Last Letters Read online

  I won’t be able to stand by you and help you in your lives, the way I would have wished, nor can I give you any general advice, because we all have to learn and gather experience for ourselves. We are always learning, and I learned many of the things that are most important to me during the months I was in prison. This knowledge isn’t something I can transfer to you: See whether you wind up learning and experiencing the same things. I just want to tell you that I will die in the certainty that I will come to God through Jesus Christ and that the four of us, Reyali, the two of you, and I, will always be united in His love; no one can know how, so it’s impossible to inquire into it either. I’m not saying this to make you believe it: One can’t just be told these things by someone else, you either know it or you don’t; knowing it is a gift of grace. I’m telling you this so that you know at least one important part of me, and above all, so that you have respect for this faith, even if you don’t share it. You have to respect every faith held by your fellow man, for that is the most important point in every person.

  I want to tell you one more thing: You’ll surely learn on your own where my father came from. But it’s not as self-evident that you will know what kind of mother I had, and what kind of people her parents were. Still, it’s something you should know, because it is a great part of your inheritance, maybe even greater than that of your father. Take in everything you learn about them, and see to it that you also visit the land of your grandmother at some point.2 To me it’s like a second home.

  The issue that will result in my being killed will go down in history, and no one knows in what form. But I want to say the following to you: Throughout my life, even back in school, I have always fought against a spirit of narrow-mindedness and violence, of arrogance and lack of respect for others, of intolerance and an absolute and merciless stringency, which is inherent in the Germans and has found expression in the National Socialist state. I have also done what I could to see to it that this spirit and its terrible consequences, such as an excess of nationalism, racial persecution, lack of faith, and materialism, could be overcome. In this sense, then, my being put to death is justifiable from the National Socialist standpoint. But I never wanted or encouraged acts of violence like those of July 20th; quite the contrary. I fought the preparations being made for them, because I disapproved of such measures for many reasons and above all because I believed that this was not the way to eliminate the fundamental spiritual evil. In that sense my being put to death is unjustifiable. No one can say today how all this will look from a later perspective, nor can we tell whether my part in these events will be recognizable as something special. But you should simply know that I must not be lumped together with the men associated with the July 20th plot.

  My dear little sons, whom I will never see again with these eyes, I can only pray that you thrive, bringing happiness to yourselves and to Reyali, and that the Lord may bless and protect you. I hope that you will grow up in accordance with your baptismal verses.

  Caspar: “I will bless thee and thou shalt be a blessing.”3

  Konrad: “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.”

  And that each of you will fulfill his part of the other’s baptismal verse.

  Yours from the bottom of my heart,

  Helmuth

  1. The children called their mother “Reyali,” a diminutive of “Reia,” short for Freya.

  2. South Africa. After the war, Freya moved to Cape Town with the boys for nine years.

  3. See Helmuth’s second letter of November 1, 1944, note 3.

  HELMUTH JAMES TO FREYA, OCTOBER 12, 1944

  Tegel, 12 Oct 1944

  My dear, yesterday was a day of intense ordeals. I hope that is behind me now; in any case, I got up in good spirits after a very bad night and felt safe and comforted once more. But I very much hope for a chance to unburden myself a bit today so I can be sure to make a clean sweep of things. The saddest part was that all this put a damper on my pleasure from your visit downstairs, but the visit was still an uplifting ray of sunshine.

  Now to the main issue. I have the feeling that haste is called for, so I hope you’ve sent the letter to Himmler (not Hitler). But the meeting that Müller wants to grant me is equally important. The only chance I have—tiny as it is—lies in the interplay of these factors.

  I would go to see Müller as soon as possible after the verdict and apart from getting a briefing, try above all to come away with a reasonable arrangement for yourself, as you’re sure to have a much harder time of it than Marion [Yorck] if you’re ostracized.—I enclose a letter to our sons. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether you want to give it to them sometime later on.

