As you might remember from my Pre-Review of a month ago, the book Letters to Freya was originally recommended to me via the book The Call by Os Guinness. The reference in Guinness' book was to the writer of the letters in the book, Count Helmuth James von Moltke, a great-grand nephew of the famous Prussian (and German) general Helmuth von Moltke (The Elder) and his nephew Helmuth von Moltke (The Younger), a German General of World War I. Helmuth James was a lawyer by trade, not a military man, and became one of the major figures in the resistance to Hitler during World War II, leading a group called The Kreisau Circle, who discussed policy and prepared a series of papers about the policy Germany should take following its defeat in WW II (which they all seemed to believe would work out about as it did).
Over the time of von Molke's marriage to Freya, they wrote hundreds of letters to each other, letters that were carefully preserved by Freya in beehives to hide them from the Nazis. The span of the letters in the book cover 22 August 1939 (just prior to the formal declaration of War by Germany on Poland) to 11 January 1945, written the day after his sentencing and just before his execution on 23 January 1945.
Over the scope of the years 1939 to 19 January 1944 (when he was arrested for being present at a party where National Socialism was criticized openly), he writes letters to his wife (sometimes two a day!). They cover the gamut of his life: his work at the Abwehr (German Army Intelligence) where he used his background in international and martial law to argue for the lives of prisoners of war and civilian prisoners (including those of Jewish descent), his trips abroad to France and Demark and Belgium and Norway and Poland and Turkey, where he worked to make contacts with both local resistance and the Allies (he was never very successful in this regard), and his living arrangements including the increasing pace of Allied bombing.
He also writes of seemingly very small things as well. He is very engaged and interested in the agricultural goings on of his ancestral estate of Kreisau, asking Freya details about planting and yields and preparing for rationing and beehives. He writes to her about their family, including their two sons. He writes to her specifically to her, anticipating her visits or reflecting on how much he loves and misses her.
He also writes of his "work": I do not know why, but it took me until mid-1943 to realize that he is writing about this work in the resistance. He talks about many of the contact he has made, some familiar to us even today - Dohanyi, Canaris, Stauffenberg - and many who likely remain unknown to most of us today, some of whom survived and others who were executed as political prisoners and "traitors" to the regime. He writes of discussions and arguing and documenting policies for what a post-war Germany might look like.
After 1944 and his arrest, his letters in this volume are much abridged, mostly due to the request of Freya who summarizes his time in prison, noting that there were still letters (although quite censored) but given the personal nature of them, were not included in the time of this volume (1990) and might be released after her death.
In reading the letters, any number of things come across: von Moltke's genuine humanity and kindness, his intellectual brilliance and courage (arguing against policies supported by the highest levels of Nazi government), his understated but religious convictions, his honestly in being overwhelmed at times but never truly being hopeless about the ultimate outcome.
In the last letter written to Freya, he ends with the following:
"Dear heart, my life is finished and I can say of myself: He died in the fullness of years and life's experience. This doesn't alter the fact that I would gladly go on living and that I would gladly accompany you further on this earth. But then I would need a new task from God. The task for which God made me is done. If he has another task for me, we shall hear of it. Therefore, by all means continue your efforts to save my life, if I survive this day. Perhaps there is another task.
I'll stop, for there is nothing more to say. I mentioned nobody you should greet or embrace for me; you know yourself who is meant. All the texts we love are in my heart and in your heart. But I end by saying to you by virtue of the treasure that spoke to me and filled this humble earthen vessel:
Amen, J."
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I have to confess that the German resistance to Hitler during World War II remains a fairly unknown subject to me. I know elements of it - The White Rose Movement, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the 20 July 1944 plot - but probably like a great many in the West and of my generation and later, the assumption is often such movements were minimal at best.
Letters to Freya helped change that for me.
