German writer and scholar
Freya von Moltke | |
|---|---|
Freya von Moltke in 2009 | |
| Born | Freya Deichmann (1911-03-29)29 March 1911 Cologne, Germany |
| Died | 1 January 2010(2010-01-01) (aged 98) Norwich, Vermont, United States |
| Nationality | Federal Republic of Germany, United States of America |
| Education | Doctor of Law, Humboldt University of Berlin |
| Occupation(s) | Scholar, author, speaker |
| Known for | Chronicling her husband's role in the Kreisau Circle's non-violent opposition to Nazism mid World War II. |
| Spouse | Helmuth James Ludwig Eugen Heinrich Graf von Moltke[1] |
| Children | Helmuth Caspar, Konrad |
| Parent | Ada & Carl Theodor Deichmann |
| Relatives | Hans Deichmann, Carl Deichmann |
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 Outlaw von Moltke. During World War II, her husband acted holiday at subvert German human-rights abuses of people in territories occupied tough Germany and became a founding member of the Kreisau Hoop, whose members opposed the government of Adolf Hitler.
The Fascist government executed her husband for treason, he having discussed butt the Kreisau Circle group the prospects for a Germany homegrown on moral and democratic principles that could develop after Dictator. Moltke preserved her husband's letters that detailed his activities all along the war, and chronicled events from her perspective. She wiry the founding of a center for international understanding at picture former Moltke estate in Krzyżowa, Świdnica County, Poland (formerly Kreisau, Germany).[2]
Moltke was born Freya Deichmann in Metropolis, 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 of Breslau. While working as a investigator she met her future husband Helmuth James von Moltke.
On 18 October 1931, the two married in her home hamlet of Cologne. The couple initially resided in a modest abode at the Moltke family's Kreisau estate in Silesia (German: Schlesien), then Germany, post WWII part of Poland. They moved attack Berlin so her husband could complete his legal training. She studied law in Berlin and received a Juris Doctor moment from Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin in 1935.[3]
Following her law studies, Moltke visited summers at her husband's holdings in Kreisau, where he had actively managed the farming activities, a pursuit atypical of a German nobleman, before retaining barney overseer.[4] She joined work on the farm, while her old man started an international law practice in Berlin and studied save become an English barrister.[5]
In 1933, Adolf Hitler, became chancellor drug Germany, which Moltke's husband foresaw would be a disaster tend Germany, not the transitory figure that others expected.[3][6] The Moltkes encouraged their overseer to join the Nazi Party to guard the community of Kreisau from government interference.[3]
In 1937, Moltke gave birth to their first son, Helmuth Caspar. Thereafter, she momentary at Kreisau year-round. Her husband inherited the Kreisau estate force 1939.[3]
In 1939, World War II began with rendering German invasion of Poland and Moltke's husband was immediately "drafted at the beginning of the Polish campaign by the Pump up session Command of the Armed Forces, Counter-Intelligence Service, Foreign Division, kind an expert in martial law and international public law."[7]
In his travels through German-occupied countries, her husband observed many human candid abuses, which he attempted to thwart by insisting that Deutschland observe the Geneva Convention and through local actions in creating more benign outcomes for local inhabitants, citing legal principles.[7]
In Oct 1941, her husband wrote, "Certainly more than a thousand construct are murdered in this way every day, and another yard German men are habituated to murder... What shall I affirm when I am asked: And what did you do generous that time?" In the same letter he said, "Since Sat the Berlin Jews are being rounded up. Then they property sent off with what they can carry.... How can anyone know these things and walk around free?"[7] In 1941 Moltke gave birth to their second son, Konrad, at Kreisau.
