About 1830 Willisen also criticized the Russian warfare in the Napoleonic wars and showed his sympathy towards the Polish Uprisings in Congress Poland and the democratic movement in general.

[5] Willisen's compromise failed, the King did accept the conditions negotiated with the Poles providing for the Duchy's national reorganization, but he simultaneously excluded several western and northern counties from consideration.

Willisen later had to justify his actions in his book "Akten und Bemerkungen über meine Sendung nach dem Grossherzogthum Posen" [8] Afterwards Willisen was sent on diplomatic missions to Paris, Croatia and Italy, where he was attached as a military observer to Radetzky's Army in the First Italian War of Independence.

In 1849 he tendered his resignation out of Prussian service and became the Supreme commander of the forces of the German Confederation in the First Schleswig War in April 1850.

After the defeat of his troops Willisen resigned and lived in Paris (France), Silesia and finally Dessau, where he died on 25 February 1879.

Before the August 1919 abolition of nobility as a legal class, titles preceded the full name when given (Graf Helmuth James von Moltke).