Anger and awe and joy and work

Writing about German resistance is not for the faint of heart. The stories are complex, unpleasant, wonderful, and life-changing.

Interior of the Münster in Ulm. April 1995. © Denise Heap.

I will never forget that first draft of my White Rose book in December 1994. So lovely. Hans and Sophie Scholl sailed through the pages, moving from one noble gesture to another. Sophie’s flute always had Die Gedanken sind frei at the ready, she was always musing deep thoughts and astounding her father with her wisdom. Hans - in her shadow, but the stronger of the two - penned intellectual treatises that would have changed the wheel of history, if only.

I will never forget my reverence for their great spirituality, for the way their friends turned to them in time of trouble, for their ability to see through lies and preach the truth.

It took me six months to research and develop that story. It took less than a week in Germany, “filling in the gaps” - or so I thought - to realize that everything I had believed was false. Not just about the Scholl siblings, but about White Rose resistance in general. By the time that initial 3-1/2 month research trip was done, I was not sure what I knew.

As I wrote in my last post, I tend to dislike 2/18-2/22 on the calendar. Exact quote was, “Truth be told, I hate February 18-22.”

I experience legitimate anger when I start getting Google alerts in mid-February. Won’t apologize. It’s not even anger at the focus on the Scholl siblings. It’s anger at poor scholarship, at people who throw together books and call themselves White Rose experts. It’s anger at disrespectful treatment of a serious topic. It’s anger at Catholics and Lutherans skewing the story to make it all-Catholic or all-Lutheran; although I must say, the most ridiculous of religious distortions was the Pentecostal pastor here in the USA who claimed the White Rose and Scholls as his own. Would have been funny if.

It’s anger at so-called scholars who plagiarize real scholarship. There’s a fellow I’m about to go after for the second time for lifting huge chunks of my work without attribution, as well as plagiarizing the excellent work done by Christiane Moll. The only parts of his book not plagiarized are wrong. Go figure. This year’s Google alerts brought a post by another “scholar” who claims to have just now been the first to discover and write about the Section 175(2) offenses of Hans Scholl. Never mind that my own book with that information was published in 2002, and we published the primary source material he claims to have discovered — in 2003. In English translation. Yes, that makes me mad. I’m human.

And yet. And yet.

As I am working through converting print version of our White Rose Histories Volumes I and II to digital, I am reminded all over again how much I love this very real story about very real people.

Almost thirty years later, I still stand in absolute awe at the way these young people, and some older people too, were willing to suffer isolation and ridicule, simply because they understood what was happening around them. They were denigrated, insulted, and physically beaten. Hitler Youth leaders (including Hans and Inge Scholl) sought them out for the sole purpose of making their lives hell. And they would not break. Awe. Awe.

This week as I was doing the mundane task of re-formatting for the Shopify digital download version of these Histories, I ran across a person whose story I had nearly forgotten. She does not show up often. She appears because she was a good friend of Otl Aicher. The two of them were regularly beaten by gangs of Hitler Youth and League of German Girls in Ulm.

As I worked through that section and re-read the account of the most brutal of the beatings that she endured, I had to stop. I was overwhelmed with tears, with awe. Her usual ploy of waiting until her fellow pupils had gone home - she was about 12 - failed her. She exited the school building to find these girls waiting. They formed a circle around her, and the biggest girl moved to start the usual beat-down. Only this time, she would not be cowered. She fought back and for once, won the fight. She took advantage of the bigger girl’s momentary shock to retreat to the school building, where she waited until she was sure they were gone. It would not be her last beating.

Her name was Lilli Holl.

Like Otl, Lilli did not associate with the Scholls during their Hitler Youth phase. After Hans’ arrest and the siblings’ disgrace (they were all assumed to be corrupt since he was), Hans and Sophie dissociated from much of (but not all) National Socialist ideology. Their personal freedoms had been infringed.

As a result, they were now the outsiders in Ulm. Inge and her father continued to enjoy the good graces of the NSDAP elite. After all, the two of them were business and tax advisors for the top Nazis in the city. But Hans and Sophie, together with their other two siblings Elisabeth and Werner, needed friends. Especially Hans and Sophie were no longer welcome in the circles they had moved in as good National Socialists.

Werner had been the first to question National Socialism, even as his siblings were entrenched in that life. He and Otl had grown close. Werner could not talk to anyone in his family about his political beliefs, but Otl proved to be a good sounding board. And now Werner was telling Otl about the metamorphosis in Hans, Sophie, and Elisabeth.

A strange thing happened. Both Otl and Lilli found the grace to forgive. First Otl, then later Lilli, would drop by the Scholls’ residence to talk. These two were present during one of Alexander Schmorell’s trips to Ulm. Lilli and Alex hit it off and became friends. She was in Munich at the East Train Station to see the student soldiers off when they left for Russia in the summer of 1942.

After the executions on February 22 and July 13, 1943, Lilli traveled to Munich. She laid flowers on the graves of Hans and Sophie Scholl, as well as that of Alexander Schmorell. And then this unusual young woman visited the Schmorell parents. She gave them photographs she had taken of Alex and sat with them, sharing her memories of their son. Traute Lafrenz is the only other person of whom it is recorded that she dared consort with the families of those convicted of treason.

Lilli did not stop there. Together with Otl and his sister, they formed a triumvirate that put hands and feet to love. After the executions, even Robert and Inge Scholl’s elite status with the Ulmer NSDAP was revoked. They lost their prestigious clients and became pariahs in the city where they had enjoyed high social status. Their old friends abandoned them. Life became desperate in that great apartment on Münsterplatz, an apartment they had occupied after Kristallnacht, with no thought given to the former Jewish owners.

Now they were the outcasts, the despised.

And this triumvirate that had been abused for refusing to join Hitler Youth and BDM, this triumvirate that had seen one beating after another, this triumvirate that had found enough grace to forgive? This triumvirate now shared their meager food supplies with the Scholls. They sat with them, reminiscing about better days, cheering them up, coaxing Mrs. Scholl to faint laughter with memories. And when these Scholls — including Inge! — faced their own days in court, this triumvirate publicly supported them, the only friends in that hostile environment.

Otl, his sister Hedl, and their good friend Lilli…

In her small story, overlooked by everyone but Otl and the Schmorells as White Rose resistance is recounted, the rest of the equation comes to light. It’s more than anger, more than awe. The genuine, unaffected love that Otl, Hedl, and Lilli demonstrated in the darkest of days expresses inner joy that cannot be faked.

That love, that joy, spurs me to work. In a world of Inges, be Lilli.

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