Freya von Moltke

Elaine had been cutting obituaries for me while I was away in Switzerland – and one, from Wednesday’s Times, spotlighted the extraordinary life of Freya von Moltke – a wartime critic of the Nazis and Adolf Hitler. The obituary got at least one fact wrong, asserting that she “is survived by her three sons”. Not true. Her second son, Konrad – born in 1941 – died in 2005. I knew him when he worked with the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP), where he was literally a towering figure. I recall a flight where Konrad strode down the plane aisle in his black cloak and was described by a chemical industry colleague as “Dr Dracula”. If I recall correctly, Konrad wasn’t greatly amused.