Helmuth James von Moltke

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 Circle opposition 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.

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.

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.

From 1927 to 1929, Moltke studied law and political sciences in Breslau, Vienna, Heidelberg, and Berlin.

In 1928, Moltke became involved with college teachers and youth movement leaders in the organization of the Löwenberger Arbeitsgemeinschaften (Löwenberg working groups) in which unemployed young workers and young farmers were brought together with students so that they could learn from one another.

They also discussed civics, obligations, and rights.

In Kreisau, Moltke set aside an unused part of the estate for farming startups, which earned him harsh criticism from neighbouring landowners.

Moltke was one of the few officials who argued for treating captured Soviet prisoners of war according to the 1929 Geneva Convention, a treaty that Germany had signed and was legally obliged to follow.

In 1931, he married Freya Deichmann, whom he met in Austria.

In 1934, Moltke took his junior law examination.

In 1935, he declined the chance to become a judge to avoid having to join the Nazi Party.

Instead, he opened a law practice in Berlin.

As a lawyer dealing in international law, he helped victims of Hitler's régime emigrate, and he traveled abroad to maintain contacts.

Between 1935 and 1938, Moltke regularly visited Great Britain, where he completed English legal training in London and Oxford.

Moltke's meeting with Aimée Sotto Maior (aka de Heeren), a Brazilian spy who had come to Paris in 1938 under the cover of being a wealthy heiress and fashion shopper, allowed her to discourage Brazilian president, Getulio Vargas, from entering an alliance with Germany.

In 1939, World War II began with the German invasion of Poland.

Moltke was immediately drafted at the beginning of the Polish campaign by the Abwehr, the High Command of the Armed Forces (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht), Counter-Intelligence Service, Foreign Division, under Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, as an expert in martial law and international public law.

Moltke's work for the Abwehr mainly involved gathering insights from abroad, from military attachés and foreign newspapers, and news of military-political importance, and relaying this information to the Wehrmacht.

He maintained the connection between the OKW and the Foreign Office, but above all to provide appraisals of questions of the international laws of war.

Unusually, he chose not to wear a uniform.

In his travels through German-occupied Europe, he observed many human rights abuses, which he attempted to thwart by citing legal principles.

In October 1941, Moltke 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?"

Moltke hoped that his appraisals could have a humanitarian effect on military actions; he was supported by anti-Hitler officers such as Canaris and Major General Hans Oster, Chief of the Central Division.

During Nazi Germany's war with the Soviet Union, Moltke wrote a memorandum urging the Wehrmacht to follow both the Geneva Convention and the Hague Convention, in order to comply with international law and to promote reciprocal good treatment for German prisoners of war, but the recommendation was rejected by Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, who scribbled on the margin that "The objections arise from the military concept of chivalrous warfare".

Moltke invoked international law and political reasoning to stop the shooting of hostages in Holland, and was involved in warning the Danish resistance movement of the impending planned deportation of Danish Jews, which led to their mass evacuation by boat from Copenhagen to Malmö, Sweden.

Having access to information about deportations and the shootings of hostages reinforced Moltke's opposition to the war and the entire program of the Nazi Party.

In 1943, Moltke traveled to Istanbul on two occasions.

The official reason was to retrieve German merchant ships impounded by Turkey.

The real reason was participation in an effort to end the war by a coalition of anti-Hitler elements of the German Army, German refugees living in Turkey, members of the OSS, the Abwehr (German military intelligence) and the German ambassador to Turkey, Franz von Papen.

This group passed a report to the Allies, which reached President Franklin Roosevelt.

However, Roosevelt's advisers, including Henry Morgenthau Jr.., counseled against the credibility of the report.

Moltke also surreptitiously spread the information to which he was privy, on the war and the Nazi concentration camps, to friends outside the Nazi party, including members of the Resistance in occupied Europe.

Declassified British documents reveal that he twice attempted to contact British officials, including friends from Oxford, offering to "go to any length" to assist them, but the British refused the first time, confusing him with his uncle, the German ambassador to Spain, and replied to the second offer by asking for "deeds" rather than "talk".