I’m at the friends’ house. We had a talk. There were very beautiful and delightful letters. They showed me that you’re doing well, and that is the most beautiful thing for me. I got a very moving letter from Mütterchen Deichmann.1 She obviously understands what is happening with us quite well, and she had a friend have a mass said for you in Cologne in the crypt at St. Gereon’s Basilica. I’m very pleased about that. My beloved, I belong to you—I am and will forever remain in abiding love, your P.
1. Ada Deichmann, Freya’s mother.
HELMUTH JAMES TO FREYA, NOVEMBER 3, 1944
Tegel, 3 Nov 44
My dear, today I wrote to Müller and asked him to call me in for dictation. In the meantime, though, I’ll very slowly write the written plea in ink and in my best penmanship so I’ll be prepared in any case. If Müller doesn’t have me called in by the 7th, I’ll send him my defense handwritten in ink on the morning of the 8th.
My love, I have absolutely nothing new to write. I’m doing very well; it is so pleasant that the weather is nice, because on cloudy days nothing at all can be seen in the cell, and we don’t get light throughout the day. Right now I’m quite busy with the written plea: the writing is going very slowly, because I have to write rather as if I were writing to Casparchen, and I’m still continuing to make improvements here and there in form and content. I do want to make sure that it reads well, and easily.—I think it would be best if Carl Viggo [von Moltke] could get Freisler to postpone the trial until the plea for clemency to Hitler has been submitted. That would be petition I; petition II: Imprisonment only, based on Freisler’s own plenipotentiary decision; petition III: If a death sentence, postpone the execution until a decision regarding the plea for clemency has been reached.
How, by the way, is your head cold? Is it all over? You might as well go to Kreisau, seeing as you’ll most likely have to stay here next weekend, since the plea for clemency will surely not move forward very quickly, even if Carl Viggo should get through to Freisler soon. By the way, there has to be some consideration of whether Müller needs to be informed about the plea once it is in motion. At any rate, Müller or Freisler have to know about it. But Sack1 is in the best position to judge something like this.
Farewell, my love, how beautiful are these days with you, precious pearls. If I should leave you, which is, of course, to be expected, we will have been well rewarded. May God watch over you. J.
In any event, send me another writing pad.
1. Helmuth did not yet know that Sack, a jurist, had been under arrest since August 9, 1944; see Freya’s letter of November 6–7, 1944.
FREYA TO HELMUTH JAMES, NOVEMBER 3, 1944
Friday noon
My dear love, yesterday evening I got two particularly beautiful little letters. I’ve just read them again at leisure and with a great deal of happiness. If only you could stay in this good, beautiful mood. I’ve had a very peaceful morning, didn’t budge from my desk, and now it’s 2. Just before a quarter to, I have to get going. I want to get the letter to Steengracht, one to you via Schulze,1 which I’ve written, pick up a permit for Poelchau, and at 5:30 I’ll go to see Frau Reisert, who asked me to come by. I wonder what she wants to tell me. Yesterday I communicated your request to her. She didn’t know anything negative about Sperr. I just jotted down a couple of notes about what, in my view, needs to be in Carl Viggo [von Moltke]’s petition for clemency, and I’m sending you a carbon copy. Let me know if something better, or additional, occurs to you or what you’d like to see changed. Tomorrow Carl Viggo should then come here with a finished draft. That’s how I arranged things with him this morning.—Steengracht was quite overwhelmed with work yesterday, and although he had been carrying around the letter for three days, warmly crumpled in his breast pocket, he hadn’t done anything with it. I myself am for leaving off the somewhat explicit sentence at the end, because in effect “my” thought is already implied by the description of the facts of the case, without being expressly stated. The letter won’t be quite as flowery then, but it’s enough. Steengracht agreed. He’s quite willing to lend his support because your life is at stake, but he’s clearly had a lot on his mind. Dieter [von Mirbach] walked by when I was waiting in front of Steengracht’s door. He said only that today I wouldn’t have much of a chance of seeing him, that he, Steengracht, was very busy, he didn’t stop, nor did he ask or do anything, so I don’t feel like dealing with him either. The kind Schlitter at least gave me a gentle look but didn’t know anything and got nothing out of me either. That is already [a] piddling place2—but this remark doesn’t apply to our case; it’s just a general observation. I have to set off, my love!