Last Letters
Page 26
1. The trial had been postponed from December 19–20 to January 8.
FREYA TO HELMUTH JAMES, DECEMBER 15, 1944
Friday morning
My dear, dear love, you’re getting only a few words instead of a long lovely letter, because yesterday, after my indescribable happiness about the additional reprieve, I was totally submerged in a lethargy brought on by a headache, more completely than I have been in a long time. I did see Peters, who was very nice, very amenable, and very pleased that he could do this with a stretch of time ahead of him, and then I went home and lapsed into lethargy. The best sign of that, as you’ll see, is that I didn’t go to the friends. I went to bed at 6. Incidentally, I already had the symptoms in the morning, but luck was evidently too much on my side, and I was unable to keep going. I’m a bit fearful that you, my beloved heart, were so prepared from within that the changeover is causing you stress. I’m not sure about that. I, my love, am simply overjoyed! And so grateful! Grateful to the dear Lord for lending us aid! It was already set for Mon/Tues, and on Wednesday Hercher had Hermes, and his turn really is coming up, that truly weighs me down, because things look bad for him too,1 Hercher says.—My dear, I’m now writing on the commuter train. Poelchau wants to leave early. Even though I got up early too, things didn’t go quickly, and I had to make myself some oatmeal and tea, and then I got a call from Asta [Wendland] after I sent her a telegram with the news. They were all overjoyed too.
Now it’s just after 7. But yesterday afternoon I was totally unable to write. And I have to catch up on reading our three chapters together with today’s. Now I also have to tell you how things went with Thiele yesterday: I said that I was coming for permission for a face-to-face meeting, since I feared you would be taken to Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse as early as Saturday. Herr Thiele said, “Yes, but the trial isn’t taking place now. The director had to go to Klausenburg on urgent business.” “Then it will be between Christmas and New Year’s.” “No, no! No sooner than early January! Some will be quite happy about the postponement.” “I’m one of them.” Then there was a conversation about the children. Herr Thiele has a two-and-a-half-year-old son he’s quite attached to. After that I pulled out my application regarding the fertilizer and said that I wouldn’t be going to see you until next week, at which point I was given thirty minutes of speaking time—it doesn’t matter to him when I go. Then a stranger came in, full of Christmas spirit. He wanted to know when the court sessions would begin again after Christmas. “Oh, not before early Jan.! Wait a minute!” Then he had a look at the calendar: “Not before January 8 for major matters; maybe for minor matters, we’ll have to see.” Then the stranger left, and so did I. I hadn’t been this happy in a long time. I immediately made a telephone call in the booth and reached Poelchau, so you probably heard about it between 10 and 11. I’m also going to tell all the other women right away, feeling like a Christmas angel. I was so overjoyed. I hope you’re pleased as well. I’m eager to find out what Poelchau will say next. Oh, my Jäm, it is so wonderful to still be celebrating Christmas with you, and, God willing, to ring in the year 1945 with you as well. Since you wrote to me last year at New Year’s that we could be thankful if we all left 1944 together, I’ve never let go of that thought. Now the prospects are looking good for us still to be together. Even though we won’t be close by each other this year, I may actually be closer to you than ever. Isn’t that a miracle as well? Oh, my Jäm, how grateful we really must be.
Now for a technicality: I can’t travel between the 22nd and 24th. All business travel stops then, and only urgent family trips are permitted, so I’ll have to leave here on the 21st. But I also have to go to Kreisau again to get all sorts of things. What should I do, then: Take a short trip this weekend and then again on the 21st? So should I visit you on the 21st? What would work best for you? I can then stay with you over New Year’s. Now there’s just the interesting question of when the pig dies:2 before the trial or not until afterward. I have to be home for two to three days that week, without Lenchen. That is a lovely problem to have, but of burning interest in providing food for the Berghaus.
This letter isn’t tidy, but my love and gratitude are immense. You know that. P.
1. Andreas Hermes was also sentenced to death, but his execution was postponed several times, and he was eventually freed when the Soviet troops entered.
