Freya von Moltke

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).

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 of Breslau.

While working as a researcher she met her future husband Helmuth James von Moltke.

On 18 October 1931, the two married in her home town of Cologne.

The couple initially resided in a modest house at the Moltke family's Kreisau estate in Silesia (German: Schlesien), then Germany, post WWII part of Poland.

They moved to Berlin so her husband could complete his legal training.

In 1933, Adolf Hitler, became chancellor of Germany, which Moltke's husband foresaw would be a disaster for Germany, not the transitory figure that others expected.

The Moltkes encouraged their overseer to join the Nazi Party to shield the community of Kreisau from government interference.

She studied law in Berlin and received a Juris Doctor degree from Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin in 1935.

Following her law studies, Moltke visited summers at her husband's estate in Kreisau, where he had actively managed the farming activities, a pursuit atypical of a German nobleman, before retaining an overseer.

She joined work on the farm, while her husband started an international law practice in Berlin and studied to become an English barrister.

In 1937, Moltke gave birth to their first son, Helmuth Caspar.

Thereafter, she lived at Kreisau year-round.

Her husband inherited the Kreisau estate in 1939.

In 1939, World War II began with the German invasion of Poland and 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 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 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 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 of 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 [Post-Nazi] Order" and "Directions to Regional Commissioners" that her husband asked Moltke to hide in a place that not even he knew.

On 19 January 1944, the Gestapo arrested 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 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 the prospects for a Germany based on moral and democratic principles that could develop after Hitler.

In the spring of 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.

Using improvised notes in Russian and Czech, she obtained safe passage 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.