Last Letters Read online

  Tomorrow I will take up the various trails here once again and will report back to you. I spoke with Müller8 for half an hour on Friday. He is really somebody, no doubt about it. He promised me he’d speak to you again, but there’s no question that he wants to have you killed. He doesn’t take you altogether seriously, and thinks you should have kept out of it, since you’re a philosopher and your place is among books. He figures you’re not a man of action. The trial is still ahead for you to mount your defense, he pointed out, but he would meet with you again if I’d like. They’ve been so loyal, he said—whereas you!!! With me he was polite, friendly in fact, and sincere to a degree, very thorough and not impatient. He was certainly not displeased with me. He came running after me and said that when everything was over, I should come by to see him again and he would give me a detailed explanation of the circumstances so I’d see that they hadn’t done you an injustice!!! At one point I said that as your wife, I think very highly of you, and he replied that I should certainly hold to that view, but I mustn’t resent their need to prosecute you. That’s how it went. I hope it didn’t ruin anything! He encouraged me to write a letter to Himmler and another to Hitler. Should I? I’ll write up a draft, and tomorrow I’m also going to see Dix.

  Last night I spoke with Ulla [Oldenbourg]9 about whether it might be possible to continue being supported by you, not losing you, yet not disturbing you on the new paths that you will be taking, far from mine. This has been preying on my mind, but in a hopeful way.

  Yes, I find the little picture of Casparchen beautiful, but don’t you want to hold on to it, my dear? Oh, how I hate to stop writing. I hope I’ll be able to continue. It brings me so much happiness.

  I feel close to you, my Jäm, in love. I plead for you in burning love and in pleading I feel very close to you. I’ll write more tomorrow. I am your P.

  1. Adolf Zeumer, the manager of the Kreisau estate’s agricultural operations.

  2. The Kreisau estate had land in the villages of Wierischau, Kreisau, and Gräditz.

  3. Great Owl and Zobten are mountains in the vicinity of Kreisau.

  4. Washington, D.C.: Helmuth’s brother Wilhelm Viggo von Moltke had been working in the United States as an architect since 1940 and later served in the US Army. Freya here disguises the country she is referring to.

  5. Lionel Curtis was close to the British government and they would have been aware of the threat to Helmuth’s life.

  6. Harald and Dorothee Poelchau.

  7. Helmuth and Freya first met in Grundlsee, Austria, in July 1929, when she was eighteen years old; see Biographical Note.

  8. Heinrich Müller, the chief of the Gestapo.

  9. Freya and Helmuth were impressed by Ulla Oldenbourg’s ability to provide emotional support and shape events by means of vigorous prayer. She was a follower of the Christian Science movement, which originated in America and sees the principle of the universe in God and in the spiritual realm. It teaches that devotion to the divine origin can heal or surmount diseases, sins, and death.

  HELMUTH JAMES TO FREYA, OCTOBER 10, 1944

  Tegel, 10 Oct 1944

  My dear, yesterday the food supplies you sent arrived and were tremendously welcome, because I’d just eaten up the last bacon in the morning and I was almost out of sugar. My dear, I’m going overboard with the food, because, first of all, it’s cold; second, because food adds such pleasant diversity to the day; and third, because when it’s morning, I expect that I’ll be dead within thirty-six hours, and when it’s the evening, I put my death within twenty-four hours. These short-term extensions of life stifle all my normal urges to be thrifty. It is bound to happen soon; I’m not nervous in the least about whether it will happen.

  My love, as much as I try to stop myself, my mind keeps dwelling on your future life. And maybe I can say something about it without causing any harm. The time now won’t be so bad for you, the time right after my death will also be all right, but after a while, your daily routine will set in, and that will be the worst moment. But you have to go through this low point and bear the pain. Don’t try to skip past this part by overloading yourself with activities or else you won’t reap the fruits of your tears, and you will constrict that little place inside you where I want to go on dwelling. Pain expands that little space. My love, I was shying away from writing this to you because it smacks of possessiveness from beyond the grave and because it is a cruel piece of advice, easy for me to dispense, hard for you to follow. But in the end I thought about all the unpleasant advice I’ve given you in my life, so I can’t now omit this bit of advice.—I found a very beautiful song in Poelchau’s hymnal: no. 296, “What mean ye, to weep.”

  My love, I have nothing to say. Everything is good as it is. I have firm and confident trust in the Lord that He will continue to guide me and you and us in a way that is good for us. I ask that He may rescue me from this plight in this temporal realm as well, but I feel absolutely certain that nothing and no one can do me harm and that your pain—should you have to bear it—will also make its meaning and its fruits manifest.

