Book (Pre) Review: Letters To Freya

 For what may be a first for me, I am doing a pre-review of a book.

Helmuth James (Graf) von Moltke (1907-1945) was the grandson of Helmuth Von Moltke The Younger  (German General of WW I) and the Great Grandnephew of Helmuth Von Moltke The Elder (victor of the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian Wars of the 19th Century).  A jurist by trade (having trained in both Berlin and London), at the age of 31 he was drafted into the International Law Division of the German Abwehr (The Intelligence Unit).  

He used his position both to mitigate where he could the deportation and murder of Jews and other refugees and capture soldiers by using his legal experience to throw "bureaucratic wrenches" into the operations of the German Reich.  He also, at his ancestral home Kreisau (now in Poland, but part of German Silesia at the time), began what became known as the Kreisau circle, an opposition group which not only opposed Hitler but planned for a post war Germany (Von Moltke and the Kreisau circle believed that Germany would lose the war).  

Von Moltke was driven by his Christian beliefs and his political beliefs in his opposition to violence.  This opposition did not save him; as a result of the July 1944 assassination attempt on Hitler, 7,000 who were considered enemies of the state were rounded up.   Almost 5,000 of those were killed.  Von Moltke, who had been arrested before the attempt in January 1944 for suspicion of anti-regime actions, was caught up with them.

His crime - since he did not condone violence -was created out of thin air:  Having discussed a post-war Germany based on moral and democratic principles, it was construed that this represented treason as it assumed the defeat of Nazi Germany.  Von Moltke was sentenced to death on 11 January 1945 and executed by hanging 12 days later on 23 January 1945 at the age of 37.

Besides all of this, Von Moltke wrote letters.

His correspondence with his wife Freya spanned over 1600 letters.  These letters - he wrote in very small script and rather illegibly - were hidden by his wife in beehives on the Kreisau estate and taken with her when she fled Germany following the war.  Many of the letters, dated from 22 August 1939 to 11 January 1945 (the day of his sentencing) constitute Letters to Freya.

I know what you are thinking:  This seems like a great deal of lead up to a book you have not read.  And what the heck is a "Pre-Review"?

In fairness, I have read 20% of it.  And by "Pre-Review", I wanted to capture my pre-completion impressions, because I really value the description of this man and what I am reading.

Some quotes from the what I have already read:

"But soldiers can never win this war; they can only lose it; only civilians can win it." - 01 September 1939

"As for the question of our allegedly putting our heads in the sand at Kreisau, I have this to say:  It is our duty to recognize what is obnoxious, to analyze it, and to rise above it in a synthesis which enables us to make use of it.  Whoever looks the other way for lack of ability to recognize it or of strength to surmount what he has recognized, is indeed putting his head in the sand....Peace is not complacency.  Whoever lets black be white and evil good for the sake of outward calm does not deserve peace and is putting his head in the sand.  But whoever knows at all times the difference between good and evil, and does not doubt it, however great the triumph of evil seems to be, has raised the first stone for overcoming evil." - 01 June 1940

Reading the biography of his life and starting through his own words, I realize that I need this book. I need this man.  I need to understand how one processes and deals with a world that is rushing headlong towards an appointment with destiny it thinks it desires, but does so without understanding what that actually means.