From the very early letters of this book, von Moltke is opposed to Hitler and the War. Over the course of his non-arrest life - almost four years August 1939 to January 1944 - he works tirelessly and at great personal risk to push back where he can push back and begins to build a movement - a non-violent one, although it involved military officers - to oppose Hitler.
The names of those he meets with are many. The editors of the letters do the kindness of identifying them, as well as giving their histories and fates. A small number survived the war; most were imprisoned, tried before so-called People's Courts, and executed, sometimes up to the ending weeks of the war.
What comes through in his letters is a man of many interests and talents who is thrust into a situation that he did not expect, but does his duty as he sees fit under tremendously difficult circumstances (imagine the modern equivalent of convincing others to push back on a so-called Fuhrer Order from the very top in the modern world merely by force of personality), risking the disapproval of his superiors (and disapproval then meant much more than a sharply worded e-mail) in defense of captured enemy combatants, resistors, ordinary citizens. He clearly wishes he were back on his beloved estate, thinking on agricultural matters and enjoying his wife and children, but understands that his calling in that time was to be somewhere else, pushing back against the darkness in the position that God had placed him.
Von Moltke was a man of non-violence, at one point in his final letters he notes "Just think how wonderfully God prepared this, his unworthy vessel. At the very moment when there was danger that I might be drawn into active preparation of a putsch (Ed. note, the 20 July 1944 plot) - it was the evening of the 19th that Stauffenberg came to Peter - that I was taken away, so that I should be and remain free from all connection with the use of violence".
He then goes on to relate everything else God did to prepare him for his hour in the courtroom: giving him socialist leanings to remove him from suspicion as a Land owner of interests; humbling him "...as I have never been humbled before, so that I had to lose all pride, so that at last I understand my sinfulness after 38 years, so that I learn to beg for his forgiveness and trust to his mercy; putting him in prison with enough time so that his family can arrange their interests and his earthly thoughts; that he experienced the pain of parting and terror of death and then filling him with love and hope; that he talked with friends to resolve issues and friends escaped; that his case was arranged such that he bore the brunt of the court and not his friends, and that "...your husband is chosen, as a Protestant, to be above all attacked and condemned for his friendship with Catholics, and therefore he stands before Freisler (the presiding jurist of the trial) not as a Protestant, not as a Prussian, not as a German - all this was explicitly excluded in the trial... - But as a Christian and nothing else."
"For what a mighty task your husband was chosen: all the trouble the Lord took with him, the infinite detours, the intricate zigzag curves, all suddenly find their explanation in one hour on the 10th of January 1945. Everything acquires its meaning in retrospect, which was hidden. Mami and Papi, the brothers and sister, the little sons, Kreisau and its troubles, the work camps and the refusal to put out flags or belong to the Party or its organizations. Curtis and the English trips, Adam and Peter and Carlo, it has all at last become comprehensible in a single hour. For this one hour the Lord took all that trouble (emphasis mine)."
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Letters to Freya is a number works rolled up into one. It is a love story between a man and his wife. It is a history about World War II as seen from the inside of both Germany and government apparatus. It is a moral work about the art and practice of non-violent protest and building consensus. It is a book about what one tries to build knowing the bottom is falling out of the current paradigm. It is a religious work about a man and his God and how he served Him. It is an underground work about living through a sort of occupation.
It is a painfully honest story of a man and his failings and his moral courage.
Would I recommend this book? Without question. Clocking in at 412 pages, it is perhaps a little long for those that do not enjoy long non-fictional works - but being broken as it is into individuals years and letters, it makes it much easier to read in short chunks. Even with the helpful footnotes, one can become lost in the names and places.
But the work rewards the reader who sticks with it (or like me, is likely going to need to read it one more time). Its ending -von Molke's ending - is both tragic and triumphant. In the end, he wins the ultimate victory after having to pay the ultimate earthly price. In 38 years, he arguably accomplished more than many do in twice that many years.
A great many people would believe they have moral courage and are resisting evil. Von Moltke actual did it. And for that alone, the book is worth your consideration.
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