  My dear love, today I am back to feeling warm and safe with Him and with you. Yesterday I did not feel that way. I don’t know how this change is possible, but looking up from that hell, I see what a heaven I live in, and once again I am full of gratitude. But at the worst moment yesterday, this thought started running through my head: “All right then, let’s get to it! I’ll be that much steadier when this is behind me.” Let’s hope that’s right. It also made me realize that somewhere there was a shore to be reached. There will be only another two or three hours in my life when I have to be absolutely certain, and if I get these ordeals behind me, it will be better than beginning to entertain doubts during that time. My love, pray for me during those hours. I’m not afraid, but the human heart is weak.

  Another thing: You need to tell everyone that I carry them with me in my heart. You know that. They’ve all become extras beside the three of you, not because I care for them less but because I care for all of you more. How nice that you had such nice days in Kreisau. Sometimes I get wistful when I think about that, but mostly I’m just happy and grateful to guard these images inside me.—The news from Willo [von Moltke] made me happy. He will likely find his way back into the family fold as well.

  My dear, dear love, what a rich life lies behind us, what a rich life lies ahead for you. I can only hope and believe that you will be able to summon enough strength from our fifteen years and from these weeks to begin this third chapter of your life without breach, that you will have an ample reserve of strength. May the Lord give you the fortitude you need.

  I’m always writing as though I were already dead. Since yesterday I’ve had the feeling that my case is imminent, although I had that same feeling several times in Ravensbrück as well. But in any case we have to concentrate all our energy on my meeting with Müller. That’s what we have to pray for at this point, my love.

  May God watch over you, my love.

  J.

  HELMUTH JAMES TO FREYA, OCTOBER 12, 1944 [ADDENDUM TO FREYA’S LETTER OF OCTOBER 11, 1944]

  Last night I suddenly had a nasty sore throat and cured it in twenty minutes with your honey.

  My dear, I’ve gotten through yesterday’s suffering, I’m just still exhausted from it. At the trial, I’ll do everything in my power, but Müller is even more important. Most important of all to me is to hear how Dix evaluates my arguments regarding an obligation to inform the authorities: what the police knew and how Freisler incorporates new facts that haven’t been touched on in the preliminary proceedings, whether he permits them or seeks to dismiss them out of hand.

  Your letter is beautiful, my love, do save your letters from this time too, for you will find many things in them that time will seek to wrest from you.

  Psalm 139.1 My thanks to Poelchau! Yours always. J.

  1. About the omnipresence of God: “O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me . . .”

  FREYA TO HELMUTH JAMES, OCTOBER 12, 1944

  Thursday

  My dear, whenever I look up at the night sky now, I almost always discover our friendly little dolphin constellation up there.1 It lit up the beginning of our love so beautifully! My Jäm, what was tormenting you so terribly, my poor one, I still find traces of it in your letter, my love. Wasn’t Poelchau able to help you? Maybe he did help you. Even so, one is always
utterly alone in a hell of that kind. My poor one. Must this suffering add to your other troubles!? Yesterday I wrote only of your death and today I thought constantly about your life. The whole day! But if I think about your life and nurture my hopes, I can’t help to prepare our hearts for death. One day is this way and the next day is that. Oh, how hard it is to live our fate as it should be lived, and it has to be lived fully, my beloved Jäm. So it goes, back and forth, but so far I—who still have it so much easier—have succeeded, again and again, in dissolving all my fear and worries, all the back-and-forths, into a readiness to embrace what God sends our way. My Jäm, may God send you His sturdy and consoling strength and help. He will surely do this, my dear, and after the hells you’ve been through, you will feel it far more strongly. I also wanted to tell you that countless people are keeping you in their thoughts, with love, love, love, and friendship. That surely strengthens us without our being aware of it. Ulla [Oldenbourg] goes to great pains to help you, constantly. And so do all the others. They will stand by me as well if you have to leave me. But this I know: I have to be and stay alone in order to keep you. I know this full well. I know my way.—Marion [Yorck] wants you to know: Peter [Yorck] disapproved of what you disapprove of, just like you. He was drawn in.2 She wants you to be certain of that.

