Last Letters: The Prison Correspondence between Helmuth James and Freya von Moltke, 1944-45

Download or read book Last Letters: The Prison Correspondence between Helmuth James and Freya von Moltke, 1944-45 written by Helmuth Caspar von Moltke and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2019-09-17 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Available for the first time in English, a moving prison correspondence between a husband and wife who resisted the Nazis. Tegel prison, Berlin, in the fall of 1944. Helmuth James von Moltke is awaiting trial for his leading role in the Kreisau Circle, one of the most important German resistance groups against the Nazis. By a near miracle, the prison chaplain at Tegel is Harald Poelchau, a friend and coconspirator of Helmuth and his wife, Freya. From Helmuth’s arrival at Tegel in late September 1944 until the day of his execution by the Nazis on January 23, 1945, Poelchau would carry Helmuth’s and Freya’s letters in and out of prison daily, risking his own life. Freya would safeguard these letters for the rest of her long life. Last Letters is a profoundly personal record of the couple’s fortitude in the face of fascism.