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Freya von Moltke was born in 1911 in Cologne where her father Carl Theodor Deichmann ran a private bank. In 1931 she married Helmuth James Graf von Moltke and moved to the von Moltke family ranch in Kreisau, former German Lower Silesia, now a part of Poland. In 1935 she received her PhD in law from the prestigious Humboldt University in Berlin. After the unexpected death of her mother-in-law, Dorothy von Moltke, and because her husband worked in Berlin, the task of supervising the Kreisau estate fell to Freya. Under her supervision, Kreisau became both a destination for important meetings of the anti-Nazi resistance and also a refuge for persecuted friends. Both of her sons Helmuth Caspar and Konrad were born in Kreisau in 1937 and 1941.
Freya’s husband, Helmuth James von Moltke worked against the Nazis at an early stage of the regime. Inviting members of the resistance movement to Kreisau, he and his friend Peter York von Wartenburg initiated the “Kreisauer Kreis” (or Kreisau Circle), a civil resistance movement holding underground meetings to develop ideas for the post-war reconstruction of a democratic Germany fully integrated with Europe.
Following the failure of the German plot initiated by Graf Klaus Schenk von Stauffenberg to kill Hitler, in which a number of the members of the Kreisau group were involved, the Gestapo discovered the activities of the Kreisau Circle. As a consequence the Kreisau Circle was crushed and several members, including Helmuth James, paid for their involvement with their lives. Though Freya participated in meetings of Kreisau, she escaped persecution. These events are recounted in “Letters to Freya,” a published collection of the correspondence between Freya and Helmuth James von Moltke. The collection spans the years when Helmuth James practiced law in Berlin, the period of the Kreisau Circle’s secret meetings, and Helmuth James’ year (1943/1944) in prison awaiting execution. These letters represent one of the most important and detailed first-hand accounts of the German resistance movement.
After the end of WWII and the cruel loss of her husband and home at Kreisau, Freya von Moltke had to leave Kreisau since it became part of the Polish state and moved with her children to South Africa where she worked as a social worker. In 1956, she returned to Germany and emigrated to Vermont, USA in 1960 where she has since lived with her long-term partner Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy (Professor of Sociology and History of Law, Dartmouth College).
After the death of Rosemarie Reichwein in 2002, Barbara von Haeften in April 2006 and Marion Yorck von Wartenburg in April 2008, Freya has become, along with Clarita von Trott zu Solz, one of the last witnesses to the meetings of the Kreisau Circle. Thanks to her, this important part of history has been remembered. With her care and advice concerning the writings of the “Kreisauer Kreis,” her publication of the letters of her husband and her publication of the book “Memories of Kreisau,” Freya von Moltke has ensured that the work and sacrifice of the Kreisau Circle will not be forgotten.
Since its inception Freya von Moltke has been the “spiritus rector” of the New Kreisau which encompasses all organizations linked to Kreisau, including the Freya von Moltke Foundation.
Initially hesitant, Freya von Moltke agreed to give her name to our foundation. Today she plays an active role supporting the work of both this foundation and other New Kreisau initiatives.