Sophie Scholl and the White Rose

by Annette Dumbach

  Giesler began by saying that the university was an integral part of National Socialist society, and that in a short time the students would be standing on the “command bridges” of German life. Therefore it was imperative that institutions of higher learning not remain cloistered enclaves of puerile, intellectual thought. “Twisted intellects” and “falsely clever minds,” he said, were unacceptable and were not an expression of “real life.” He was getting excited, and in the tra-dition of German political oratory, he began to bellow.

  “Real life,” he roared, “is transmitted to us only by Adolf Hitler, with his light, joyful and life-affirming teachings!”

  No fervent crack of applause greeted that statement. He went on, praising those students who had been to the front or were to leave soon, and those who were working in factories for the war effort. Then came the attack: many were studying at the university, he said, who were “without talent” or “seriousness of purpose.” They were taking away space and furnished rooms from the more deserving. Again his voice rose: the university was no rescue station for “well-bred daughters” who were shirking their war duties.

  There was a growing restlessness in the hall as he spoke; by now there was shuffling of feet and catcalls. They became louder, more frequent. The auditorium was charged with tension. The women in the balcony were furious; some leaned down, calling out angry protests to the gauleiter.

  Their disapproval egged Giesler on. He shouted up at the women: “The natural place for a woman is not at the university, but with her family, at the side of her husband.” The girls here, he said, should be fulfilling their duties as mothers instead of studying.

  The audience reaction became louder; there was movement, restlessness, shouts from all over. At this point Giesler went overboard. Women, he bellowed above the din, should present the Führer with a child every year. Then, with a grin, he added, “And for those women students not pretty enough to catch a man, I’d be happy to lend them one of my adjutants.” He leered, “And I promise you that would be a glorious experience!”

  All hell broke loose. Pounding feet in protest, shouts, tumult all over. Giesler tried to go on speaking but was drowned out.

  Some twenty young women had by now stormed out of the balcony in rage; they were promptly arrested by brown-shirted students and the SS. The remaining women in the balcony were being pushed out now by the SS guards. Men from downstairs came dashing up to help them; fistfights broke out while groups of male students tried to free the arrested women.

  One of the NS student-leaders was seized by the students; they shouted that they would hold him hostage till the girls were released. The fistfights continued on both floors and in the lobby outside the auditorium. By now commando squads had been summoned and were arriving on the scene. The students, with the released women, ran out of the museum, formed into small groups, and began marching in a procession along the Isar, in the direction of the university.

  They linked arms as they marched and sang.

  People stopped dead to stare at them; it was a sight not to be believed. There was a feeling of lightheartedness in the air, of fraternal goodwill and warmth that many had never known before in their lives.

  By the time they reached Ludwigstrasse they had to disperse before the special police forces broke their ranks. The demonstration could not last.

  But the moment lingered in everyone’s mind: it was the talk of Munich. In the Mensa, the student cafeteria, and in the lecture halls and corridors of the university, the students talked and remembered; they used a word never used before: they spoke of “victory.”

  The impact of the museum “encounter” was so great that Paul Giesler felt impelled to hold another meeting with the students later in January. He begrudgingly apologized for his remarks about women, but then went on to warn the assemblage that he would close the university and pack off all the men to the front and all the women to factories if the “disorders” continued.

  When they heard the news about the “uprising” at the Deutsche Museum from their friends, Willi, Sophie, Hans, and Alex were overjoyed. They saw a direct connection between their leaflets and the events; the leaflets’ objective was to foment unrest: therefore their plan was working!

  Their decision was to work harder. They quickly printed another 1,300 Call to All Germans leaflets and distributed them around Munich. They were almost beside themselves with excitement and tension. Christoph came by around this time; his wife was expecting their third child momentarily. He observed his friends and was concerned; he warned them to be careful. The realities had not changed, no matter how euphorically they viewed the future; the terror was still and always present; he felt they were in real danger.