2. See Freya’s second letter of December 8, 1944, note 1.
FREYA TO HELMUTH JAMES, DECEMBER 15–16, 1944
Friday evening at Carl Dietrich [von Trotha]’s third Advent! 5:30! My dear, my beloved Jäm, I was well aware what would go on inside you if you had to adjust to a respite once again, now that you were totally prepared for the journey, for the battle. For me, this shift was easier than for you and more “just pleasant.” For you, my love, the renewed transition to “relaxation” is far more difficult. In spite of your will to live, you were so close to death again, and well acquainted with it. Now everything is starting up anew. My love, this whole thing is a difficult test for you, quite a severe one, and right at the outset you decided to delve straight into it, in whatever form it takes. That’s why it’s harder for you than it is for Eugen [Gerstenmaier], who is so sure of his hope, and harder than Delp, who has nothing that binds him to life as much as your living Pim binds you. The same difference holds for the women involved. But you also have lots of help, you’re given lots of strength, you’re never abandoned, and you’ll follow your path. My love will go with you as far as it can, my dear, dear heart. In any case, this postponement is yet another astonishing act of providence.
No, my love, I don’t want to go away from you now for more than one week, no, no. I will travel tomorrow at 10:30, without having your explicit blessing; I’m in very good shape, and anyway, it’s not so strenuous. I had expected that Poelchau would be with you 2 times and bring me a reply from you. So I’ll be in Kreisau at 7, and on Sunday night I’ll come back so I can be back with you until Thursday. Then I’ll be able to fill you in on everything at home and bring you the things you can eat and something that the Poelchaus may enjoy. Poelchau thought I shouldn’t travel, but this morning Casparchen’s voice sounded so urgent when he asked “Are you coming on Sunday?” that I said yes right away. The very idea of being away until after Christmas makes my heart turn over in my body. This is where I live with you, this is where I belong, and I have to visit the little boys. I just hope you agree.
I won’t write any more about practical matters tonight, aside from one thing, because I know it’ll make you happy, my love: today Frau Pastor wrote me your baptismal and confirmation verses, and they are so particularly beautiful and they are so well suited to your life and its current paths that it is a joy to read them: baptism: Romans 8:38–39,1 see hymn 150, 11–12; confirmation: 1 Corinthians 15:58.2 That will surely please you! You are really flanked by beautiful verses, without and with P. Good night now, my dear love. It’s after 11. I hope you’re already sleeping well!
So, my love, I’m now at the friends’ home. I don’t actually have anything more to write, but let’s face it, when could I stop writing: I could talk to you all the time. My dear! You need to recognize clearly that the little sons and I are the only ones making your current situation truly difficult and stressful. If you put us out of your mind, dying will be quite easy for a man like you, in spite of the blossoming apple trees and the sun over the mountains in Kreisau. I am keenly aware of it, because it is still important to me, in spite of it all, not to delude myself. I’ve known all along that my existence makes your life easier and more bearable, but that I also bind you to this world and its joys. I’m far more a creature of this world than you and quite far removed from the spiritual realm. This is why the good Lord will take care of me, because I am also part of His creation, so the connection to Him can be quite close, but I pull you back down onto the earth, making you more suited to life and happier to live in this world, while binding you to it. It is true that our love is more than that. I know and believe i
t. It also helps you to die, yet Pim in a little foal, who can be touched and seen, is making it hard for you! My poor, sweet, dear love, even though I know this, I still affirm myself at your side; I know that I make things hard for you and don’t want to change that at all. It just is difficult for you. God knows that too, and has joined and united me with you. When we met, I rushed to your side with elemental force. If that was not destiny! For me, there was absolutely no other choice; when I saw you, my heart opened up, and that’s where you live and remain. If we hadn’t married, you’d still be there, and I knew that from the start. I’ve often told you that. But now I’m like a millstone around your neck and have even enhanced my earthly power with the two little sons. Just be quite clear about this; maybe this clarity will help you.
