von Moltke’s letter to von Wartenburg


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Although Hitler was at the zenith of his power after his victorious “Western campaign” in mid-1940, Helmuth von Moltke was convinced that Germany would not be able to win the war. Through talks in a small circle and subsequent lively correspondence, he began exchanging views with likeminded individuals and offering his thoughts on the state’s form after the fall of National Socialism.


In a letter of June 17, 1940 to Yorck von Wartenburg, Moltke took up a discussion that they had had together with Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenburg two weeks before. Moltke made the views he expounded in that discussion more precise and emphasized that, in his opinion, the state’s ultimate purpose is to be the guardian of individuals’ freedom. Moltke asked Wartenburg to set forth his conception of the state. Moltke thus opened an exchange that brought together an ever larger circle of individuals who collectively developed plans for the time following the end of the Hitler dictatorship.


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  • © Quoted from Ger van Roon: Neuordnung im Widerstand. Der Kreisauer Kreis innerhalb der deutschen Widerstandsbewegung. München 1967, 479–481.

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