—I’m at the friends’ house. Reisert can’t get to Sperr and thinks that a policeman will always be standing in the way. We’d now like to try doing it by way of the lady who looks after him, because Reisert was just as appalled at the prospect of this sort of statement. I can’t keep typing any more this evening; our friends here have to go to bed, so you won’t get the copy until next time. I still can’t visualize the Carl Viggo project: I can see the petition for clemency, but I can’t picture him going to Freisler with the pleas.3 It won’t come to that anyway, but we shall see. A great deal also depends on Carl Viggo’s bearing and dedication. Only Carl Viggo can do all this—I understand that—but I still feel that I would need to appear before Freisler in order to complement you, as with Neuhaus, although that proved pointless. I’m not for doing it together; if it’s done, each should go alone, but as I’ve said, I’m not really clear about this whole matter.—My dear, when I see Frau Reisert, I realize how good we two have it. I’m doing quite well, and I feel happy and so firmly united with you that I go about like someone who is in a good, happy, carefree marriage. How is that possible with prospects like ours! My mind doesn’t grasp it. Today, two people who knew nothing about our situation have told me that I’m looking well. How can that be? I don’t want to stop and leave you, but I’ll forever remain your P.
1. The reference is to an official letter sent via the People’s Court.
2. By “piddling place,” Freya means the Federal Foreign Office.
3. This refers to the wishes that Carl Viggo would be relaying to Freisler; see Helmuth’s letter of November 3, 1944.
HELMUTH JAMES TO FREYA, NOVEMBER 4–5, 1944
Tegel, 4 Nov 44
My dear, I’ll start my little letter in any event. I’m now spending most of my day writing the defense but doesn’t have a single copy completely finished yet and the earliest I can get the first copy done is this evening. I’m actually quite pleased with it now, and that’s already a bad sign. But it’s a truly daring defense, which is: “I have always and openly held an opinion contrary to your regime’s, and am hence exempt from punishment.” But in essence it’s the truth, and it is the only argument that offers any reasonable line of defense. But that assumes I do well at the trial and successfully reinforce this line while defending myself against individual attacks. In any case I’m eagerly anticipating it.—Good interaction with Bürkner will also be a key to success if they follow up with him, and that can be assured only by way of Haus; talk to Poelchau about the extent to which you can involve him. He has to make certain all the explanations concerning my case that are made in court or to the police go through him; since he was an attorney, there is good justification for it. But he has to know what I need, because Bürkner can destroy my entire defense if he provides misguided information.
As for the Carl Viggo [von Moltke] petition: I think the correct procedure is this: a. Draft of the petition to be discussed by Carl Viggo and Sack. b. Then meeting, Carl Viggo with Freisler. c. Then meeting, Carl Viggo with Bürkner. d. Then preparing a cover letter, chief of the Armed Forces High Command1 to Hitler by Haus, Oxé, Sack; but maybe that won’t work out and has to take a different course; Sack certainly knows best. e. Afterward Carl Viggo’s visit to Keitel with a request to pass along the petition with his support.
All this will not go quickly and cannot be accompl
ished in passing, but will take a couple of days. I’m sorry about that, but it has to be done well, because we have to be right on the mark.
You yourself must do as little as possible on the substance of the matter, just prepare the people by having preliminary discussions; get them together and light a fire under them. Most important, you need to think carefully about the issues so that you’ll notice when mistakes are made; but your thinking process cannot stand in for the work of Carl Viggo or the other men.
It’s very important for me to have a good defense counsel, preferably Dix.
