Sleep well, my love, after this lovely day, which is ushering in the twelfth month.2 Tomorrow I’ll write a little more, before you get the letter the day after tomorrow.
1. “For the use of the Dauphin”: The gist of this phrase is that it has been adjusted for the recipient. Helmuth’s description of the pain in an official letter of December 17, 1944, was “tinged” for the censor and/or others who read it.
2. Of Helmuth’s captivity under Gestapo control.
FREYA TO HELMUTH JAMES, DECEMBER 20, 1944
Wednesday morning
My dear love, it was so wonderful to be with you. But I couldn’t even think about a parting; I felt nothing out of the ordinary while sitting there with you because I am so astonishingly close to you. Seeing you is a great joy, but it is not the most important thing in and of itself. I know all too well how everything looks, it is so indubitably a part of me, I love it so very much, it is mine and I am so close to it, the dear heart; that is the greatest happiness. But one happiness is added to the other, and so it was a great and lovely gift. It would only be even more beautiful if we didn’t need to say anything, because we fill up the time with talking and could be sitting and looking at each other. That would be the best thing. I was somewhat dismayed by how bent over you were, and after reading the little letter I got last night, I don’t know whether there was a little faking going on. Other than that, you looked right, the way you are on the inside, too, and I gazed upon all this very tenderly. Oh, my dear love, that’s how I am: I clearly feel us standing together before God, with my heart open and ready for anything that lies ahead for us, and I’m calm and very happy when I’m with you, yet since we have a bit more time now, your death has been pushed into the distance once again, not because I have a great deal of hope but because there’s still some time.
I was also thinking about your little crosses before I found them in your lovely little letter. There was one time when you didn’t get them, when we saw each other the first time in Tegel. But in Grundlsee you got a kiss on the forehead. I don’t know either when the little crosses began, but I have an exact recollection of the kiss on the forehead—as we were standing in the room that faced toward the back and you were tending to my sunstroke. It was my initiative, and you probably thought it was heading elsewhere, but I wanted to go there only because it hadn’t occurred to me yet that I might be able to kiss you somewhere else. I was already terribly fond of you and was shivering with excitement for the first letter all the way to Cologne! Oh, my Jäm, that’s just one in the flood of the tenderest, dearest memories. Recently, in some dark hour, I suddenly recalled our first stroll on the mountain meadow with the two squirrels. Do you still remember that too, and how beautiful, dear, tender, yet unpretentious that was? We’ve had it very good.—Poelchau just gave me the envelope for Christmas. How delighted I am. My dear, I love you with all my heart, and with all my soul, and with all my mind. How happy you have made me with the “single idea of divine creation.”1
Off now with your P.
1. See Helmuth’s letter of December 18–19, 1944.
HELMUTH JAMES TO FREYA, DECEMBER 20, 1944
Tegel, 20 Dec 44
My dear love, I was very happy to receive your letter and to get you the one I started. Please take the letter to Ulla [Oldenbourg] with you and give it to her without Asta [Wendland] noticing, otherwise she could be offended that she doesn’t have one, and I don’t want that. But I can’t simply write a normal letter now and send it via this path, which poses a risk to Poelchau’s life,1 and I don’t have anything else to write to Asta. So please see to it that there isn’t a slipup.
Yes, my dear, in recent days I’ve been recalling the route to Adler, the path to the mountain meadow, the ring of grass, the excursion to Aussee on the day after Daisy [Freyberg]’s departure, the way to the cliff, and things of that sort.2 I always imagined it was a little cross and a kiss on the forehead, but maybe I just slipped in the cross in my thoughts.
I spent this morning feeling rather upset, because one of our people here, Wentzel-Teutschenthal, was being prepared at 7:30 for his execution, I knew that Poelchau didn’t plan to come and they kept poor Wentzel-Teutschenthal waiting until 12:30 p.m. with an open cell door in which Herr Claus or some other official was standing, only to tell him that he would be picked up at 2 p.m. In the meantime, however, Poelchau came, which was good, and Wentzel has been gone for half an hour and will probably be hanged any moment now. Tell Zeumer that Wentzel is dead, and Scholz-Babisch may interest Zeumer as well.