  Farewell, my dearly beloved heart; may He shelter and safeguard you and your little sons. J.

  FREYA TO HELMUTH JAMES, OCTOBER 11, 1944

  Wednesday

  My dear, I’m just returning from my visit to you, after eating in town. I sat in the waiting room and sent all my thoughts of love up to you. I felt you thinking of me and I joined with you and was truly happy to feel that again, so fully and warmly and strongly. Then the friendly guard came with your things. The vest was still warm from you and although it didn’t exactly bring a kiss, there was a bit of one there. I took it all and went on my way in the knowledge that you were going with me. My Jäm, you’ve written me many beautiful things since then. I am happy about so much. Before I come to the practical part, I have to talk it all out with you. I was happiest of all with what you wrote about my life without you. I’d wanted to write about that in the last letter, but didn’t, for the sake of our friends’ sleep.1 Actually I’d just spoken about it with Ulla [Oldenbourg], and she told me she still has as strong, powerful, and loving a bond with her husband as ever and continues to feel supported and guided by him, and keeps feeling his nearness and his life. But it’s no easy matter to retain all this truly alive in herself, to care for and watch over and continue to want that bond, and that requires time, solitude, leisure, inner balance, and serenity, and I can’t allow the busyness of everyday life to atrophy our most delicate organs, the ones that allow us even now to intuit our way out of this existence. But maybe that’s where you’ll be, my beloved, my eternal soul mate, and if I don’t want to lose you, I have to take care of these organs, overcome my penchant for pointless busyness, and struggle to preserve my contact with God. That, my love, is what I’d wanted to write to you the day before yesterday, and then yesterday your beautiful description of the pain I am feeling about you arrived, and it said exactly what I wanted to be told. Why is that a cruel piece of advice? I’ve known for quite a long time that the pain I will feel about you will be my most precious possession if you should be taken from me, and that is when I will pray to God to let me make the most of it, to live within it. I understand quite well what you write to me, and it makes me feel happy and validated, and I am grateful for your words, as they show me once again that we are of one mind. (Have you given me a lot of unpleasant advice in our lives? I’ve been thinking about it and haven’t discovered any instance of it, apart, perhaps, from your saying that I need to be prepared for you to die an early death.) But now I have to add that I am not convinced that I will be up to this task. I do see that this is where the continuation and culmination of our marriage must lie, and I picture the task before me, but I’m weak, worldly, earthbound, eager, and capable, and I spread myself thin among 1,000 things, you know all that full well, my dearest, I’ll have quite a lot to do and work on, my daily routine will be immense, and in the evenings I’ll wearily sink into bed. Oh, my Jäm, I certainly see that it shou
ldn’t be this way. I’ll need God’s help in this, my Jäm, and you need to pray to Him on my behalf. I don’t know whether you’ll actually find a way to be with me, my dear; if God requires us to be separated, I will feel and discern it, but I think I shouldn’t dare to draw you into my daily life. Oh, my Jäm, now we’re approaching questions that we are barred from judging and understanding here on earth. I’ve said what I wanted to say about this. You can think it over, and you will now realize that I know the path I will be traveling. What you write about being lifted out of space and time is also quite lovely. I had never thought it through to its logical consequences, and it is comforting, very much so. Thank God that the relativity and inessentiality of time can be sensed even here on earth, and that props me up when I contemplate the fifty to sixty long years—no, of course short years—ahead of me. My Jäm, all this might be demanded of us so that we truly learn to overcome materialism, so that we recognize once again that the spirit lies within us, so that we know that we are God’s children. While in the throes of tormenting thoughts, I can find this conviction enveloping me with a feeling of true happiness. Then everything within me dissolves, and I feel and know then that I have the prospect of seeing within me not my self but God’s creature, and so of escaping the terrible grip of pharisaism, complacency, and ambition. Oh, that comprises everything. My Jäm, all that pertains to me, yet it also pertains to us. Still, I need to turn to other subjects in this letter so that I won’t have to give our good man2 three sheets of paper. I’m so terribly presumptuous. I take everything he offers me, and he offers me so very much. I have no choice! What good fortune that you’re still here; every day I consider (and fear) that you might be taken away and we have nothing but thoughts and prayers to rely on. Taken away, that is, to a similar place, as I was told yesterday that I could come by again next Tuesday to inquire about your indictment, which would not be issued prior to that day. I don’t get the impression that the man is lying to me; his way of discussing what was on the agenda for each individual day of this week strongly indicated that it was true. But I think your time will come next week. It’s also unclear how things will proceed from here. Sometimes it really takes only twenty-four hours until the trial, but at times things get drawn out. It took Romai [Reichwein]’s3 husband fourteen days. But it will be his turn this week. I went to see Dix yesterday, to ask what you wanted to know, but I didn’t have your very concrete questions yet. So I’ll go again tomorrow. I just asked general questions about the nature of the trials and about Freisler. That’s what I’ll tell you about first. Yes, it is a proper trial, and in Dix’s view, in contrast to Poelchau’s, the verdict will be decided only on the basis of the proceedings. The proceedings start with the brief formal statement of charges, then there’s a very thorough interrogation of the accused. Dix emphasized that Freisler is an outstanding “examiner” who asks very thorough and varied questions. He allows the accused to speak, but he’s so temperamental that he often interrupts. When that is over, the charges are brought forward, along with the oral defense, followed by the defendant’s closing statement, where he can provide a comprehensive account of his case. On the subject of Freisler, Dix said he considers him the smartest man in the entire regime, a real crackerjack and a brilliant interrogator. He is said to be like a boa constrictor with its prey, crushing any defendant who isn’t intellectually up to par. A trial presided over by Freisler could at times be breathtakingly fascinating. He’s reputed to be quite educated and highly knowledgeable. So he’s a worthy match,4 something I hadn’t known at all. I thought all he did was shout. Dix has the same basic view about him as we do, but it seems to me that one ought to be well informed about his stature. I personally still have a need to tell you not to put up with anything. If he shouts, shout back! I think it’s important for you to emerge from this process standing tall. Being daring will get you further with him. I also feel that you have to defend yourself to the utmost, but you shouldn’t be evasive, and you won’t need to. Above all, you can’t let them drag you through the mud! At the very least, these men have to realize that they are dealing with an intellectual force that they can’t touch, no matter what they try. I can’t tell how Dix knows that you have “excellent deportment,” but he did bring it up. The SS men bring it up as well, as Peter [Yorck] is still very much on everyone’s mind. You truly do have this kind of deportment, coming from deep within you, and I have no doubt that you’ll have it on the day of your trial too. But I think it’s important for the others to sense it. The idea that you should be subjected to all that shouting is deeply repugnant to me. That all sounds easy to say and is in fact quite difficult, but destiny can also demand something from you. You are quite a special person, so you’ll manage. Whether this will or will not entail death is a different question. You can be quite bold—indeed, you have to be—for you are in God’s hands.

