# Helmuth James von Moltke



## Theoretical (Dec 26, 2010)

http://www.amazon.com/Helmuth-<WBR>Von-Moltke-Leader-Against/dp/<WBR>0333140303/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&<WBR>qid=1293333323&sr=8-1

I cannot recommend this book heartily enough to those who are interested in World War II and its resistance movements, Christian lesser magistrates, and one of the most remarkable martyrs of the 20th Century.

This book is about Helmuth James Graf (Count) von Moltke, a fascinating member of the conscience-based German resistance in WWII. I first heard of him, interestingly enough, on a Christ the Center episode about Michael Haykin's collection of love letters _The Christian Lover. _While only two of his letters appear in that little book, and those are reflections on his trial, God's providence, and his love for his wife and children, this biography contains hundreds of his more than 1600 letters to his wife Freya from 1939 to 1945. Because both of their handwriting was wretched, Moltke's family name, and his work inside military intelligence, he was able to write quite openly and unhindered to his wife about countless details of the regime's atrocities, his office's attempts to blunt those evils, the development of his thought, and the rich love he had for his bride and their children. 

Moltke was the great-grandson of Bismarck's Field Marshall and the man who founded the estate of Kreisau in what is now Poland. Incidentally he was also the grand-nephew of the Kaiser's Chief of General Staff in the first half of World War I. His parents were interestingly some of the most prominent Christian Scientists in Germany, including being the main translators of _Science and Health _into German, yet they raised their children as Lutherans.

As the family estate had become heavily indebted and because he did not wish to be a rural farmer vocationally, Moltke sought a legal career, pursuing it in both Germany and successfully passing the English bar. He would later use this career for great good, first as a lawyer in Berlin in the 1930s who assisted Jewish families in fleeing the country. Though offered a judgeship, he declined it because he would have to join the Nazi Party. In August 1939, he successfully got posted to the International Law section of the Abwehr, German Military Intelligence.

From this posting, he did a number of remarkable things to blunt the evils of the Nazi regime. For instance, he successfully pushed for better treatment of POWs and captured resistance soldiers using international law. He also used his posting to warn Danish officials about the impending deportation of its Jewish population, ensuring that an overwhelming majority of them would safely escape the country. Moltke also arranged for a copy of the last phamplet the White Rose student resistance created to England for it to be distributed across Europe _en masse. _Moltke also provided assistance to various resistance movements agains the Nazi regime in Europe.

As if this weren't enough, he also helped informally gather a group of German clergy and laymen to help discuss ways that a crushed and defeated Germany could be rebuilt along Christian lines. While one may disagree with some of the ideas in it (he was quite socialistic despite being a Count who consciously stood to lose much of his personal estate by his desired policies)

What makes Moltke particularly intriguing for a Christian to study is that Moltke started in the 1930s as one who was unsure about Christianity and ended up a devout Lutheran by the early part of WWII. For reasons of conscience and out of fear for making him a martyr, Moltke opposed attempts to assassinate Hitler and rather would have sought to try him before the world.

After he was arrested in early 1944, he later eventually became linked to some of the July 20 assassination plotters and thus was slated for trial before the People's Court. Fascinatingly, all of the charges against him were dropped due to lack of evidence and his vigorous defense. What he was eventually executed for was as he put it "how Christianity can prove a sheet-anchor in time of chaos." The German judge, Roland Friesler, actually openly admitted that "only in one respect are we (National Socialism) and Christianity are alike; we demand the whole man!" Similarly he asked the rhetorical question of Moltke "Who do you take your orders from? From the Other World or from Adolf Hitler? Who commands your loyalty and your faith?" 

Moltke's final two letters to his wife are powerful farewell in this world letters that point deeply to his faith in Christ and hope in eternal life. Here is a man who had learned to live and die well for the glory of God. It is also a great look at a how a lesser magistrate can alleviate and blunt the evils of even the most totalitarian of states.

