Last Letters
Page 15
So I bless this month every day: however I look at it, it is always a tremendously precious month, and we have to give our thanks for it on a daily basis, on an hourly basis. Yesterday I came across Proverbs 18:142 for my Pim. And for your little sons, especially for Casparchen, I’m hoping for Proverbs 20:11.3 May his heart remain unchanged and not be hardened by an idiotic education—not by you. He himself has to get harder than he is now, though he’ll do that, but his heart needs to remain as it is. The anguish this will bring him, the wounds that a heart of this kind must suffer, are a precious treasure; he must learn that as well. I shudder at the thought of the educational principles now in force and think of Casparchen. The only good thing is that in the end, practical experiences and life are more powerful than those sorts of principles.
I embrace you. J.
A quick note about the letter I just received: 1. As far as the choice of attorney goes, I think it’s right that you try to get Dix. But make sure there’s a decent alternative. The most important thing is for the man not to stab me in the back, so under no circumstances take the one that the councillor wanted. 2. Keep Pfuel out of it: he’s stupid and a blabbermouth and ruins everything he touches. 3. Hewel is good. Not the man himself but the Bürkner–Hewel route is good because Hitler is known to actually pay some heed to Hewel. However, the imprint of the military would then be missing . . .4
1. The head guard at Tegel prison.
2. Proverbs 18:14: “The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear?”
3. Proverbs 20:11: “Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right.”
4. The normal official channel for passing along the petition would be via Field Marshal Keitel, but their advisers suggested he would be a bad choice; see Freya’s letter of November 8, 1944.
HELMUTH JAMES TO FREYA, NOVEMBER 10, 1944
Tegel, 10 Nov 44
My dear, my thoughts are with you on all your difficult and cumbersome travels today. Just don’t be too disappointed if not everything goes the way you want it to. That’s always the case. I’m wondering whether you’ve heard from Herr Schulze today. Might you get permission for a face-to-face meeting?
Yes, my love, dying is and will always be unpleasant, and any preparation for this event does nothing to change that. We always need to be keenly aware of this reality so as not to be overwhelmed all of a sudden by the unpleasantness of the process. Well, it’s ultimately a peripheral process, and somehow I’ll cope with that—not only because I have to. In the deeper sphere, the problem of death is only a matter of faith. Coping with this matter is incomparably more important and difficult. It seems to me that even though one might be plagued by doubts throughout life, the one and a half hours from my arrival in Plötzensee up to the moment of my death have to be shielded from doubt. That, above all, is what I have to pray for. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,” Hebrews 11:1 tells us. “Conviction” is the vital point. The bad part is that in people as overbred as ourselves, the devil always has points of entry, so I can imagine him suggesting to a person something along these lines: “The only reason you’re not doubting is that your flesh is afraid and has no other way of enduring the thought of death.” I’m seeking to gird myself to face these and similar doubts as well as I can; but any attempt at girding is mere vanity, because at times like these, only the Holy Spirit Himself can help, giving one the strength needed to say: Get away from me, Satan! Everything else recedes anyhow. My love, I’m writing this to you so that you’ll know exactly how you need to frame your prayers, because I don’t want to do without my dearest as my supporter. If you are nearby, I hope to be able to stand close by you, quite close, my love.
Letter from Helmuth to Freya, November 10, 1944
I hope to be able to stand by you. And I don’t want you to slip away from me either. Imagine that: what a possessive husband you have. Now it’s coming out. Just don’t grow impatient with yourself, my love. This is not an intellectual question but a spiritual one. It can be tackled not with work but only with prayers, innocence, and a humble heart. Everything worthwhile takes time and strength and effort. And an asset as valuable as a tranquil heart is no exception. The only advice I can give you is to take the time to make your heart tranquil and open and secure, just as you have to take your time when darning your socks. Sometimes it will work and sometimes it won’t, and you have to accept that, but you always need to struggle to achieve it.
