Nazi Resister Freya Von Moltke Dies in Vermont
Matthew Kruk
Nazi Resister Freya Von Moltke Dies in Vermont By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:33 p.m. ET
NORWICH, Vt.(AP) -- Freya von Moltke, a former Nazi resister who lived
in Vermont since the 1960s, has died at the age of 98, her son said.
Helmuth von Moltke told the Lebanon Valley News that his German-born
mother died Friday after suffering a viral infection last week.
A memorial service is scheduled for Friday at the Norwich Congregational
Church, the Rev. Mary R. Brownlow, the associate pastor, said Sunday.
Freya von Moltke and her husband were prominent members of the German
resistance during World War II, and she chronicled the work of the
German resistance after his death.
Born into a banking family in 1911, Freya Deichmann met her future
husband, Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, when she was 18. They were
married in 1931 and both received law degrees. Helmuth von Moltke set up
a law practice in Berlin as Adolf Hitler rose to power in the 1930s.
Helmuth von Moltke was drafted into the German army as an international
law expert, but he used his influence to help would-be victims of the
regime escape and demand that Germany and its occupied territories
adhere to the laws set forth by the Geneva Convention. He was convicted
of treason and executed in January 1945.
Freya von Moltke and her two sons emigrated to Poland and later South
Africa where she began to chronicle the work of the German resistance
through a series of lectures and books. She came to Norwich in 1960 to
live with Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, a Dartmouth College professor and
social philosopher who had fled Germany after the rise of the Nazis.
After Rosenstock-Huessy died in 1973, she dedicated herself to promoting
his works, in addition to those of her late husband.
After the fall of Communism in 1989, the von Moltkes' estate in Kreisau
was chosen by the German and Polish governments as the site of a
reconciliation Mass between the two nations.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press