Freya Von Moltke - Legacy

Legacy

After World War II, Von Moltke was active in publicizing her husband's ideas and actions during the war, to serve as an example of principled resistance. As early as 1949 she traveled to the United States to lecture on "Germany: Past and present," "Germany: Totalitarianism versus democracy,""German youth and the new education," and "Women’s position in the new Germany."

Von Moltke has been a subject of many interviews and articles. She told interviewer, Owings: "People who lived through the Nazi time, and who still live, who did not lose their lives because they were opposed, all had to make compromises."

With the reunification of Germany, von Moltke was supportive of transforming the former von Moltke estate in Kreisau into a meeting place to promote German-Polish and European mutual understanding. Poland and Germany invested 30 million DM in renovating the venue. It opened in 1998 as the Internationale Jugendbegegnungsstätte Kreisau (Kreisau International Youth Center). In 2004, a fund was established, the Freya von Moltke Stiftung für das Neue Kreisau (Freya von Moltke Foundation for the New Kreisau), to promote the long-term support of the meeting place and further the work done there. As of 2007, von Moltke actively supported this initiative as the honorary chair of the board of trustees of the Kreisau Foundation for European Understanding (the supporting entity for the Kreisau meeting site) and the Institute for Cultural Infrastructure, Sachsen in Görlitz.

Her life served as the basis of a play by Marc Smith titled A Journey to Kreisau.

Director Rachel Freudenburg's documentary film on the life of Freya von Moltke, including her last interview in English, premiered at Goethe-Institut Boston on January 23, 2011.