Finally, there's a reflection about God's providences within the timing of his imprisonment that is truly remarkable from one of his final letters to his wife, Freya.



> The decisive phrase in the trial was, "Herr Graf, we National Socialists and Christianity have one thing in common and one only: we demand the whole man." Was he clear what he said there? Just think how wonderfully God prepared this His unworthy vessel. At the very moment when the danger arose that I might be drawn into active preparations for a rising [Stauffenberg meeting a close associate of Moltke's right after the latter was arrested in January 1944]...I was taken away, which means that I was and remain free of all connection with the use of violence. Then He endued me with this socialistic leaning which frees me as a great landower from any suspicion of looking after my own interests. Then He humbles me as I have never been humbled before, so that I must lose all pride, so that at last after thirty-eight years I understand my sinfulness, so that I learn to pray for His forgiveness and trust in His grace. Then He lets me come here so that I may see you standing firm and can be free of thoughts of you and the boys, that is to say of worries about you. He gives me time and opportunity to arrange everything that can be arranged, so that all earthly cares may fall away. Then He lets me experiences to their utmost depths the agony of parting, the terror of death and the fear of hell, so that all these are behind me. Then He endows me with Faith, Hope, and Charity in such measure that it is really overwhelming. [He then describes specific providences that cause his trial to focus solely on Moltke's and others' Christianity] Then your husband is picked out and, as a Protestant, attacked and condemned primarily because of his friendship with Catholics, and therefore stands not as a nobleman, not as a Prussian, not as a German---*no as a Christian and nothing else.*


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## Edward (Dec 26, 2010)

You might also be interested in reading up on Heinrich Grueber, who pastored a Calvinist Church in Berlin both before being sent to the camps, and after his release by the Nazis a few years later. After the war, he was active in the Soviet sponsored peace movement, but he is interesting in that he is one of the few faith based resistance guys who survived the war.


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## TimV (Dec 26, 2010)

It was mostly left leaning Protestants like Von Moltke, Bonhoffer etc... with ties to Soviet style socialism that actively conspired against the government. The vast majority did the same as the vast majority of conservative Christian soldiers in the US army during our last war and obeyed orders. Heinrici was typical.


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## calgal (Dec 26, 2010)

Tim:
Category:German conservatives in the German Resistance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Category:German Protestants opposed to the Third Reich - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Happy reading!


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## TimV (Dec 26, 2010)

I'd definitely be interested in hearing any stories about 5 point, free market Calvinists trying to kill the duly constituted head of state during a time of war. Not that I would have disagreed! On the contrary. I just wish we'd..... well, I can't go there. But I can point out that we're not quite as "holy" as we Americans often think we are.


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## Leslie (Dec 26, 2010)

I would love to read this. How would I find it in print in London? The world's largest bookstore is there. I can't access Amazon from southern Ethiopia where I live and I'll have no internet access during my few days in London next month.


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## Philip (Dec 26, 2010)

TimV said:


> I'd definitely be interested in hearing any stories about 5 point, free market Calvinists trying to kill the duly constituted head of state during a time of war. Not that I would have disagreed! On the contrary. I just wish we'd..... well, I can't go there. But I can point out that we're not quite as "holy" as we Americans often think we are.


 
Definitely agreed. As Christians in the United States, we have to remember that our home is the Kingdom of God, not any kingdom of this world. This is something that the religious left sometimes grasps better than the religious right. As Christians, we are called to have a prophetic voice in society, something that we on the conservative side of things often find it hard to do.


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## Theoretical (Dec 30, 2010)

One of the things I appreciated about Moltke is how he saw Germany's problems as most chiefly spiritual in nature, and that a crushed Germany would need to be rebuilt from the bottom up in community. Also notable is that, unlike some in the leftist resistance, he took no joy in the advance of the Red Army, seeing Communism as much the same kind of cancer.


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## Pergamum (Dec 30, 2010)

Awesome book review!


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