Freya

Freya von Moltke and her husband, Count Helmuth James von Moltke, were among the leading figures of the Kreisau Circle, a resistance movement within Nazi Germany that maintained contact with the Allied forces while secretly designing the structure for a postwar, post-Hitler democratic government. Rachel Freudenburg's documentary focuses on James and Freya's wartime efforts, which were driven by Christian-fueled humanitarianism and a passionate opposition to everything that Nazism encompassed. James used his position in the German Abwehr to aggressively document human rights abuses in Nazi-controlled territories; he was later arrested for his role in the Kreisau Circle and executed in January 1945. Freya survived the Nazi years and remained an eloquent symbol of the German voices that struggled against the madness and cruelty of the Hitler regime. Here, Freya's oral history is largely culled from one of her late-life English-language interviews (she died in 2010), backed with a wealth of family photographs and newsreel footage depicting the couple's evolution from privileged German aristocrats into passionate underground fighters willing to sacrifice their lives for the sake of their nation's future. Shining a fascinating light on a little-known chapter of World War II history, this is recommended. Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)