  But they didn’t listen; and Willi noted jubilantly in his diary: “The stone is beginning to roll.”

  SIXTEEN

  ALTHOUGH THE SURRENDER had actually taken place three days before, the radio announcement on February 3, 1943, hit Germany like a bolt of lightning. This time “the special bulletin” interrupting regular programming began not with triumphant fanfares but with the ominous slow beats of a drum. Then a long silence. Then again the slow roll of drums. Then the mournful second movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Finally a funereal voice began to speak: “The battle for Stalingrad is over. True, with their last breath, to their oath to the flag, the Sixth Army, under the inspirational leadership of General Field Marshal von Paulus, has been defeated. . . . They died so that Germany may live.”

  Despite rumors going around for weeks that the German army was surrounded at Stalingrad, and despite the silence of the Propaganda Ministry about the course of events on the southeast front, the nation went into shock. It was one of the greatest defeats in German history, and the first gigantic setback for the Wehrmacht in the Second World War. After years of listening to excited voices trumpeting new invasions and smashing victories on all fronts, this radio announcement was a staggering blow; those Germans old enough to remember the war—and who permit themselves to do so—recall precisely where they were and what they were doing when the news came on the air.

  The battle for Stalingrad had begun months earlier, in September 1942. The Sixth Army, with about 300,000 men gathered from all segments of the eastern front, had attacked the city on the Volga. The press and radio at home called it the key battle to destroy Bolshevism, but after the initial announcement, no flashes came over the air about a quick victory. By mid-November, the Red Army, marshaling every man and weapon left at its disposal after eighteen months of shattering defeat, mounted an enormous counterattack and surrounded the 300,000 Germans.

  As the situation grew desperate, General von Paulus asked permission to break out of the encirclement. Hitler refused. He ordered the Sixth Army to stand fast and fight till the last man. In January 1943, in a freezing Russian winter, the Soviet army launched its final push; it was all over by January 31.

  As the solemn and bombastic services were held at home for the Stalingrad dead—nearly 200,000 Germans were killed in battle—no one mentioned the 90,000 prisoners taken by the Russians and led off to prison camps in Siberia. Gaunt, ill, ragged, and frozen, they were marched ever-deeper into the Russian snows, falling and dying as they walked. Goebbels, at home, canceled all theater performances, movies, and concerts to mourn the dead. The 90,000 staggering men were buried with the dead: for the Nazi leadership, there was no such word as “surrender,” and those who had, were written out of history. Most of the 90,000 never came back.

  Gestapo reports from Bavaria at that time noted that morale had reached the lowest point since the beginning of the war. The people were angry at Hitler, they felt manipulated and ill used; they believed that Stalingrad was the turning point of the war, and that Germany would ultimately lose. Munich and other cities in the South were experiencing a considerable influx of refugees from the industrial cities in the North that had been bombed into the ground. A feeling of exhaustion, confusion, grief, and fear hung in the air; and the people we
re becoming very hungry.

  For Kurt Huber, Stalingrad was an enormous tragedy, as if he had experienced the suffering, the death, and the betrayal himself. He was shaken to the core; this was a moment of historic proportions for the German nation. A few days later, he made a momentous decision: he would write a leaflet himself.

  He was up all night working on it, at last putting on paper all the grief and rage he had locked inside himself for ten years. Clara Huber went into his study in the early morning. She found him at the typewriter, and read over what he had written. She was deeply shocked, and begged him to destroy the essay. He told her not to involve herself, that the less she knew, the better. She saw there was no way to persuade him.

  The sixth—and last—leaflet of the White Rose would not claim affiliation to “The Resistance Movement” or to the White Rose. It was simply addressed “Fellow Students”; it was meant to express the spirit of youth, of the students at the university, and of the soldiers who had died at Stalingrad.

  “Our people are deeply shaken by the fall of our men at Stalingrad,” it began.

