Last Letters Read online

  1. In the Ravensbrück concentration camp. The letter survived and was donated to the Ravensbrück prison museum.

  FREYA TO HELMUTH JAMES, OCTOBER 20, 1944

  Friday evening

  My dear, I’m already at the friends’ house, my dear love. I wanted to get your little letter first. I understand so well what you write: my experience resembles yours. This respite has also made my gaze turn toward us having a life together once again, and the fact and the outcome of the Müller conversation reinforced that tendency in me even more, but today was Reichwein’s trial,1 and even though I have yet to learn the outcome, it was definitely decided by 12, when I spoke with the attorney in the superior court to give him something from Romai [Reichwein]. Romai has Reichwein’s two best friends with her, so she’s not alone. But today the whole thing kept me from feeling any false optimism. My Jäm, I certainly understand the approaches you’ve written me about. I will speak to Carl Viggo [von Moltke] again and deal with Steengracht next week. He can be told quite a bit, because he’d like to help and is very distressed about this matter. He’s quite serious about it. Last night I spent some time feeling proud that you really got to Müller, and that clouded my vision and made everything seem too rosy.—My Jäm, it seems that Hans [Deichmann] will even come with me and go from Kreisau to Upper Silesia on Sunday at noon. That is lovely and delightful. As you can imagine, he asked me to send you greetings from him. My Jäm, when should I celebrate Casparchen’s birthday,2 next Sunday? It has to be planned lovingly, since he’s already looking forward to it so much and wants to invite a good many children. Then I want to know if I may, or should, move into your room if you have to leave me. That is a childish and perhaps pointless question, but it does me good to discuss it with you. Otherwise Casparchen needs to move in, if you’d rather I stay in Mami’s room. I don’t really know what I want. I’d like to live near you.

  Harald and Dorothee Poelchau, 1927; Freya wrote and received letters at the Poelchaus’ apartment in Berlin

  My Jäm, my love, the friends have to go to bed again. But it’s so enchanting to answer such a fresh little letter. I am and will remain yours. P.

  1. The trial of their friend Adolf Reichwein at the People’s Court. He was executed the same day.

  2. Caspar’s birthday was November 2, which fell on a Thursday that year.

  HELMUTH JAMES TO FREYA, OCTOBER 21, 1944

  21 Oct 44

  How do I feel about Peter [Yorck]?1 Somewhat ashamed, because I feel as though I love him less than he does me. I had great regard for him, I was close friends with him, he was as dear to me as my brothers and your brothers, yet I’ve always felt that we’re not on an entirely equal footing, that he has given me more than he received from me, that he has been more generous to me than I was to him. That has always weighed me down a bit. If you see what I mean.—During the period after July 20th, his participation also created a distance between him and me. I was unhappy about it right from the first day, but I wasn’t able to do anything about it. Here in Tegel it has finally become better and I am probably past that altogether. The criticism of him that I feel regarding this situation—I’ve been told that he wanted to become Goerdeler’s undersecretary—is still there, because to me it’s incomprehensible how he could bring himself to do it, but this criticism is aimed lower and doesn’t strain my relationship with him any more than if I sometimes don’t agree with what you do.

  No, oddly enough, I’m not focusing at all on those I hope to meet “over there.” During the past eight days I have developed an oddly strong will to live. I suddenly have the feeling that I’m not finished here, that I have something left to do. Everything is different from when I came here. I’m not concentrating on externals here; instead, I try to polish myself on the inside. That has no effect whatever on my readiness to be done away with, but if I said “a beautiful life is coming to an end” two weeks ago, I’m now saying, more than anything, “a life whose mission was not completely fulfilled is coming to an end.” Odd, isn’t it? It’s not a strain on me at all, and it shouldn’t put a strain on you either, because we aren’t the ones to decide whether it was or wasn’t fulfilled. I just get the feeling that someone within me is saying: You haven’t achieved fulfillment yet. Well, we’ll wait and see.

