published 04/01/2010 at 18:58 GMT by Associated Press
Prominent member of German resistance during second world war passes away at her home in Vermont
Freya von Moltke led a group known as the Kreisau Circle, which supported the failed attempt to assassinate Adolph Hitler in 1944
A prominent member of the anti-Nazi resistance in the second world war has died at the age of 98 at
her home in Vermont. Freya von Moltke died on Friday after suffering a viral infection, her son said.
Von Moltke formed a group known as the Kreisau Circle with her husband,, Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, which discussed plans for the democratic Germany they hoped would follow the
fall of the Third Reich. The group supported the failed attempt on 20 July 1944 to assassinate Hitler.
Von Moltke moved to Vermont in 1960, where she published her memoirs, Memories of Kreisau and the German
Resistance.
Von Moltke described her life in the resistance with her husband, who was executed for his activities, in an
interview in 2002, saying: "To object and then to stand for what you believe in is one of the most important human activities to this day."
Born Freya Deichmann, into a banking family in 1911 in Cologne, Freya von Moltke met her future husband when she was 18. They were married in 1931 and both received law degrees.
The couple settled on his Silesian estate, Kreisau, located in present-day Poland. In 1932, they moved to Berlin where Helmuth von Moltke set up an international law practice. An opponent of Hitler's regime from its start,
Helmuth von Moltke assisted Jews and other victims of Nazism. Helmuth von Moltke was drafted into the German army in 1939 as a specialist in international and martial law,
but during his military service he advocated the humane treatment of prisoners of war and civilians in German-occupied territories under the Geneva conventions.
In 1947, Freya von Moltke left for South Africa, where her mother-in-law had been born. She worked as a
social worker, but grew troubled by the apartheid regime and returned to Germany in 1956, where she began work on publicising the activities of the Kreisau Circle.
She moved to the US 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.