945), German jurist, pacifist, head of the anti-Nazi Kreisau Circle, executed for treason for ho

Moltke’s wife Freya, née Deichmann, from Cologne was a daughter from a liberal, Protestant upper middle class family. He met her in 1929 at the Austrian progressive educator Eugenie Schwarzwald’s summer home on Grundlsee in Salzkammergut where artists, philosophers and politicians gathered in a liberal atmosphere to exchange ideas.

They married in Cologne in October of 1931 and, after a brief period in Kreisau, moved to Berlin where she studied law and he completed his law degree. Like her husband, Freya von Moltke did not have any special relationship with the church at this time. Religious issues hardly played a role in their marriage at first. That changed when the war broke out, which Moltke considered to be the embodiment of “evil”.

Freya von Moltke fully shared her husband’s view and was also committed to the resistance. Their son Helmuth Caspar was born in 1937 and Konrad four years later.

Numerous separations –Moltke’s stays abroad for instance – led the married couple to write hundreds of letter in order to keep in touch, inform each other about current events and to exchange their thoughts and feelings. They continued this practice when he was in prison, too.

Thus, through the agency of their friend Pastor Harald Poelchau, an impressive historical documentation of and testimony to mutual, unconditional devotion and warmhearted love was produced while Moltke was held in Tegel prison, which is probably unique among the sources of the German resistance (Moltke, Land, 11).

German writer and scholar

Freya von Moltke (née Deichmann; 29 March 1911 – 1 January 2010) was a German American lawyer and participant in the anti-Nazi opposition group, the Kreisau Circle, with her husband, Helmuth James von Moltke. During World War II, her husband acted to subvert German human-rights abuses of people in territories occupied by Germany and became a founding member of the Kreisau Circle, whose members opposed the government of Adolf Hitler.

The Nazi government executed her husband for treason, he having discussed with the Kreisau Circle group the prospects for a Germany based on moral and democratic principles that could develop after Hitler. Moltke preserved her husband's letters that detailed his activities during the war, and chronicled events from her perspective. She supported the founding of a center for international understanding at the former Moltke estate in Krzyżowa, Świdnica County, Poland (formerly Kreisau, Germany).

Early life and education

Moltke was born Freya Deichmann in Cologne, Germany, the daughter of banker Carl Theodor Deichmann and his wife, Ada Deichmann (née von Schnitzler). In 1930, she began studying law at the University of Bonn and attended seminars at the University