  Three hundred and thirty thousand German men were senselessly and irresponsibly driven to their deaths by the brilliant strategy of that World War I corporal. Führer, we thank you! . . .

  We grew up in a state where all free expression of opinion has been suppressed. The Hitler Youth, the SA and the SS have tried to drug us, to revolutionize us, to regiment us in the most promising years of our lives.

  Referring to the recent student uprising, Huber went on:

  Gauleiters insult the honor of women students with crude jokes, and the German women-students at the university have given a worthy response to the besmirching of their honor. German students have defended their female comrades and stood by them. . . . This is the beginning of the struggle for our free self-determination. . . .

  For us there is only one word: fight—against the Party! Get out of all Party organizations! Get out of the lecture halls run by SS Unter- and Oberführer and Party sycophants!

  Freedom and honor! For ten long years Hitler and his comrades have squeezed, debased and twisted those beautiful German words to the point of nausea. . . .

  . . . The name of Germany will remain forever stained with shame if German youth do not finally rise up. . . . Women students! Men students! The German people look to us! . . . Berezina and Stalingrad are aflame in the East; the dead of Stalingrad beseech us!

  This essay of Huber’s was eventually printed virtually untouched—except for one crucial line. The disagreement between Huber and Hans Scholl over that line was to cause the final rupture in their relationship.

  Since the turn of the year, events were moving fast; by February the momentum seemed beyond control.

  After hearing the Stalingrad news, during the night of February 3, 1943, Hans and Alex and Willi went out into the darkened streets and painted the words “Freedom” and “Down with Hitler” on the walls of apartment houses, state buildings, and the university. In some places they added a white swastika, crossed out with a smear of red paint.

  They took turns mounting guard with a loaded pistol.

  They were not caught, and the next day the reaction around the city made it worth the effort. People were gathered in front of the university, silently watching as Russian women-laborers were trying to scrub the letters off the walls, under the supervision of guards. The letters were huge, stark, clear; there was no way to avoid them, not to notice. Traute Lafrenz happened to be there as Hans Scholl came up to the university entrance that day. He walked as he always did, with long strides, head leaning slightly forward. He didn’t look around, despite the clusters of people, but he had a “small triumphant” smile on his face. As he went into the building—he took no notice of the scrubbing women with their pails and brushes—his smile grew broader. An excited student came by and said to Hans: “Did you see it? Did you see it?”

  Hans laughed out loud, saying, “No, see what?”

  At about this time, Falk Harnack arrived in town, a significant occurrence for the White Rose. It meant that the “central body” of the resistance movement in Berlin was taking them seriously. Harnack met Alex and Hans privately, and on the next day the entire group—with the exception of Christoph—assembled at the Franz-Joseph-Strasse flat. Present were Sophie, Willi, Hans, Alex, and Kurt Huber; it was apparently on this occasion that Huber gave the draft of the sixth leaflet to Hans.

  Harnack was aware that the group was charged up. They were almost feverish, their eyes glittering with exhaustion; and most of all, they seemed exalted. They believed that their work was helping create a revolutionary atmosphere in Munich.

  Perhaps their efforts were not quite as crucial as they believed, but their evaluation of the mood in Munich was not far wrong. Gestapo files reporting on those February days talk about rumors going around the city that people were responding to the greeting Heil Hitler! with a slap in the face. The report adds: “It is also not advisable to wear the Party badge in your lapel.”

  As the group huddled together in Hans’s unheated room, Harnack reported on the state of resistance. He said a putsch was possible at any moment, and that the Allied invasion of Europe was coming close. The German resistance movement, he said, was most interested in working with the White Rose, but they must first agree to the principle of a wide coalition of forces from left to right. He invited Hans and Alex to Berlin, on February 25, 1943; their meeting place, the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.

  Harnack turned to other post-putsch plans that had to be agreed upon by the group: that all Nazi activists must be arrested and severely punished; that all members of the Party be stripped of their right to vote; and that only three political parties be permitted representation in the new parliament—Marxist, Liberal, and Christian.