Claus just came with the news that a ninth man is joining our trial. If it’s Husen, then he has to get my line of defense very soon.
My sciatica is somewhat better again today. The pain has subsided in the course of the past few days, but I have to stay bent over; standing up straight is very stressful and painful if it goes on for too long. During the holidays I want to stay in bed and see if that makes it any better. On workdays I’m so reluctant to be in bed because I would be so unprepared if they were to come for me. Yes, interrogations are now always possible for me, and it’s an unpleasantly disconcerting feeling. It may be, though, that they will put them off until after the verdict, because they can then run roughshod over me as much as they like. Fortunately, it is in God’s hands whether that does or doesn’t happen, and if that is what He intends for me, He will also give me the strength to bear it. I can only hope that He won’t let me fall into the feeling that I am dependent on Müller or Freisler, let alone on Lange. As long as I have the feeling, “A Christian man is a free man and subject to none,”3 everything will be all right.
Well, my love, Poelchau will be coming very soon to pick up the letter, and I’ll stop so that you won’t get one without a closing again. Have a good trip, my love, get back safely, send my love to everyone at home, the little sons and Asta and Ulla, Frau Pick and Liesbeth, etc., etc. I wish everyone a blessed Christmas celebration. “Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice,” it says in Philippians 4:4, and that, my love, applies to us as well. My dear love, I am and will remain for all time your J.
1. Helmuth was aware that Poelchau was risking his life with every letter.
2. All memories of their first meeting in the summer of 1929.
3. Martin Luther.
FREYA TO HELMUTH JAMES, DECEMBER 21, 1944
Thursday morning
My dear love, last night I was very busy with your Christmas item—which really can’t be called a gift—and afterward with preparing the goose—which is nice and fat—and then with my own fatigue, so I put off writing until the lovely early-morning hours. So here I sit now—just got dressed—the friends are still sleeping. My dear, I’ll get the factual part out of the way first. So far, your messages have not reached any of the men on Lehrter Str.1 It is so large. [Frau] Graf and Schellhase have it in their hands. Reisert is mentally ill and utterly unable to absorb anything. Frau Reisert is going to have him brought to a psychiatric clinic. He keeps attempting suicide; his condition is serious, and he may well not make it to trial. Poelchau is holding on to Husen’s. The Christmas cakes are really the true means of transport. I wonder if it’s really Husen! Not pleasant! We’ve left out Sperr. He says he hasn’t gotten a secret message yet! So he must have eaten it!2 Yesterday afternoon there was a lengthy visit with Dix. It’s such a shame that he isn’t supporting you, for he’s tempted, and then he starts in right away, and whatever we might say against him: he’s excellent at that. Well, he’s not our man!—Of course he will spur on Hercher significantly. As for knowledge by the Abwehr, he affirmed your exculpation in this respect, too. If you knew that your immediate military superior knew, and that this was the very department in charge of such cases, it had to be sufficient for you as an officer. You were able to assume that Canaris3 notified the authorities, otherwise you would have had to assume that he is an enemy of the state, “Are you accusing me of knowing that Canaris did not pass along this information!” But there are no decisions on this que
stion. Dix thinks that you also have cover via Haubach, if he really notified the authorities with your knowledge and approval. (In that regard there is the following piece of paper I got from Haubach yesterday: Helmuth: my second item of information on Gestapo Winter ’42/’43. Our conversation, spring ’43: Helmuth: “I can no longer look on at the criminal and preposterous goings-on of the Goerdeler people. Want to inform the authorities.” Me: “Isn’t necessary, have already done so.” Helmuth in full agreement, including with the mention of Kreisau {his comment: the Gestapo has of course known this for quite some time—and we have nothing to hide}, promised complete silence, and kept his word.)
I have to stop now, and I’ll come to visit you afterward.
P.
1. This discussion is about the distribution of secret messages to Steltzer, Haubach, Reisert, and Sperr, with the one for Husen (still free) in Poelchau’s hands.
