Letters to Freya, 1939-1945

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In his WW II position as legal adviser to the German high command, Count von Moltke daringly fought for the lives of Soviet POWs, prevented the killing of hostages and helped many Jews escape Germany. He was also a key organizer of the secret Kreisau Circle, a group dedicated to planning the new German state that would arise after the expected fall of Hitler. These chatty letters to his wife (plus one to a British friend discussing the German Resistance in general terms) constitute a day-by-day account of the count's official work at military headquarters in Berlin, mixed with comments on his visits to various European capitals, expressions of affection toward his family, and the deepening of his Christian faith. Arrested by the Gestapo in 1944 for his secret activities, his continuing letters to his wife were smuggled out by the prison chaplain. He was tried for high treason and hanged in 1945. His letters confirm the exalted character of this authentic hero and provide vivid word pictures of conditions in wartime Germany; however, readers expecting significant revelations about von Moltke's Resistance activities will be disappointed. Photos. (June)

Library Journal

Count Helmuth von Moltke was many things--devoted husband and father, landowner and farmer, lawyer and government employee under the Nazis, intellectual--but what claims the world's attention is his constant resistance to Hitler and the roots it sprang from--his devout Christianity. Several books have been written about this admirable man, but this is the first collection of his letters to his wife during the war, when she lived on their estate and he worked in Berlin. Using his knowledge of international law, von Moltke saved thousands of lives, and he also gathered others about him who tried to plan for a postwar, post-Hitler Germany. For this, in 1945, he was executed, but his spirit lives in these letters.-- Pat Ensor, Indiana State Univ . Lib., Terre Haute