  Now to Carl Viggo [von Moltke]. He must, of course, insist to Freisler that it could never have been my intention to use force, because I am generally against violence. He needs to stress that. He can also put it like this: There is certainly a lack of criminal intent on my part, even though this is difficult for me to prove as a consequence of some unfortunate entanglements. So he has to aim primarily for a prison sentence as a maximum.—He can also say that I was interested in conflicts of ideas, not in power struggles. Maybe also this: I always stayed out of politics. I always withdrew from things I was interested in, such as work camps,2 sheltering people in the village, etc., as soon as they hit the choppy waters of politics. If in this case I evidently didn’t pay enough attention to the boundary between intellectual principles and politics, it must be acknowledged that I was actually incarcerated during the pivotal half year, yet evidently my friends did not get caught up in politics until that time.

  I would celebrate little Casparchen’s birthday on the 29th. The following Sunday is too risky.—As for the question of whether Casparchen or you ought to sleep in my spot, my love: This is one of those questions about which a dead man can’t venture an opinion. You should do whatever your heart tells you.

  What you tell me about Steengracht makes me very happy. I’d actually expected it.—Maybe you could cautiously broach the question of who will actually be going to the trial, and point out that Müller’s underlings clearly hated me, so a fair judgment could hardly be expected from them. Maybe Kaltenbrunner3 has an adjutant whom Steengracht knows and can send, maybe even someone who could be persuaded to oppose Müller’s people, at least to some extent. In any case, this point is quite important, because if Lange, etc., see that someone else is there, they will report more objectively. In any case ask Steengracht to make the significance of this question quite clear. A man who is working directly under Kaltenbrunner is, however, more important than one from my office.4—Also, Steengracht could think over whether and how he might involve Bürkner. Most likely Bürkner is largely dependent on him for news, and I wouldn’t discount the possibility that he does something under pressure from Steengracht and offers a positive assessment at least of my work. That, in turn, can make matters easier for Steengracht and Kaltenbrunner.

  How feeble all these machinations are! Ultimately it’s just futile. We have to bear that in mind throughout. Only an act of God can help here. But we have to spin these thin strands of spiderwebs, none of which does any good.

  1. See Freya’s letter of October 19, 1944.

  2. See Biographical Note.

  3. Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the head of the Reich Main Security Office and the Gestapo.

  4. Helmuth was thinking of officials from his former office at the Armed Forces High Command, of which Leopold Bürkner was the head.

  HELMUTH JAMES TO FREYA, OCTOBER 24, 1944

  Tegel, 24 Oct 44

  My dear, Müller told me I could submit a written defense. He said he would pass it on to the People’s Court. I didn’t want to do that at first, but I’ve now started working on it after all.

  My love, I hope you arrived safe and sound, in time for breakfast, as it must be just about 8 o’clock there. I hope everything was all right at home, the little sons healthy and everybody loving. Tell me, did you get to extract the honey a second time? And how much honey did you harvest this year altogether? Whereas the dead were once given honey as food for the journey, I can make do with knowing about your harvest.

  I’m doing disconcertingly well. Somehow I’m not happy about that, and I wish I were in a slightly more subdued mood. But you can’t force the issue, and so I have to leave it to Him to know what this burst of good cheer might signify. When I think it over with
my limited mortal power of understanding, I tell myself: This is bound to bring on a new low, and I’d really dislike that during the trial; I am well aware that these are very self-absorbed thoughts.—It’s odd, though, how you can get used to violent death around you. I’ve been experiencing that for more than 9 months now, because people were constantly being murdered, sometimes quite summarily. At first it sickened me each time someone made his exit, but I started to take it quite calmly, and the news about Reichwein saddened me but didn’t upset me in the least. I hope that doesn’t mean I’m getting habituated, but rather that I’m gaining insight, though I don’t know, and it might be both. Only when my time has come, and the habituating factor is thus eliminated, will I know whether it was or wasn’t a matter of insight. For so many insights, there is a physical and a spiritual interpretation. The physical one is front and center, and should not be disparaged; but I’m striving for the spiritual one, and over and over again I feel unsure about whether I’ve really grasped this latter dimension. The sad thing is that these kinds of intellectual gifts and insights can’t be lastingly secured, but instead have to be regained on a daily basis; and if that process comes easily for once, it’s a clear sign that one has strayed from the path, even if that happens in the best of faith; maybe it is obtained only with the brain and not with the spirit, maybe one has fled from spirit to ethos. The deepest distrust you can have of yourself is, as a rule, still too lenient toward oneself. Regarding this intrinsically hopeless dilemma cheerfully is something that ultimately only the Holy Spirit can bestow on a person, or else the flesh in its need for comfort.—So I’m full of skepticism and misgivings about my own good mood, which unfortunately fails to put a damper on my mood.

