The fascinating biography of a wise and courageous woman.
Dorothy Innes (1884-1935) was born into the white South African upper class. In 1905 she married young Count Helmuth von Moltke, heir to the Kreisau estate in Lower Silesia. She wrote weekly letters to her parents in South Africa about her new life and the Prussian milieu she now lived in. The main topic was her oldest son, Helmuth James, who was later to become the head of the »Kreisauer Kreis« in the fight against Hitler and National Socialism. Her reports on his childhood and youth are full of deep affection. From an Anglo-Saxon perspective, the letters cast an interesting light on the German Empire and World War I, as well as the Weimar Republic and the beginnings of National Socialism.
Dorothy died in 1935 at only 51 years of age, and was spared witnessing the death of her son on the gallows. Urte von Berg presents the biography of a wise and courageous woman who raised her five children with humour and kindness and who fulfilled her duties as lady of the manor. The numerous excerpts from the letters are embedded in historical context.