My love, I’ll now tear myself away! May God watch over you, us; may He not leave us alone. I’ll come back to be close to you as quickly as I can. But nothing changes even at a distance.
I am and will forever remain your P.
1. “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
2. “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, foras-much as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”
HELMUTH JAMES TO FREYA, DECEMBER 16, 1944
Tegel, 16 Dec 44
My dear, if it weren’t for a miracle, I’d now be sitting at Prinz-Albrecht-Str., unable to write to you, so I’m writing this letter with a special feeling of gratitude.—This letter comes too late for making plans. The only thing I want is for you not to run yourself down traveling back and forth, because January will pack quite a punch, and your breakdown, although it was a minor one, over the release from the pre-Christmas trial is a clear sign that you need to take care of yourself.—Better to leave me without some items than to make the trip twice; but it seems to me that there ought to be someone who could be found to bring you what you need.—I would arrange to have the pig die before me, because it’s possible that you’ll still need to attempt some things here after the trial, and it’s also possible that you will then no longer be regarded as an agricultural producer, or in any case you won’t be able to get to the pig. It will all depend on the mercy of the Silesian Gestapo, and you shouldn’t be dependent on their whims. Can’t you borrow Sister Ida [Hübner] for the two days of the slaughter? She surely has two days to spare at this time of year. I think it best if you do all that right after Christmas rather than making your way back and forth, assuming the pig is fully developed. Maybe the butcher will slaughter it for you before Christmas, although that would involve a rush, and is thus not likely. So I’m in favor of your going home on the 20th at the latest, taking care of the slaughter on the 27th, 28th and getting back here on the 29th or 30th.
Now there are unfortunately a great many technical matters that will create some work for you again: Yesterday I was brought to Lange for questioning. Lange was extremely friendly—which is always a bad sign. I even had to shake his hand again, an act I had been exempted from for four months. The questioning has to have been a mere pretext, because it was about a man I don’t know at all, someone who certainly had no case against him, and Lange was clearly indifferent to what I said; the entire written record amounted to twenty lines. But beforehand he told me he had received my written defense from the section commander—it was in front of him, clearly well thumbed—and he was told, by Müller, to let me know that he had not ever experienced such a brazen act as invoking him as a witness for the defense;1 he evidently couldn’t imagine that this was an ingenious kind of defense. Of course, he explained, they would pass along the written defense; it didn’t matter to them at all. They hadn’t known anything, of course, and if they acted as though they did know something, that was hardly a reason not to report the matter. I replied that I wasn’t able to believe that for two reasons: first, I thought too highly of them and their intelligence, and second, Müller himself confirmed it to me.—Then came the questioning. Then he said I’d be questioned about Mami and Willo [von Moltke] later too, and then, maybe a half hour after we had finished the subject, he asked whether I had anything else to say about my written defense, to which I replied: No.—The whole thing was very strange. At any rate, it was clear that they hadn’t yet passed along the written plea; in fact, the copy, the duplicate I’d included, is now at the People’s Court, which evidently—as I’d hoped—the chief Reich prosecutor had picked up right away and kept there. I hope they don’t find out. It’s certain that the plea intrigued them in some way, because if it hadn’t, this copy wouldn’t have been so well thumbed. If my listing Müller as a witness merely angered him, it would be foolish, but if it also confirmed their image of me as a naïve utopian, it could come in handy.2 In any case: alea iacta sunt [sic],3 and now I can’t bat an eyelash but have to stick to this line without wavering.—Still, it’s clear that they don’t regard my written plea as putting the death sentence in jeopardy, or else they would have gone to greater lengths to plant mines to counteract it.
