Freya von Moltke

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Freya von Moltke, 2009

Freya Countess von Moltke (born March 29, 1911 in Cologne as Freya Maria Helene Ada Deichmann ; † January 1, 2010 in Norwich , Vermont ) was a German resistance fighter against National Socialism , writer and lawyer . She was best known to the general public as the widow of the resistance fighter Helmuth James Graf von Moltke .

Live and act

childhood and education

Freya von Moltke was born on March 29, 1911 in Cologne as the daughter of the banker Carl Theodor Deichmann (grandson of Wilhelm Ludwig Deichmann ) and his wife Ada, née von Schnitzler. One of her brothers was Hans Deichmann . She was baptized on May 13, 1911 in the Antoniterkirche by the liberal Protestant pastor Carl Jatho . After completing secondary school at the Liebfrauenschule , she attended a home economics school near Gera after a break . There she found joy in learning. Heads of house prepared her for the Abitur. After graduating from high school in October 1930 at the Kaiserin-Augusta-Schule in her hometown, she studied law first at the University of Cologne and then in 1935 at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Berlin with work on authentication and public belief. To interpret § 1155 BGB on Dr. iur. PhD .

Political activity

The Moltke estate in Kreisau (Silesia)

In 1940, together with her husband and Peter and Marion Yorck von Wartenburg, she founded a group that was concerned about a democratic society after the end of National Socialist tyranny. In the same year, this group developed into the Kreisau district , named after the von Moltke family estate in the Silesian village of Kreisau . She organized three meetings with like-minded people in May 1942, October 1942 and June 1943 with the aim of drafting society for a post-war period.

With their support, the Moltke estate in Kreisau was converted into a meeting place after 1990, which serves the German-Polish and European understanding. In 2004 a community foundation was established in Berlin with the aim of securing the Kreisau meeting place in the long term and promoting the work done there: the Freya von Moltke Foundation for the New Kreisau . Freya von Moltke actively supported this cause. She was also honorary chairman of the foundation board of the Kreisau Foundation for European Understanding (sponsor of the Kreisau meeting place) and of the board of trustees of the Institute for Cultural Infrastructure Saxony in Görlitz .

Personal

Wedding picture of Freya Deichmann (left) with Helmuth James Graf von Moltke on October 18, 1931. On the right the two mothers

In 1931 she married Helmuth James von Moltke and in 1937 they had their first son, Helmuth Caspar (* 1937). In 1941 the couple had their second son, Konrad (1941–2005). Her husband was arrested by the Gestapo in January 1944 and executed in Plötzensee on January 23, 1945 . Towards the end of the war, Freya von Moltke left Kreisau and fled with her two sons.

After the Second World War, she lived from 1947 to 1956 in South Africa , the home of her late mother-in-law, where her two sons grew up. She got to know the Protestant cultural philosopher Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy and moved to live with him in 1960 in Norwich (Vermont) in the USA , where she lived until her death.

Honors

Honors during your lifetime

Posthumous honors

On her 100th birthday (March 2011) she was remembered with an event program. “A life in the service of humanity” was the title of the program. It started on February 24th. Participants in the program included the Melanchthon Academy Cologne and Freya von Moltke's baptistery, the Cologne Antoniterkirche.

Deichmann family grave, Melaten cemetery, Cologne: inscription Freya von Moltke.

In Cologne Trinitatiskirche an ecumenical memorial service was held at her 100th birthday, at which the then Federal President Christian Wulff attended. Margot Käßmann , member of the board of trustees of the “Freya von Moltke Foundation for the New Kreisau”, preached.

On her 101st birthday, after two years of planning, on the initiative of the foundation, the city of Cologne and Protestant and Catholic agencies, a glass stele designed by the Mönchengladbach artist Christian Bauer was set up in front of Freya von Moltke's birthplace in the presence of her son.

2018 was in Cologne-Deutz , the Freya von Moltke street named after her.

Publications

Kreisau Castle (2005)
  • (Ed.): Letters to Freya 1933–1945. (Letters from her husband). CH Beck, Munich ³2005, ISBN 3-406-35279-0 .
  • Memories of Kreisau 1930–1945. CH Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-51064-7 .
  • (with Annedore Leber ): For and against. Decisions in Germany 1918–1945. Mosaik-Verlag, Berlin / Frankfurt am Main 1961.
  • The defense of European humanity. In: Supplement to the weekly newspaper Das Parlament from June 28, 2004, From Politics and Contemporary History , B 27/2004, Bonn 2004.
  • Helmuth James and Freya von Moltke: Farewell letters Tegel prison September 1944 – January 1945. CH Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-61375-3 .

literature

Films and plays

Web links

Commons : Freya von Moltke  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entry on Freya von Moltke from her baptistery, the Antoniterkirche Cologne. Retrieved January 24, 2015 .
  2. ↑ Jörg Böhnk: Service for a courageous woman from Cologne. In: Kölner Stadtanzeiger, December 16, 2010, p. 35.
  3. ↑ Specification of their training based on: Kölner Stadtanzeiger, March 18, 2011, p. 25.
  4. ^ Freya von Moltke Foundation for the New Kreisau.
  5. ^ The Foundation: Freya von Moltke. Accessed June 2018 .
  6. ^ Committee for the Promotion of German-French-Polish Cooperation e. V. weimarer-dreieck.eu, accessed on January 3, 2010 .
  7. ↑ Evangelical Church in the Rhineland: Federal President comes to honor Freya von Moltke.
  8. ↑ Welt online March 30, 2012 ( Memento from March 31, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ↑ Stele in honor of Freya Countess von Moltke at the Deichmannhaus . In: KuLaDig, Kultur.Landschaft.Digital. (accessed July 7, 2020).
  10. ↑ Central name archive. (pdf, 361 kB) In: Official Gazette of the City of Cologne. July 25, 2018, pp. 304/308 , accessed July 28, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Moltke, Freya von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Moltke, Freya Countess von (full name); Deichmann, Freya Maria Helene Ada (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer, widow of the resistance fighter Helmuth James Graf von Moltke
DATE OF BIRTH March 29, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH January 1, 2010
PLACE OF DEATH Norwich , Vermont