My dear, I always have so many suggestions and wishes that it must be overwhelming. Many of them might be idiotic, but I do think that you ought to write down all the various ideas so that you have them together on one piece of paper. Naturally I have the most productive brain in this arena because I have a great deal of time to delve into all the options; on the other hand, I don’t have a clear picture of reality on the outside.
My love, I’ll stop here and continue writing my plea. I hope you’re doing better and you’ve had a good night of sleep. Take good care of yourself, my love, these strange times can impose heavy demands on you at any point. I embrace you, my love, J.
5 Nov 44
My dear, yesterday I forgot something else: If you have time, give Vikki Bausch a call at some point—telephone Schoeller & Bausch. He takes care of Haubach. If he should see Haubach, it would be good if he would inform Haubach in detail about what I’ve said on the subject of his and Carlo [Mierendorff]’s attempts to notify the authorities.—I don’t know what the delays mean; maybe no trials pertaining to July 20th are taking place at the moment? Since there were no executions, it’s easy to assume that. Maybe basic deliberations about how to treat these cases are still taking place. Maybe they pertain to our case as well, either because there is too much else to work through or because they’re waiting to see if they can capture Rösch as well.2 But we can only guess, and that serves no purpose; we can’t influence what’s going on, only Carl Viggo may be able to get the trial suspended until the clemency proceedings have been resolved.—I find Mütterchen Deichmann very touching.—My love, your remarks about the right of young people to lack gratitude have given me a bit of comfort about my own behavior. Maybe you’re right, and maybe I’m much older in that respect than I myself know. That’s what I think sometimes when I realize how indifferent I am to many things that I really ought not to be indifferent to, from an overall human point of view.—I now gratefully savor every day and every night: they give me time to think, to understand, to fathom the situation, to learn, and to love my Pim. I always notice the bafflement that greets me once the staff realize that I don’t want to have any books; I seem to be the only one in the whole prison. But the truth is that I have absolutely no time to read. The day is always over before I’m finished, and I have to force myself to read over my statements again from time to time, or rather my notes about them, because I’m so pressed for time. Sometimes I concentrate on one line for quite a long time, such as Job 5:18 and 19 or “Their soul in Your hand, may become smaller and cleansed of all impurities, focused only on You.”3—Then I go back to thinking about how my Pim will cope with it all and how I might best pray for her. It is quite difficult to pray in the right way, and one doesn’t always capture it as well as King Solomon (2 Chron. 1:10); then I spend an hour reciting to myself, reveling more in the way it all hangs together and harmonizes than in the individual ideas; sometimes I don’t think at all as I recite, because I know my feelings perfectly well. That’s how I spend my days. Then I work on my defense, thinking about how unsuited I am for a defense of this kind, because I see the worthlessness of the arguments on both sides, including those of the indictment: how false, how hollow, how deceitful! And then I think that the people must see that themselves, and then I have to strain to recall that they really don’t, and that their view of the world is so different from mine, as though we were separated by thousands of years.—I’ve completed the first copy of my defense but don’t want to start the second one today; instead I’ll
[The letter breaks off here.]
1. Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel.
