Helmuth James Graf von Moltke

Helmuth James Graf von Moltke
Helmuth James Graf von Moltke in January, 1945
Born	(1907-03-11)11 March 1907 Kreisau, Prussian Silesia, German Empire
Died	23 January 1945(1945-01-23) (aged 37) Berlin-Plötzensee, Nazi Germany
Cause of death	Execution
Resting place	Hamburg-Wandsbek, Germany
Nationality	Germany
Other names	Helmuth James Ludwig Eugen Heinrich Graf von Moltke
Education	University of Breslau, Oxford University
Occupation	International law
Known for	Non-violent resistance to the Nazi government of Germany as co-founder of the Kreisau Circle
Title	Count
Spouse(s)	Freya von Moltke
Children	Helmuth Caspar, Konrad

Helmuth James Graf von Moltke (11 March 1907 – 23 January 1945) was a German jurist who, as a draftee in the German Abwehr, acted to subvert German human-rights abuses of people in territories occupied by Germany during World War II and subsequently became a founding member of the Kreisau Circle resistance group, whose members opposed the government of Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany. He participated in their discussions about the prospects for a Germany based on moral and democratic principles after Hitler. The Nazi government executed von Moltke for treason for his participation in these discussions.

Moltke was the great-grandnephew of Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, the victorious commander in the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian Wars, from whom he inherited the Kreisau Estate in Prussian Silesia, now Krzyżowa in Poland, and the grandnephew of Helmuth von Moltke the Younger.

He was born in Kreisau (now Krzyżowa, Świdnica County, Poland) in the Province of Silesia. His mother, Dorothy (née Rose Innes), was a South African of British descent, the daughter of Sir James Rose Innes, Chief Justice of the Union of South Africa from 1914 to 1927.