  Once more, in closing: I’m happy you know how great my pain will be when I have to go on living without you. I’m full of the most profound gratitude for the contents of these weeks. Yes, we have been given a great gift, so rich and marvelous, and it is such great fortune that we have been given it together. May God grant us the strength to keep on saying, “Thy will be done.” I’m sending you a tender embrace, my beloved Jäm, because I love you through and through, and your body too, your hands, your head, your face. Haven’t I often, when we were in bed together, taken a long and intensive look at your face, a long, long look, while you were reading! In these moments, I often found myself thinking about how I ought to absorb your image into me forever! With all my love, I am your P.

  1. Harald and Dorothee Poelchau, whom Freya generally refers to as “the friends.”

  2. Harald Poelchau.

  3. Rosemarie Reichwein, the wife of Kreisau Circle member Adolf Reichwein.

  4. Freya uses the English word here.

  HELMUTH JAMES TO HIS SONS, CASPAR AND KONRAD, OCTOBER 11, 1944

  Tegel, 11 Oct 1944

  Dear Caspar, dear Konrad,

  Since I will probably no longer be alive in just a few days, and since I will therefore not be able to stand by you and help you in your lives, while I still have time, I want at the very least to write you a letter. I really don’t know you, little Konrad, because the last time I saw you in good health, you were still a baby, and now you’re already a little person.

  I want to begin with the most important thing of all. Make sure always and unwaveringly to love each other and Reyali.1 I know that it will be that way, but I have to make a point of saying it. You see, I got so much love and warmth from my mother that a person could draw on and be warmed by it his entire life. Reyali will give this to you as well. But you also have to bear in mind that I spent the second part of my life surrounded by Reyali’s love and that she will now be without her husband. Never forget that, because I’m asking you to show her enough love to keep her from feeling so acutely that I’m no longer there. You two will have to love her for me as well.