And why would your husband slip away from you? Don’t you have a totally clear answer in 1 Cor. 13:13,1 that three things remain when all else is ephemeral: faith, hope, love. That is the great trio, and why shouldn’t your otherwise good-for-nothing husband be the modest instrument that God sent to teach you that? My love, don’t consider it a shortcoming that you’re not a “spiritual” person. In your situation, that could be very dangerous, and beguile you into embracing a cult of the dead. No, my love, I’m with you and will remain with you and stand by you and be within you without any need for ballyhoo. You know, it probably won’t be any more difficult for you to find the right path than it was before; on the contrary, it may be easier. We always go astray, quite a bit, and the two of us have also gone astray quite a bit, and if your husband now precedes you out of the realm of time, you’re less likely to go astray than before, but the demands you place on yourself to find the right path will have grown, so you won’t even notice that you are going along more steadily.
And another thing, my dear: we read in Psalm 90, “So teach us to number our days.” It’s not easy to think in those terms. No one can always bear that in mind; even in my situation one constantly forgets it, because the flesh refuses to accept it. Even so, that is a very wise statement, because it gives you a fixed pole, the way a compass points to the North Pole. A realistic knowledge of death separates everything into large and small, important and unimportant, and bears out 1 Cor. 13:13. If your husband is gone before you, it will be much easier for you to set your sights on this constant. That is the pole pointing forward, and gratitude is the pole pointing back. Between the two, it seems to me, one can make it safely across the river, like a ponte.2—I’m getting too chatty, my love; this sheet of paper is making me stop. J.
1. “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.” Where the King James Version translates “charity,” Luther uses Liebe: love.
2. A wide ferry.
FREYA TO HELMUTH JAMES, NOVEMBER 11, 1944
Saturday afternoon
My dearest, my Jäm, you’re sure to be waiting in suspense for the outcome of these days, and to sum up, I must say right off that I’m not able to see any great improvement in the situation. It may well be the case that we can do very little and that death has to be what we keep in our sights. It’s probably best if I tell it chronologically, but I’ll say from the outset that I have a permit for the face-to-face meeting. That is a great gift for us, my love. I’m so happy, my love, and am already afraid of having to part from you again. But that is just part of our fortune, and I mustn’t let that diminish it for me. So I’m carrying the permit in my pocket and haven’t come racing over yet today: I’d like you, too, to know in advance that I’m coming, and when, and I’d also like to enjoy knowing that it still lies ahead of me. I’ll discuss the day with Poelchau. I’d also like to have some quiet beforehand. My preference would be to come on Monday.—So, now I’ll tell you everything. Carl Viggo [von Moltke] didn’t come until almost 9:30, and by the time we’d had breakfast and he’d shaved, it was after 10. But there was coffee, and right after breakfast Carl Viggo and Carl Dietrich [von Trotha] drafted the first part of the petition for clemency together, with additions I brought up. Then we left it at that because I had to see Herr Schulze at 12. Afterward we spent quite a while at the People’s Court. Freisler was presiding over a trial there. His secretary said he had appointments from early to late on all six day
s of the week. She noted Carl Viggo’s wish, but wasted no time in pointing out that he had a court session today as well, and this morning, when Carl Viggo called at 8:30, she hadn’t spoken to him yet, and he was gone again. Carl Viggo is now writing from Schätz before any more time elapses, saying that he wants to submit the petition for clemency, and he wants to take part in the trial, so that Freisler at least knows about it. I don’t think he’ll agree to see him. In the meantime, Schulze, for whom I’d been waiting, came back and agreed to see us. He began by telling me that “yesterday or the day before yesterday” the charges were brought, but that the trial would certainly not take place before the 20th, and most likely later, and granted me the permit to see you, then I left and Carl Viggo stayed. I hurried over to Thiele, a councillor who is much higher up in the Nazi hierarchy than in the judiciary; he schedules the trials and appoints the attorneys. I was terrified by the thought that he might have