The Significance of Christian Faith

For all of the members of the Kreisau Circle, none of whom had völkisch or Social Darwinist views, none of whom had welcomed the Nazi system in 1933, Christian faith and its corresponding personal and social ethics were an essential foundation for the German spirit’s recovery.

And for all of the members of the Kreisau Circle, the social and political aims of liberal socialism a a third path between the extremes of dictatorial state socialism and anarchic private capitalism, especially as advocated by the social theologian Alfred Delp, were the consequence of public policy ensuing from anthropological and ethical reflection and historical experience.

In and of themselves, the members of the Kreisau Circle were also an ecumenically driven group. Moltke held around twenty-five talks with Konrad Preysing, Catholic bishop of Berlin, and encouraged him to speak even more clearly in his pastoral letters. He informed the Southern German bishops Konrad Gröber, Michael von Faulhaber and Johannes Baptista about the conspiratorial work of the members of the Kreisau Circle and sought their advice. Through the agency of Eugen Gerstenmaier, several talks were also held with Theophil Wurm, bishop of the Württemberg regional church.

The resistance was always more than a pragmatic political action group. Deep and reflective spiritual common ground from the Judeo-Christian tradition is found among the members of the Kreisau Circle, which did not tolerate any narrow denominationalism and was based on tolerance tied to values in the spirit of enlightened philosophy of European Humanism.

A special of friendship bound Moltke with Alfred Delp, with whom he especially discussed Catholic social doctrine. Apart from his esteem for Anglo-Saxon tradition, Moltke owed his embrace of ideas about natural law to his dialog with his Catholic friends in the Kreisau Circle.