Rachel Seiffert

Johannes von Moltke

Helmuth Caspar von Moltke

Dorothea von Moltke

Freya von Moltke

Shelley Frisch

Helmuth James von Moltke

Tegel prison, Berlin, in the fall of 1944. Helmuth James von Moltke is awaiting trial for his leading role in the Kreisau Circle, one of the most important German resistance groups against the Nazis. By a near miracle, the prison chaplain at Tegel is Harald Poelchau, a friend and coconspirator of Helmuth and his wife, Freya. From Helmuth’s arrival at Tegel in late September 1944 until the day of his execution by the Nazis on January 23, 1945, Poelchau would carry Helmuth’s and Freya’s letters in and out of prison daily, risking his own life. Freya would safeguard these letters for the rest of her long life. Last Letters is a profoundly personal record of the couple’s fortitude in the face of fascism.

The Prison Correspondence, 1944-45

Last Letters

Memories of Kreisau and the German Resistance is the personal account of Freya von Moltke, a member of the Kreisau Circle, a German resistance group that participated in the attempt to assassinate Hitler on July 20, 1944. Freya?s husband, Helmuth von Moltke, was a cofounder of the circle and was executed after the failed assassination attempt. ø Freya recounts both personal details and sweeping historical events. She describes the resistance work carried out during the meetings of the circle as well as the last days of Kreisau, after many of the members of the resistance were executed for their roles in the failed assassination attempt. When the war ended in 1945, Freya was evacuated from Kreisau, and the von Moltke estate was given to Poland.

Memories of Kreisau and the German Resistance

Freya von Moltke

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