2. Rösch had gone into hiding but was discovered and arrested on January 11, 1945.
3. Hymn 107, “Jesu, der du bist alleine.”
HELMUTH JAMES TO FREYA, NOVEMBER 6, 1944
Tegel, 6 Nov 44
My dear, this time around I have only two concrete things to say: 1. On the issue of what to include in the petition, that has to be left to a man who knows his way around these kinds of petitions, that is, Sack, who is the best choice, otherwise Dix. We’re all amateurs. 2. Be careful in the matter of Sperr! The woman who takes care of him has to be very reliable, cautious, and good, otherwise it’s too risky. Delp says that Sperr said two things: a. Sperr told him, Delp, about Stauffenberg’s plans; b. Sperr talked with me in general terms in ’43 about overthrowing the government and not only about postwar plans. Both of those things are false, and he has to renege on these points. Last night I once again had no desire to die; not that it tormented me, but I simply had no desire and found the prospect of the kingdom of God quite vague and unclear and not really tangible. Luckily I now laugh about these tribulations when they assail me, at any rate when they come in this innocuous form, and I don’t really take them seriously. If I were to continue to be plagued by doubts, they would have to beset me more thoroughly and stem from deep down: With the help of God and the Holy Ghost, the banal “flesh”-based doubts will no longer hold sway over me. The only sad part is that our mind is such a sophisticated instrument that if it wants to it can always reach down even a level deeper than one expects, and it can also rise higher than one thinks. This expansion of its capacity, which, unfortunately, always occurs simultaneously in both directions, is a process that brings about growing pains in the very same way that I had them in my body between the ages of fifteen and sixteen.
Yes, my love, your future: If you can live on two levels—a busy one and a contemplative one—that is good. Only you can decide whether that is feasible. In that case, the contemplative level is simply open to the Holy Ghost for primordial reasons, for reasons we don’t know. If you achieve that, it is presumably still better, because it is something more certain than the spiritual capacity that a person like Ulla [Oldenbourg] has. You can then do without that capacity, or if you have it, it’s an added bonus. You know what I mean: I think you might have the ability to carry God as surely within you as you carry me within you, without ever devoting a thought to Him. That is certainly possible, and a state of grace. But there is no doubt in my mind that you could also achieve it through your intellect and spirit if you were to force yourself, go to great lengths, work on it systematically. But that requires time, strength, and calm; I don’t know whether you will be granted any of these three things when I leave you. You have to wait and see about all that and commend your soul to the Lord. He will give you what you need.
My dear love, how wonderful that you were in Kreisau and visited your little sons. I very much hope that Frau Pick stays with you in any case; under no circumstances should you let her go for financial reasons. Until the end of the war you have to find your way through it all however you can and not pinch pennies. Mütterchen Deichmann will help you out. Later it will be different; then you’ll have to make do with what you have. Does Frau Pick know that most of the men whom she has cooked for are already dead: Carlo [Mierendorff] and Peter [Yorck] and Adam [von Trott zu Solz] and Haeften,1 etc.?—I hope events won’t force you out of the Berghaus. If you can stay there, I think you’ll always be content and provided for. Your bees, the fruit trees, so many things we’ve planned will prosper and help you. Besides, these days we’re doing so well financially overall that I don’t think you’ll have trouble. How good it is that we stayed modest in every way and now no great change is necessary.
I’ll stop now, my love, because we’re eating soon, and also you’ll soon be arriving in Berli
n. Oh yes, I ought to write you what I need: two shirts, handkerchiefs, one towel, thick underpants. I have enough of everything else.
Farewell, my very dear, my very dearest love, may God watch over you. J.
1. Members of the Kreisau Circle.
FREYA TO HELMUTH JAMES, NOVEMBER 6–7, 1944
Monday afternoon
My dear, I’m back here, and very glad to be so close by. First of all the news from Frau Reisert from a very reliable source—she’ll be telling me more details about it tomorrow—that there won’t be a trial in the week of the 13th to the 20th. So now we’ve slid all the way to the 20th, and this time, my dear love, still belongs to us. What good fortune! I’ve been in such good spirits for many days now and can’t suppress them for more than a very brief time. I’m not filled with actual hope, but for some inexplicable reason I’m utterly carefree. I keep wondering why that is, and whether I’m actually being frivolous, but I can’t keep it in, and everybody is telling me I sound and look as though things are going better, even though that’s not the case at all. It surely stems from the good fortune we’ve enjoyed these past weeks. I keep having the feeling that we’re going through these weeks hand in hand, and I think more in terms of “we” than I have in all these years. Oh, my Jäm, what great good fortune to be so close to you. I wonder how you spent the three days. I’m sure you wrote quite a lot. That is certainly strenuous business. How I’m looking forward to hearing from you again.
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