  Now I need to write you the passages of the book of Wisdom 3:1–6: “But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch them. In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die: and their departure is taken for misery, And their going from us to be utter destruction: but they are in peace. For though they be punished in the sight of men, yet is their hope full of immortality. And have been a little chastised, they shall be greatly rewarded: for God proved them, and found them worthy for himself. As gold in the furnace he tried them, and received them as a burnt offering.” And then there’s Wisdom 4:7–14: “But though the righteous be prevented with death, yet shall he be in rest.” I love you so much, my Jäm, you know that. I am, and will remain, your P.

  1. A small summer constellation in the Milky Way.

  2. That is, into Stauffenberg’s plans, which led to the attempt on Hitler’s life on July 20, 1944.

  HELMUTH JAMES TO FREYA, OCTOBER 13, 1944

  Tegel, 13 Oct 44

  Yes, my love, it is hard to hold on to pain in the right way, so that it remains but doesn’t become a fetish. It’s like the task of keeping a fire at a constantly moderate flame. I’m familiar with it only from Mami’s death. This pain has never left me, as you may have noticed in my chronicle of my childhood for the little sons.1 Granny and Carl Bernd [von Moltke]2 are still too close to me; I can’t pass any judgments there.

  Poelchau has called my attention to a very beautiful stanza (4) from Hartmann’s hymn3 “Now the Crucible Is Breaking”:

  Sorrows gather home the senses,

  Lest, seduced by earth’s pretenses,

  They should after idols stroll,

  Like an angel-guard, repelling

  Evil from the inmost dwelling,

  Bringing order to the soul.4

  J.

  1. In a letter he had written to his sons after his initial incarceration in early 1944: see Günter Brakelmann, Helmuth James von Moltke: Eine Biographie (Munich: C. H. Beck Verlag, 2007), 365.

  2. Helmuth’s brother Carl Bernhard had been killed in action on December 30, 1941.

  3. Karl Friedrich Hartmann (1743–1815), a pastor and hymnodist from Württemberg; “Now the Crucible Is Breaking” is generally regarded as the “song of suffering.”

  4. This translation is from The Breaking Crucible: And Other Translations of German Hymns, translated by James W. Alexander (South Yarra, Australia: Leopold Classic Library, 2015), 4.

  FREYA TO HELMUTH JAMES, OCTOBER 13, 1944

  Friday evening

  My dearest. It is so comforting to know that you are thinking over my path in life and seeing it before you. But, my Jäm, I continue to hope, and consider your rescue possible, even though the paths that our love and our life and our union have taken in these weeks, paths along which God has made them travel, prepare us well for our parting. Still, we have to fight, and how I want to!

  My dear, do you realize that I spend practically every evening at the friends’ house, sitting, writing, talking, and feeling very much at home and with you. Often I don’t leave until 10:30, though sometimes a bit earlier, but I’m reluctant to go. They are so naturally full of affection and friendship to me. They are so good to me.

  Another thing: Your letter to our sons is quite beautiful. I will try to take good care of it, because they absolutely must get it. For the time being I’ll love it all by myself. It says everything it needs to say. May God make them into people who will understand it! I know that in them another era is growing up, yet even so, reverence is truly the crux of all upbringing and must remain so if human beings are to remain human.

  It’s 10. Time to be considerate. Good night, my dear love. May you sleep in peace, without any bites or sore throat. My love is great and fulfills me completely. I am and will remain your P.

  HELMUTH JAMES TO FREYA, OCTOBER 14, 1944

  Tegel, 14 Oct 44

  My dear, did you see that in the evening I added something at the end of your next-to-last letter, probably the one on the 11th, including my comment that I am now past everything? Don’t be worried; with His help, I will cope with it if it should come back.