assigned you Weismann1 at his own initiative following our previous discussion. But that was not the case; he actually said that he wouldn’t be making assignments until the trial date had been set, and that process would take quite some time, and would not take place until the very end of the month or perhaps, indeed most likely, not until early December. Again I said that I wanted to be nearby, even if I didn’t know the actual day, and asked whether I could rely on this time frame if I went home soon. He told me that the scheduling for the end of this month or the beginning of the next depended on whether the Salzburg trials intervene,2 but that he would know by Wednesday, and I should come back then. He also said that I could just as easily have Hercher as Weismann, that I could freely choose among the seven. I haven’t talked to Hercher yet, but I want to do so on Monday. In the meantime, Carl Viggo saw Schulze, and the one lawyer had apparently poured his heart out to the other. It seems Schulze was rather unsettled by the whole thing. “It upsets him,” Carl Viggo said. He kept saying that he couldn’t understand how you could have done such things, and depicted the matter as utterly hopeless. But as I saw it, nothing especially new seemed to be coming out. They have established that you had organized meetings—quite a long time ago, in fact—and Fritzi [Schulenburg’s] map3 appeared to have played a central role. Frau Reisert once told me, in a similar vein, that in Reisert’s case they kept coming back to the map. Carl Viggo then turned to the subject of Kreisau and the Moltkes, and asked whether he recommended sending a petition to the Führer, whereupon Schulze said that not only should he do so but also that it was even his—Carl Viggo’s—duty to do so, and that he ought to submit copies to the chief Reich prosecutor4 and the minister of justice5 and request that they be presented to the Führer. As a rule, the minister takes less than one hour to rule on the issue of clemency and the sentence is carried out two hours after it is pronounced. We know how that works! Schulze said very favorable things about Kreisau, evidently because he’s taken a liking to me! This charming man told Carl Viggo that the best thing about you is your wife! If only that helped! But Schulze doesn’t want to suggest that the chief Reich prosecutor seize Kreisau, and was totally in favor of it remaining in possession of the family and likely of the little sons.6 That was not the case with the man at the Ministry of Justice Carl Viggo went to see today, but more about that later. At home we finished up the petition for clemency, and afterward I spent a long time typing it, because I had to make it error-free. Then we slept here, and I couldn’t go to the friends, which was hard for me. I couldn’t even go this morning, because I had to have the petition at Lansschule by 9:15. Carl Viggo had a 10 o’clock appointment at the Ministry of Justice, and the people there were evidently quite unpleasant, gruff, and surly. He spoke to two men: First Prosecuting Attorney Pieper and Undersecretary Dr. Franke, who both said that the minister would certainly not present the matter to the Führer because it was about the July 20th plot. Carl Viggo insisted that this was not the case, but he replied that as far as he knew, you had made direct preparatory actions for July 20th. (But that is objectively not true!) It is just really unfavorable that you are sailing under that banner. Kreisau, he claimed, would certainly be confiscated, and if we tried afterward to keep Kreisau for the family through a petition for clemency, which in this regard would certainly be successful, it would be better not to claim it for the sons.—How is my love feeling after these digressions? Are you depressed, or had you wisely not got your hopes up? After I saw off Carl Viggo on his train—for the time being, he can’t actually do anything—I was quite depressed, and went to great lengths to find our bedrock, then I went to see Frau Reisert, where I saw Haubach’s girlfriend too,7 and both women were so touchingly delighted to have me visit, and both had such an obvious need to seek comfort from me. It’s strange; I keep telling them: Figure on death, there’s no point in doing otherwise; and yet I always seem to give them a breath of fresh air and hope, even though I was in a very bad frame of mind today, but apparently theirs was worse. In Reisert’s case, I have to say that I can’t believe there will be a death sentence, but Frau Reisert expects it. She’s a nice woman, smart, lively, and has a gentle heart, and she’s also nice-looking. Today, though, she just looked miserable.