  My dear, whatever pain you may be feeling about your husband, make sure to help the other women. You and Marion [Yorck] will have to accomplish something in this regard, because first, the two of you have been aware of the human dimensions, and second, you are, I believe, the most grounded, and third, on the whole, you have options to fall back on, materially and otherwise. I know, of course, that you’ll do this anyway, but I wanted you to know how agreeable it would be to me. Don’t let them all drift apart; instead, try to ensure that they retain the feeling of mutual support and a common cultural heritage.

  I embrace you, my love.

  J.

  FREYA TO HELMUTH JAMES, OCTOBER 24–26, 1944

  Tuesday evening

  My dear, I was very sad not to be able to write you a peaceful letter this morning. Writing to you after these two days in Kreisau and getting the letter to you quickly was very important to me. But I did it badly, and it can be made up for, can’t it?! I am well aware of the preciousness of each and every day and of each and every letter that I can still write, my dear love. In the past week I have focused far more on your life than on your death. What is prompting this? I don’t know. Most of all, I don’t want to let too much hope cut into what may be the last days we have together on earth, and yet I’m too inclined to keep spinning the thin strands and to keep up hope. It is an odd life, hovering between life and death, and therefore so intense at times. There are hours, moments of unbelievable intensity, and then many hours go by that are still close to you, but they move along calmly, hours in these days that may be the most precious for me. My love, none of this is easy to live well and in the right way, and yet it’s so astonishing that in many respects I find it a source of great happiness. You do understand that, don’t you?—Today I got right down to typing in the morning, and when I was finished with that and had gone to see Carl Dietrich [von Trotha], Romai [Reichwein] called, and I had to—and wanted to—meet with her before she goes to Kreisau tomorrow. Three hours between sentencing and death.1 Everything is very inhumane toward the wives. Nothing can be known until it is received in writing. But don’t think that this impresses me personally, or Romai. It just rebounds on the Nazis themselves. At any rate, this pace is still the norm (though not always). Then the wives receive a kind of pension upon filing an application, it seems, and, evidently, the return of their personal effects as a routine matter. I don’t care the least bit about all that, in my heart of hearts, you know that, I’m writing this only for you to be able to picture it. The children shouldn’t notice anything, etc. Now I want to tell you about Kreisau. I came home with Hans [Deichmann], well and in good time, and went to bed. When I fall into my bed, you know what I’m thinking. I think with gratitude about the way it went, and [am] certain that I will continue to think along these lines, and when everything overwhelms me, as it does from time to time (but this time that wasn’t the case), I’ve thus far always been able to think of a way out. I took another look at the sweetly sleeping little sons. Casparchen looked delicate, Konrad big and stocky, and both quite to my liking. Sunday morning was spent lounging around, but first the two boys came. They’re both so tender and dear. “Where were you?” Konrad said again, and Casparchen said, of course, that he was fine, and had apparently forgotten his obviously nasty boils altogether. Konrad gets in and out of my bed, needing to look out the window for the train, get books, etc., but keeps coming back. We had a lovely breakfast with Hans. Before we ate, I covered up the bees and hid the letters in the hives for the time being. I also stopped by Zeumer and Sister Ida [Hübner]. At 4 the nicely spiffed-up sons—in their white silk shirts—and I went to Aunt Leno [Hülsen]’s for high tea. It was her birthday. I reassured them all with a good mood and normal behavior. I am in fact calm, and I am doing well, but they’re worried about us. Carl Viggo [von Moltke] will come as soon as I call him. He would like to help you, and he’s quite willing, but he’s not all worked up like Maack.2 He has a very good picture of you, in any case, regarding his assessment of your position in this matter. I didn’t come back until noon, on my bike, and right after eating I spent two hours going over the fields with Zeumer, I was in the Schloss and wherever else I wanted to get to, had a relaxed snack with Asta [Wendland], did my packing, and at 7:30 traveled by way of Breslau, where I met up with Muto [Yorck] and Marion [Yorck] before I boarded the train from Breslau and managed to get a lovely corner seat. That was the course of events in Kreisau, and you know what I’ve been doing here since then.—My dear, I’m full of love, my beloved, I hope you feel it and it warms you. I see you, my darling, sitting atop your table wrapped in your blanket, as Poelchau recently told me. Yesterday the prospect of your death grabbed hold of my thoughts again. It is absolutely crucial that we not lose sight of it. Our skill lies in being able to see that and still not to despair, but rather to feel gratitude and a strong love. Death lies ahead for you, and for me, a life alone in which our love must remain alive. We have to embrace both death and life, compose ourselves, and stay close together, my dear love: how difficult that is, yet how full of the most beautiful consolations. I love you very much, my heart. I embrace you, and I am and will stay, stay, stay yours, your wife, your P., and no one else’s “your.”

