Kreisau Circle - Membership

Membership

The principal members were Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, Peter Graf Yorck von Wartenburg and Adam von Trott zu Solz. The leaders of the Kreisauer Kreis included members car of some of the most illustrious names in German history. Helmuth James von Moltke was a great-grandnephew of the famous Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, who led the Prussian army to victory over France in 1870. Peter Yorck von Wartenburg was a direct descendant of the Prussian general of the Napoleonic era who had been instrumental in arranging the defection of the Prussian army from the French side to that of the Sixth Coalition in 1813. General Yorck had been rewarded with title of Count, Graf von Yorck, and was allowed to append the name 'Wartenburg' to his surname as a battle honour (cf. Britain's Viscount Montgomery of Alamein), to become Graf Yorck von Wartenburg (in this case, the first 'von' becomes redundant).

Most members of the group were conservatives from the traditional aristocracy and gentry, but the circle did include people from a wide variety of backgrounds. They included two Jesuit priests, two Lutheran Pastors, conservatives, liberals, monarchists, landowners, former trade-union leaders, and diplomats. It was united by its abhorrence of Nazism and its desire to conceive of a new Germany after the fall of Hitler. The long meetings and discussions at Kreisau developed an image of a society to be based on Christian values and on small communities, so as to avoid a manipulation of the whole of society like the one Hitler had achieved. Some of them also wanted to restore the German monarchy, as a backup to stop one man gaining so much power in Germany again,