2. The secret messages were inside the cakes.
3. Admiral Canaris, the head of counterintelligence and Helmuth’s ultimate commanding officer, was also an opponent of the Nazis.
HELMUTH JAMES TO FREYA, DECEMBER 21, 1944
Tegel, 21 Dec 44
My dear, this morning Gissel came with all kinds of treasures, and then I knew that my dear love was in the building, quite close by, so I was doubly delighted when I unwrapped the treats that my darling had brought for me; how sweet and glorious that was. Then there was quite a magnificent branch, truly an exceptionally beautiful one, which now adorns my doorway, along with the white candle that is awaiting the 24th.
The matter with Theo [Haubach] is different. In the fall of ’42, probably November, after Kreisau1 in any case, I said to Carlo [Mierendorff] that we had to scare Leuschner2 so he would ditch Goerdeler.3 For this reason, a formal notification would have to be made at the Gestapo, even though that would be pointless, because they knew full well why they weren’t going to make a move.4 Still, he or Theo should do this so as to be able to inform Leuschner about the reaction. Two weeks later, Carlo told me that nothing of any use came out of the visit to Prinz-Albrecht-Str. because they said, “We know about this, it’s being watched, there’s nothing further to do.” I no longer recall whether either Theo or Carlo was there, or both were. Then came the conversation with Theo along the lines of how he is describing it, but to the best of my knowledge we went on to talk about how another foray ought to be made, which one of them would want to make because they know the people. For me it’s pretty significant that the first initiative originated with me, and Carlo is sure to have said that to Theo.
In 1940, between the Norwegian Campaign and the Battle of France, I heard the first rumors about plans by Beck–Goerdeler. They came from Peter [Yorck] via the Abwehr. These rumors got thicker and more frequent in the following years, without my ever having knowingly associated with any Goerdeler man or having heard anything about these plans from such a person. Everything always came from the Abwehr or police sources. In the fall of ’42 there was my request to Mierendorff to inform the authorities in order to scare Leuschner; and at roughly the same time, the letter from Canaris to Bamler, in which Canaris states that he has spoken to the SS Reich Leader about this. Then came the conversation with Schulenburg, in which Schulenburg essentially claimed that Beck and Goerdeler were seriously contemplating plans for a coup and wanted to recruit me. Once I had rejected that, he said that at least in the case of a defeat, a clarification with Beck and Goerdeler would be good. I rejected that initially as well, whereupon he said that Beck was not at all committed, and it was entirely possible that I would discover that he rejected the idea of a coup just as much as I did, which is why there should be a discussion about the concrete problems. He then arranged for the Beck–Goerdeler–Popitz–Hassell–Peter [Yorck]–Adam [von Trott zu Solz]–Eugen [Gerstenmaier]–me meeting,5 which I wanted to use primarily to dissuade Beck from any subversive ideas and make it quite clear that, as far as we were concerned, this was out of the question. This is why I began with a sharply worded attack against any coup and asked Beck to declare his solidarity with this position. He didn’t do so, and after some idle chatter, we went our separate ways, so on this evening I was the only one to have broached the subject of a coup. Two days later, Beck communicated to me, in the name of the other older men: a. that they were highly indignant about my attack; b. that he had determined that no one besides me spoke about a coup; c. that he rejected in no uncertain terms the allegation that any of the older men had thought in terms of a coup; they had no intentions of this sort, and he asked me to take note of that fact; all other rumors lacked any basis in reality.6
Question: Does the conversation with Schulenburg imply a concrete obligation to inform the authorities? Does the meeting among the eight of us again imply such an obligation? After all, the police and the Abwehr knew nothing about these two meetings. What they did know was only that Goerdeler and Beck had been contemplating plans for a coup. So they knew only what had made me suspect it and triggered my attack, but no reaction followed.
All these considerations make me see one thing, at any rate: Every day we can gain to mull over these matters is infinitely valuable, because a swarm of complications has to be taken into account; basically our work is far from done. Since October 22 or 23, when I began to get a sense of the very first arguments for a plausible defense, hardly a week has gone by without my coming up with something new. If only Hercher were better! But ultimately the most important thing is that he needs to be a decent human being and not stab me in the back.