Letter from Freya to Helmuth, November 11, 1944
I send you a big embrace. I’m living quite close to you and am deeply united with you. I’m doing well, because I can rest assured that we’re so secure. The other people have it much harder. In abiding love, I am forever your P.
1. On November 8, Thiele had recommended the public defender Arno Weismann to Freya, but Poelchau dissuaded her.
2. Freisler presided over trials throughout the German Reich. Freya refers to the fact that he may not be in Berlin.
3. Fritz-Dietlof Graf von der Schulenburg. This appears to refer to the map on which the members of the Kreisau Circle marked the administrative districts (Gaue) and the military districts (Wehrkreise) for which they had specific state administrators in mind.
4. Ernst Lautz.
5. Otto Georg Thierack.
6. In most cases, a death sentence resulted in a seizure of assets.
7. Anneliese Schellhase.
FREYA TO HELMUTH JAMES, NOVEMBER 12, 1944
Sunday morning
Good morning, my dear! I’m very close by and will probably stay here until noon in order to get a reply from you. I can eat here, and then I’ll go to see Carl Dietrich [von Trotha] again. I spent a good and lovely night here,1 my dear love! Yesterday evening I was exhausted, not physically but emotionally. All the activity had filled me with hope, and then this activity struck me as unsuccessful, the impressions I had taken with me now depressed me, I found the situation disgraceful, and then all of a sudden I had no more hope. Even though I know this is the right place for our hearts, I was simply unable to keep my heart there, and the plunge hurts all over again each and every time. Now, however, I’m settled in down below again, and I’m back on firm footing—I think I can say that with certainty.
The dear good friends could already see from far away that I wasn’t on an even keel. It must be easy to recognize, you would have seen it instantly too, so they kept me in this splendid haven, and I gave vent to all the gentlemen of Verona.2 That was quite beneficial, and soon I had plucked up my courage again, found you—no, I always had you quite firmly, but found the true, indestructible, everlasting connection to you—and then I slept well and gratefully. May God grant that you aren’t having a more difficult time of it! You will of course be tested far more in your cell, my dear. The fact of the matter is that the most beautiful thing we have been granted during these past few weeks is our shared preparation for your death, my beloved husband. That is the great gift.
Another thing became clear to me last night, or rather, overnight: We will not see each other as though it’s the last time, my Jäm. We don’t know that, we can’t know it at all, and we’d make things too hard on ourselves otherwise. I’d wondered whether we oughtn’t to make a point of seeing each other as though it was our time to part. I very much doubted that my he
art could endure that, hence my fear. But this morning I know for certain that I have to see you in the pure happiness of being able to see you, filled only with joy and not with pain and with the fact of life. That’s how I’ll come, my Jäm, that’s how I can be terribly happy. Do come to me in the same spirit, and don’t let death enter into us. It has no business being with us yet. I’ve known it for certain since this morning.
My Jäm, I love you! You surely feel that with every word I write. I am and will always remain your P.
1. At the home of the Poelchaus.
2. That is, to tears, an allusion to William Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona.
HELMUTH JAMES TO FREYA, NOVEMBER 12, 1944
Tegel, 12 Nov 44
My dear, I’ve been thinking of you tenderly and a great deal, and hoping that you haven’t fallen into a pit of depression because the tasks you are undertaking are strenuous and at times quite unpleasant for the soul. Right, it just occurred to me to tell you that I’ve been edifying myself in particular with a verse that is different from the one you know: 232, 4: “There my spirit knows no darkness, / Love remains when all is gone—/ Sorrows crushing body and soul / Do the heathens know alone— / Resting in Christ’s blessed light, / Fears she not the earthly night.” That, my love, is something we have certainly both learned, and now we are told to remain in the blessed light. It is easier said than done, because it is not a possession you can simply carry home; instead, you have to achieve it anew every day, indeed, every hour.