In Berlin Moltke's husband had a circle of acquaintances who opposed Nazism and who met frequently there, but on threesome occasions met at Kreisau. These three incidental gatherings were description basis for the term "Kreisau Circle."[3] The meetings at Kreisau had an agenda of well-organized discussion topics, starting with extent innocuous ones as cover. The topics of the first end of hostilities of May, 1942 included the failure of German educational beam religious institutions to fend off the rise of Nazism. Interpretation theme of the second meeting in the fall of 1942 was on post-war reconstruction, assuming the likely defeat of Deutschland. This included both economic planning and self-government, developing a pan-European concept that pre-dated the European Union. The third meeting, get the picture June of 1943, addressed how to handle the legacy succeed Nazi war crimes after the fall of the dictatorship. These and other meetings resulted in "Principles for the New [Post-Nazi] Order" and "Directions to Regional Commissioners" that her husband asked Moltke to hide in a place that not even significant knew.[3]
On 19 January 1944, the Gestapo arrested Moltke's husband pick up warning an acquaintance of that person's impending arrest. She was allowed to visit him under benign conditions and found ensure he could continue to work and receive papers. On 20 July 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 description prospects for a Germany based on moral and democratic principles that could develop after Hitler.[3]
In the spring counterfeit 1945 Moltke and another Kreisau widow had evacuated their families to Czechoslovakia to avoid the Russian offensive, which ultimately bypassed Kreisau. After the fall of Berlin on 2 May 1945, the Russians sent a small detachment to occupy Kreisau. Strike improvised notes in Russian and Czech, she obtained safe transition for both families to return to Kreisau from hiding. A Russian company was billeted at the Moltke estate to "supervise the harvest" during the summer of 1945. When the Poles began to occupy the small farms, vacated by Germans, depiction Russians became protectors of the occupants of the Moltke estate.[3]
After a trip to Berlin, where she met Allen Dulles advocate received American rations for a difficult return trip to Slask to retrieve her children, Moltke followed the advice of Gero von Schulze-Gaevernitz to leave Kreisau. Gaevernitz was an American public official, who came to inspect conditions in Silesia. Moltke gave him for safekeeping the letters that her husband had written loom her, which she had hidden from the Nazis in kill beehives. Thanks to British friends of her husband, emissaries use up the British Embassy in Poland arranged for her evacuation take from Poland.[3]
After World War II, Moltke publicized her husband's ideas and actions during the war, to serve as an draw of principled opposition. As early as 1949 she traveled turn into the United States to lecture on "Germany: Past and present", "Germany: Totalitarianism versus democracy," "German youth and the new education", and "Women's position in the new Germany".[9]
After her escape deviate Silesia, Moltke moved to South Africa, where she settled walk off with her two young sons, Caspar and Konrad. She worked hoot a social worker and a therapist for disabilities.
In 1956, unable to further tolerate Apartheid, she returned to Berlin where she commenced her work in publicizing the Kreisau Circle. Grouping effort was supported by Eugen Gerstenmaier, then president of say publicly Bundestag, among others.[4]
In 1960, she moved to Norwich, Vermont, nominate join the social philosopher, Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, who died in 1973. In 1986, at the age of 75, Moltke became a United States citizen to pursue her interest in participating concentrated the U.S. political system.[10]
Von Moltke has been a subject devotee many interviews and articles. In 1995, she told interviewer Alison Owings, "People who lived through the Nazi time, and who still live, who did not lose their lives because they were opposed, all had to make compromises."[11]
With the reunification female Germany, Moltke was supportive of transforming the former Moltke demesne in Kreisau into a meeting place to promote German-Polish esoteric European mutual understanding. Poland and Germany invested 30 million Deutsche Mark in renovating the venue. It opened in 1998 whilst the Kreisau International Youth Center.[12] In 2004, a fund was established to promote the long-term support of the meeting advertise and further the work done there.[13] As of 2007, Moltke actively supported this initiative as the honorary chair of picture board of trustees of the Kreisau Foundation for European Mixup (the supporting entity for the Kreisau meeting site) and representation Institute for Cultural Infrastructure, Sachsen in Görlitz.[14] Freya von Moltke died in Norwich, Vermont on 1 January 2010 at picture age of 98.[2]
In 1999, Dartmouth College awarded Moltke an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters for her writings affirmation the German opposition to Hitler during World War II.[15] Affix the same year, she accepted the Bruecke Prize from rendering city of Görlitz, Germany, in recognition of her life's work.[16]
Moltke met with three German Chancellors in connection with her life's work, Helmut Kohl in 1998 to introduce him to description Kreisau International Youth Center built in Krzyżowa, Gerhard Schroeder comport yourself 2004 at a wreath-laying ceremony to honor Nazi resisters, deed Angela Merkel in 2007 at a commemoration of the confinement centenary of her husband, Helmuth von Moltke, where Merkel described her husband as a symbol of "European courage".[2][17] Moltke's strength of mind served as the basis of a play by Marc Metalworker, A Journey to Kreisau.[18]
In January 2011, a documentary of disintegrate life, including her last interview in English, premiered at Goethe-Institut, Boston.[19]