Good night, my love, I hope you’re already making your merry way from Liegnitz to Kreisau. I’ll stop for today. Sleep well, and may the Lord watch over you and us. J.
1. Helmuth is referring to the second plenary meeting of the Kreisau Circle in October 1942.
2.Wilhelm Leuschner was a Social Democrat who switched from the Kreisau Circle to join Goerdeler, to the dismay of other Social Democrats.
3. Goerdeler was the mayor of Leipzig from 1930 to 1937.
4. Members of the Kreisau Circle did not opt to notify the authorities until they knew that the case was already known to the Gestapo. Mierendorff, a key actor here, had died in an air raid in 1943.
5. This meeting Helmuth had was a key charge against him in the indictment submitted to the court by the Gestapo.
6. For an evaluation of the Goerdeler connection, see Editors’ Introduction.
HELMUTH JAMES TO FREYA, DECEMBER 24–25, 1944
Tegel, 24 Dec 44
My dear, I need to have a word on paper with my dearest before the candles have to be blown out. It’s about 6 o’clock, and my thoughts, which have been with you the whole day, have spent the past hour seeking you out as you’re singing, reading, and gift-giving. My love, a manger, corona, and a little songbook arrived from you, and I’ve just opened the package. The manger, which you constructed quite splendidly, is on my table, looking down at me, I attached the star with the corona to the edge of the table in a way that I can look straight at it when I’m lying in bed, and I’ve read about two-thirds of the little book by the light of the big candle behind me, which is also casting its light on me for this letter while the Christmas candle burns on the branch over the door.—Since yesterday, I’ve been on total bed rest, and will stay that way until Wednesday in the hope that my leg will take well to that.—Today at noon I listened to the Christmas celebration, which Poelchau organized quite nicely.—I’ll stop now, my love, because I want to blow out the candles and turn the light back on and so call an end to the Christmas celebration, which is probably my last. I’m not sad, no, I’m grateful that I get to experience it once more, because the very feeling that it is probably my last makes the gift of this day doubly great and doubly happy for me.—All my thoughts are with you, my dear, and I pray for God’s blessing for us. J.
25 Dec 44
Yesterday evening, and during the night, I read the prophet Isaiah all the way through, for the first time in my life in a single sitting. One thin
g is quite clear, namely that you have to do it again and again that way, because piecemeal reading makes you lose too much of the context. But it is very difficult reading, far more difficult than even the Gospel of John or the Pauline epistles. But I think it’s even greater, even more powerful. You’ll be astonished that I’m saying this. But isn’t someone who doesn’t see and knows that he won’t be getting any humanly tangible confirmation greater than someone who proclaims what he has seen or objectively experienced? The complete certainty of the Redeemer who has in no way been revealed, a certainty with which Isaiah is suffused and which keeps him safe from all doubts even in the face of hostilities, a certainty that does not abandon Jeremiah when he is thrown into the snake pit, and that lifts the soul of Job: Is it not stronger, more powerful than what comes after the birth of the Redeemer, precisely because it doesn’t rest on any proofs but only on promises made many hundreds of years ago? It makes you sad to see what has been bestowed on people and how hard we have to struggle for far simpler things.—I want to read the Gospel of John tonight and plan to read Isaiah again in a few days. One would have to read him fifty times to begin to understand him. The beautiful thing for me, particularly in Isaiah, but also in Jeremiah, is that nothing out of the ordinary takes place, the way it does in Elijah and Elisha, David, and Jonah, etc. They are all quite prosaic, unmelodramatic stories.—The more I have read over the course of these months, the more firmly I have come to be convinced that the compilation of “New Testament and Psalms” is a monstrosity.1 No one should be kept from knowing the Old Testament. And no matter how incredibly difficult the Old Testament is for us, I still think that it is far easier for humble hearts than it is for us, and certainly easier than we believe.
Last Letters Page 28