Freya von Moltke, a key member of Germany's anti-Nazi resistance during World War II died on New Year's Day, 2009, aged 98.

She had been part of a well-connected wartime group known as the Kreisau Circle.

Its members backed a plot to assassinate Hitler in 1944.

Her husband, Helmuth, was an important player in its activities and was executed for treason.

Freya and her husband were opponents of Hitler from the start of the Nazi regime and assisted Jews and other victims through Helmut's Berlin law firm.

After the war, she and her two sons fled to South Africa where she worked as a social worker.

She returned home to Germany in 1956 to begin publicising the Kreisau Circle and writing books on its struggles.

She settled in Vermont, US, in 1960 and died in her adopted country.