  I’ve thought of a new argument for Steengracht; maybe you can talk to him again. I wonder whether he’ll use it now, though he really would have to. This is what you can tell him: that for years before the war, I was treated by the Round Table circle1 and by Milner’s Kindergarten2 as a kind of Continental European member, and whenever I was over there in England, there would always be meetings between these men and me; as far as you knew, the subject of these meetings, in which senior officials from the Colonial Office sometimes took part, was how Continental Europe, and Germany in particular, could be enabled to contribute in some manner to the Empire and Commonwealth, above all to its African colonies. The whole thing was planned for the long term, less as an issue of the day than as a planning task. The aim, as you understood it, was to create an outlet for Germany’s overabundance of spirit and drive to get things accomplished, not just a commercial outlet but also an administrative and, à la longue, a political one, to provide the Empire and its dominions with a contribution of Europeans ample enough to make it possible for them to resist the pressure coming from the Americans and colored peoples.3 As far as you knew, this was the basis, and you should say that the reason you didn’t speak of it was that you were sure I didn’t want that; given the current situation, and especially after your conversations with Müller, you decided to volunteer this information. Tell them I was quite certain a. that no other Continental European had enjoyed a similar level of trust in these issues, and b. that this trust had not been affected by the war. Say that I owed this special status not to myself but to my mother, who, you might say, was the only sister in Milner’s Kindergarten, and I was accepted as her son, or was adopted. This status is therefore also attached to my person. You’ll ask them to consider whether these facts might warrant a. having me interrogated on this complex of issues by a specialist in foreign policy, and b. even in the event of a death sentence, keeping me alive, simply not carrying out the sentence right away and deliberating, once things are calmer, whether I might be put to better use than being hanged. Add that as a matter of fact, a legally valid death sentence, even if not carried out, would be quite a formidable punishment for me and would affect me most directly, whereas a death sentence that was carried out immediately under these particular circumstances might affect all of Germany. You could also hint that this matter could be of interest to the Foreign Security Service. Recently I was interrogated about The Round Table without any advance notice, although only cursorily and only about names. This story is by and large correct. The problem is that there were also postwar plans, but I
’ll have to deal with this problem if I’m questioned about it; it needn’t affect you.

  But it strikes me as important to give Steengracht departmental jurisdiction and to find an argument for my uniqueness, and I think this story has both. He needs to start by asking that if at all possible a Foreign Office official be present when I am questioned about these matters and that the results of this questioning be made available to him, and that I not be executed until he has assessed the situation. You just need to make it clear that these were nothing but unilateral British measures, not negotiations, and that I acted as an adviser to the British, not as a spokesman for Germans. Tell them you were informed only about the basic outlines and knew next to nothing about these matters. Think about whether this might work; maybe you should talk it over with Dieter [von Mirbach],4 whom Steengracht can consult; he could handle things in a purely businesslike manner.

  My love, everything you write about your future is very clear to me. It is a daunting task, my love, but I think you’ll be up to it. And another thing: Because we have been in close contact, some things will be more difficult for you than if, say, you had been locked up and unable to do anything.5 It could easily happen that subsequent information makes you think everything could have gone differently if only. . . Don’t allow room for such thoughts; they are wrong and could be a terrible burden on you. Whatever He sends our way is right, and it is not ours to decide whether He chooses this or that path. Don’t agonize over this, but if you do find yourself agonizing, go straight to Poelchau and get his help.—To some extent, you will be maintaining the spiritual legacy of those of us who die. Try to make it fruitful, and don’t be too modest about it; you owe that to everyone. As for who should help you with this: That depends on who survives; I do ask, though, that if at all possible you bring in the people who, I hope, have now become Jowo [von Moltke]’s friends;6 keep Konrad [von Preysing]7 in mind as well. I’ve already told Poelchau that if it’s feasible, I think it would also be right to hold a memorial service if you and Kreisau still exist.