moltke

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Moltke_(1910)

This is stretch & I might be totally wrong here, but bear with me. In the late 60's/early 70's there was a soap opera named "Dark Shadows". One of the main characters was played by an actress named Alexandra Moltke. Her IMDB bio says: "Daughter of a Danish count and diplomat, Carl Adam Greve von Moltke, and wife Mabel Wilson, and paternal granddaughter of Carl Greve von Moltke (1869-1935) and his American wife Cornelia Van Rensselaer Thayer, who had some Dutch American ancestry." Could this be Carl Greve von Moltke & his wife Cornelia?

The Moltke family was quite large, with branches in Denmark, Sweden and Germany. The Count might possibly be a Danish Moltke, but I think it more likely that he is the Helmuth Graf von Moltke (1876-1939) who is listed on this page that Google turned up at a genealogy website. If so, then the boy in the photo would be Helmuth James von Moltke (1907-1944), leader of the Kreisau Circle (named for the family's seat in Silesia), which opposed the Nazi regime during WWII. Helmuth James Graf von Moltke was arrested in 1944 and executed by the Gestapo in 1945. He is the subject of a Wikipedia article. Count von Moltke's wife was the former Dorothy Rose-Innes, daughter of the South African Jurist Sir James Rose-Innes.

There were two Moltke's who were very important German military officers, Chief of Staff both, elder one was uncle of younger one. Both very major figures in period leading up to WW1 and then during the war. Helmuth von Moltke the younger, was chief of the German general staff at outbreak of WW1 and a major figure in WW1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmuth_von_Moltke_the_Younger His uncle was the military architect of the German victories of 1866 and 1870.

The two officers mentioned by Harry Angstrom are usually known as Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (1800-1891) and Helmuth von Moltke the Younger (1848-1916.) The uncle did not inherit the title of Graf (Count), but it was granted to him in 1870, for the services he rendered to the nation. The nephew never held a comital title, and thus could not be the Count in this Bain photo. If this photo does not depict a Danish Greve (Count) Moltke (about whom I can find nothing on the Internet), then he must be the heir of Wilhelm Graf von Moltke (1845-1905), whose ancestral title was tied to the ownership of Kreisau. As Helmuth Graf von Moltke zu Kreisau was born in 1876 (and would have inherited the title on the death of his father in 1905), and as his son, Helmuth James, was born in 1907, they would have been the apparent ages of the two Moltkes in this ca. 1910 photo.

This NYTimes article talks about a Danish count Carl Moltke who was the Danish minister to the US, who is being transferred to Berlin (August 7, 1912) query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9504E2DB123CE633A... there was also a famous German naval ship named the Moltke, info here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Moltke_(1910)

Helmuth Johann Ludwig von Moltke (German pronunciation: [ˈhɛlmuːt fɔn ˈmɔltkə]; 25 May 1848, Biendorf – 18 June 1916), also known as Moltke the Younger, was a nephew of Field Marshal Count Moltke and served as the Chief of the German General Staff from 1906 to 1914.

He has a cool hat :)