Arthur Yu

HR: Citation Page

Helmuth James von Moltke

Helmuth James von Moltke was born on March 11 1907 in Kreisau of the Prussia Empire, which is not Kryzowa in Poland. He was the great-grandnephew of Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, the victorious commander in the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian Wars. Moltke studied legal and political science in Breslau, Vienna, Heidelberg, and Berlin. In 1934, he his and passed his junior law exam. However, he declined the chance to become a judge because it would mean that he would have been obligated to join the Nazi Party. Instead, he opened his own law practice firm in Berlin. As a lawyer, he helped victims of Hitler’s regime emigrate. From 1935 to 1938, he visited Great Britain and completed English legal training in London and Oxford.

Helmuth James von Moltke eventually formed the Kreisau Circle. It was the center of civil resistance against Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party. Its objectives were to maintain contact with other Nazi resistance groups. The members worked to inform the Western Allies about political conditions with Hitler and the dangers and weakness of the Nazi Party. Only three meetings took place, one in the spring of 1942, one in the autumn of 1942, and one in the spring of 1943. The Kreisau Circle’s main focus was to plan and organize a government for Germany after the Allied forces defeated the Nazis. The Circle had did no intentions to over throw the Nazi Party as a whole. The Kreisau circle wanted Hitler to be arrested and tried in court, not assassinated. They knew that a functioning democracy required both the participation and sense of responsibility of its citizens. Which is why the circle was in constant contact with other German resistance groups.

There were about 20 members that made up the Kreisau Circle that each had different background and occupations. Peter Graf Yorck von Wartenburg was the other primary leader of the Kreisau Circle. He was a distant relative of von Moltke. Yorck was the descendant of the Prussian general that was rewarded with the title of Count. Graf von Yorck was allowed to add the title “Wartenburg” to his surname as a battle honor. Harald Poelchau was a Silesia native that supported a group called “Uncle Emil”, which worked to help and support Jews who were living underground. Adolf Reichwein was a World War 1 veteran that was also an educator, economist, and cultural policymaker for the Social Democratic Party of Germany. Adam von Trott traveled to different countries to warn them about Hitler and the rise of the Nazi Party. Alfred Delp was a German Jesuit priest and considered a significant figure in Catholic resistance to Nazism. Theodor Haubach was a German journalist and a SPD politician. He was the leading member of the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold, an association that campaigned for Weimar democracy and actively struggled under the emblem of the “three Arrows” against the Nazis.

On January 1994, Helmuth James von Moltke was arrested and the Kreisau Circle fell apart. Since Moltke and other members of the Kreisau Circle had discussed about a Germany after Hitler, Roland Reisler deemed their discussion as treason. Even though Moltke didn’t commit any specific act of treason, he was on trial for “Not plans, not preparations, but the spirit as such shall be persecuted.” There is a photograph of Moltke at the Volksgreichtshof which an “angry face”. It seemed like Motlke already knew that he would be getting the death penalty before the actual sentence was decided. He was sent to Plotzensee Prison in Berlin and was executed by hanging there twelve days later.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmuth_James_Graf_von_Moltke

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/nazi-germany/kreisau-circle/

http://www.kreisau.de/en/kreisauer-kreis/

http://www.gdw-berlin.de/en/recess/biographies/biographie/view-bio/yorck-von-wartenburg/

http://www.raoulwallenberg.net/saviors/german2/harald-poelchau-43/

http://spartacus-educational.com/GERreichwein.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Delp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Haubach

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20_July_plot

http://ww2db.com/person_bio.php?person_id=564

Arthur Yu

HR: Sources cited

Adam Von Trott

Adam Von Trott was born on 9 August 1909 into an aristocratic protestant Hessian family in Postdam, Germany. He was the 5^th child of the Prussian Minister of Culture and Education. At a young age, Von Trott and his family moved to their country estate in Imshausen at the countryside of Hesse-Kassel. It was then that Van Trott developed a strong sense of patriotism.

When the Nazis took over Germany, he was deeply affected by it. He was loyal to the country of Germany, but not to the Nazi Party that was running Germany. In 1929, Van Trott studied at Mansfield College, Oxford in the UK. Then in 1931, he returned to the UK on a Rhodes scholarship to study at Balliol College, Oxford. After his studies, he went to the United States for 6 months. Van Trott was a great-great-great grandson of John Jay, one of the Founding Fathers of the US and the first Chief Justice.

Von Troll resumed his international travels in 1937 where he went to China. In 1939 he went to Britain and Washington, D.C. in October of that year. This time, his travels were not just for schooling. By 1937, Hitler had already named himself the Fuhrer, outlawed everything not Nazi, banned trade unions, and sent his political opponents to concentration camps. In Britain, Van Trott tried to pressure Lord Lothian and Lord Halifax to get rid of the appeasement policy towards Adolf Hitler. However, Britain didn’t believe his warning of imminent war and the US thought he was a Nazi spy. Adam Von Trott had clear intension of warning others about Adolf Hitler and his plans, but no one believed it.

Von Trott’s friends warned him not to return to Germany, but he made it clear that he would try and stop Hitler, so he decided to go back to Germany. Von Trott knew that if he was going to have a chance of stopping the Nazi Party, he was going to have to stop it from the inside out. In 1940, Von Trott joined the Nazi Party in order to access their information and monitor its planning. The Nazi Party also made him a foreign policy to the Kreisau Circle since they knew that Van Trott traveled so much before. Trott used the cover of the organization to travel to Scandinavia, Switzerland, Turkey, and all Nazi-occupied countries of Europe to try and form an Anti-Nazi group.

On 20 July 1944, Adam Von Trott was one of the leaders of Colonel Claus Von Stauffenberg’s plot to assassinate Hitler. After the attempt failed, he was arrested, placed on trial, and found guilty. On 15 August 1944, Von Trott was sentenced to death by the Volksgerichtshof. He was hanged in Plotzensee Peison on 26 August of that year.

Adam Von Trott’s priorities were very clear from the beginning. He loved his country, but hated the Nazi’s. He felt like it was his duty to do all that he could to stop the Nazi party from spreading. After he made his travels to many countries to ask for help, he even came back to Germany to join the Nazi party so he could infiltrate them from the inside, but failed. However, he did try all that he could to stop the spread of the Nazi Party.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_von_Trott_zu_Solz

http://archives.balliol.ox.ac.uk/Modern%20Papers/von%20Trott/trott1.asp

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