  The conflict became open when they talked about foreign affairs. Huber said he would not work with the Soviets, that Western individualism and democracy was the only system he could accept. Alex retorted that it was shortsighted to depend exclusively on the West. Although he personally was not a Communist, he said, he believed that the Soviet Union would develop into one of the strongest polit-ical powers in the postwar world.

  Falk Harnack had to leave. The rendezvous in Berlin with Hans and Alex, or at least with Hans, was confirmed. But the atmosphere had turned sour. Kurt Huber was furious.

  After Harnack’s departure, the professor said that he would refuse to work with him in the future. The others disagreed, reaffirming that one of them would go to Berlin.

  Huber’s leaflet now came up for discussion. The group agreed to print it—with one line excised, Huber had written that students should “support our glorious Wehrmacht.” Hans and Alex found that idea unacceptable. Huber wanted the line in the text; he refused to budge. Hans got excited, pointing out that the army was a pillar of the Nazi state, that there was nothing glorious about it. They must have been shouting by then: Hans and Alex telling Huber that resist-ance could be created among the rank-and-file troops, but not in the institution of the military.

  It was then, it appears, that Huber demanded his draft back. Either the essay would be printed in its entirety—or not at all.

  The others refused, saying that they considered his remarks important and that they wanted to circulate them at the university.

  Apparently, he didn’t insist; but Kurt Huber’s brief—and perilous—collaboration with the White Rose was over. Angry, hurt, and deeply disappointed in the students he had come to consider his protégés, the middle-aged professor stormed out of the apartment.

  He never saw Hans Scholl again.

  SEVENTEEN

  THEY VENTURED out twice more, on the nights of February 8 and 15, to paint the walls of the city and proclaim freedom from Nazi tyranny. They went so far as to stencil and paint the words “Down with Hitler” on the hallowed Feldherrnhalle, the huge Flor-entine loggia that terminates Ludwigstrasse in the downtown area of the city. This memorial to the Bavarian generals wh
o supported Napoleon in his expedition against Russia was the site of Hitler’s 1923 putsch. He had tried at that time to overthrow the Bavarian government and failed. After he took power in 1933, a memorial plaque to his martyred Storm Troopers was placed on the side of the massive loggia. It became a place of pilgrimage each year for the Nazi leadership on the anniversary of the thwarted attempt to seize power.

  Now, teams of men in SS uniforms stood vigil day and night in front of the memorial plaque, with an additional SS guard post just across the street. Each citizen who passed the memorial was required to lift his arm in the “German salute”; if he did not, he was stopped and questioned by the SS.

  Many Müncheners chose detours to avoid that encounter, but on one of those nights in February 1943, Hans and Alex and Willi, a few meters away from the SS honor guard, smeared the walls of the Feldherrnhalle with paint. “Freedom!” “Down with Hitler!” were the words that greeted Munich in the morning. It was unthinkable: the holiest of holies, the sacred temple of the Third Reich, had been desecrated.

  About this time Christoph dropped by to see his friends; in no uncertain terms he told them that these nocturnal forays were dangerous and foolish. Christoph’s tension probably matched their own: his wife had given birth to a daughter and was in the hospital with puerperal fever; but, in addition, he was deeply concerned about his friends. He argued heatedly with Hans and Alex, warning them that the Nazis had not yet been toppled from power and, if anything, were more dangerous and vicious the more terrified they became of losing their grip. Terror was rampant; individuals in various cities had been executed just for saying out loud that the war was not going well.

  But Christoph did agree to one request his friends had: that he write a leaflet calling for a cease-fire and negotiations with the Allies, mainly for distribution at the front. He later sent a draft to Hans in his own handwriting. It talked about “an honorable end to the war,” and even had the audacity to propose that a new international order be created after the war, perhaps under the sponsorship of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the American president.