  1. Beginning in September 1943, the clemency proceedings were sped up considerably. “The haste with which the ‘clemency proceedings’ were curtailed . . . creates the impression that the Reich Ministry of Justice had worked itself up into a bloodlust.” Victor von Gostomski and Walter Loch, Der Tod von Plötzensee: Erinnerungen, Ereignisse, Dokumente 1942–1945 (Meitingen/Freising: Kyrios-Verlag, 1969), 25.

  2. Freya had to console the attorney Maack about Helmuth’s situation.

  HELMUTH JAMES TO FREYA, OCTOBER 26, 1944

  26 Oct 44

  My love, there’s nothing new, I slept poorly, for after the first time I woke up, I didn’t fall asleep again but instead worked on my defense, which was also quite useful. The more I think it over, the more important it seems to me not to excuse anything, not to tone things down, but rather to mount a very aggressive defense. Then there will be a tough battle, but the way I see it, that will be the only chance to achieve something, not only for me but above all for the others involved: Husen, Carl Dietrich [von Trotha], Einsiedel, etc. I’ll try that, in any case
.

  My dear love, I have no more time to write something tender because I have to try to get as far as possible with the written defense. But you know everything. Bon voyage, my dear, give Casparchen—and everyone else—a warm embrace from me. May God watch over you.

  HELMUTH JAMES TO FREYA, OCTOBER 26, 1944

  Tegel, 26 Oct 44

  My dear, everything that came was splendid, as always, and received with gratitude. Today I’ll give you a letter to Casparchen, but it has to arrive with the postal service, it seems to me, and 4 other letters,1 which you should or shouldn’t hand over after my death, as you see fit.

  My love, since yesterday my death has become closer and more real, and I am very happy about it. I’m in good spirits even so, or for that very reason, and nonetheless determined to fight for my life. But there is no doubt whatsoever that only a miracle of God can save me. Today, when I was half asleep, I had an odd idea, half idea, half dream. I went to Plötzensee for my execution, and the executioner said, “How am I supposed to execute just the left one without the right one; that won’t work.” And when they looked at me, you had grown onto my right side, like a Siamese twin, making an execution impossible. It was very beautiful, and then I was fully awake.