Against Evil

An alliance of unlike minds offered hope for the future during Europe’s darkest days.

Gatherer of souls: Helmuth James von Moltke on trial, Berlin 1944.

Helmuth James von Moltke was born to an illustrious Prussian family in March 1907; numbered among his ancestors were Bismarck’s tactically brilliant commander, who led his country to victory against both France and Austria, as well as the less successful Chief of the General Staff at the outbreak of the First World War. It was from the elder Moltke that Helmuth James inherited Kreisau estate, in what was then German Silesia. Despite the family’s military history, conversation and dissent were encouraged by his South African mother, Dorothy; both his parents were Christian Scientists, indicating an independence of mind, though the young Moltke chose the conventional Prussian path of Protestantism.

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