Hercher was here today; most of the time he talked to Delp, but gave me the indictment to read. The conversation with him made it clear that he’d only glanced through the court record. I asked him certain questions, mainly in order to find out whether records of my interrogations might be missing. Do call him up again; tell him that when he examines the court records, he should please find out whether all the records about me are there, along with my two letters to Huppenkothen,4 and also whether the Kiep records are in the files.—He also explained that he did not regard the knowledge on the part of the police as a defense; the obligation to inform the authorities was an absolute one. I referred him to Dix. Please call Dix and tell him that. Tell him I urgently request that he put a real fire under Hercher, because it would be dire if he strayed from my line in his oral defense. Dix should really prime him. Now on to the indictment. My impression has stayed the same, namely that it’s hard to understand why the attack is so misguided. There is only one point in which a careful study has turned up a new complication; my major burden of incrimination comes not from Maass but evidently from Steltzer. A great deal of what my first impression had suggested came from Maass actually came from him. Under these circumstances it would be important a. to familiarize him with my line of defense, and b. to get a clear description from him how he can conform to this line. Maybe Frau Graf (?) can see to that even during all the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season. Maass is the source of several very stupid accusations and quite an idiotic depiction of the discussion in Kreisau “in August ’43.” That’s what we’ll have to deal with. Steltzer started the garbage about “steering committee of bishops and unionists” who were supposed to represent a kind of replacement for the government or the Führer. On top of that, he claims—according to the indictment—to have traveled to Munich on my instructions.—So we have to try to get a commitment from Steltzer that he can shape his statements in such a way that they harmonize with my defense, because I have no desire to have Freisler get me into a conflict with Steltzer. As far as I can tell, Sperr’s and Reisert’s statements mesh quite nicely, and of the whole crowd, only Steltzer appears not to line up.
Now to my health: Yesterday’s excursion went miserably for me. At the Prinz-Albrecht-Str. I was so stiff that I had the greatest difficulty climbing the stairs; the problem was restricted to my sciatic nerve. The rest of my rheumatic pain is gone, but the sciatica reacts instantly to cold, damp weather or heavy strain. I would love to do something about that, because in my current condition I can’t remain standing for fifteen minutes at a stretch. And while we’re on that subject, another thought has now crossed my mind. We have to keep on trying to postpone the trial, for the fact remains that every extra day is a gain for us. Question: Perhaps you could speak to Thiele in ear
ly January, tell him I’m so bent over that I can’t stand, but don’t want to go to the sick bay, because the trial is imminent and even treatment in the sick bay wouldn’t fix me in time. If you learn that the remaining time would be at least as much as I need, I would follow up with reporting to the sick bay on Friday, which is always the physician’s day; but that would make sense only if I could spend at least fourteen days to three weeks in bed; anything else is useless.—That’s the end of the practical part, I think.
My dear love, your collapse upon hearing the good news and the relief it sparked once again made it quite clear to me how stressful all this has been for you, my poor thing. This has been going on for two and a half months already, and it horrifies me to contemplate how you may fare when the probable ending arrives and I am killed. My poor dear, the fact that your happiness at us gaining these three weeks wore you out so thoroughly shows that you have to take it easy. Rest up until New Year’s Day. During that time nothing concrete can get done, so this is the time that you’re least indispensable. Only the secret message transactions must be prepared by you in such a way that they can be handled during your absence.—Oh, right, that pig Weber who came to get me asked whether you’d already had permission for a face-to-face meeting. Maybe that was nothing but chattiness on his part. But please be careful, especially with our letters. You basically always have to anticipate your arrest, even though it is no longer likely now without special grounds. In any event, if you should get arrested, be prepared to ward off any harm.
Yes, my dear, of course I’m happy and grateful about the postponement, although I get the feeling that it has less of an effect on me than on Poelchau and you, Eugen [Gerstenmaier], and Delp and Claus. I felt so sheltered that I was awaiting the trial free of inner tension and strain. I was very grateful for that and can only pray that He shelters me once again when the trial approaches. As a consequence, though, it was not such a relief. Yes, I’m also happy to be able to live to see Christmas once again, and despite all the uncertainty it’s easier on you and the others in Kreisau than if I had just died or been sentenced to death but not yet executed.