October 4 - October 7, 1942.
Storybook:
Prison officials notify Magdalena Scholl that her husband has lost his right to receive the Frankfurter Zeitung. Inge Scholl has broken prison rules with her sloppy penmanship. Prison censors can no longer dedicate extra time to deciphering her letters.
Mrs. Scholl reacts with strong words defending her husband’s rights, stating that Robert Scholl should not be penalized for Inge’s infractions. She claims he has been a model prisoner, just as he had been a model Beamter or civil servant.
Clearly, Hans, Sophie, Werner, and Lisl were the only Scholls who had comprehended the magnitude of National Socialist disdain for the rule of law by October 1942. The remainder of the family seemed to be stuck in denial, because their actions demonstrated that they still thought knowing the right people and not being Jewish (and not associating with those who were) would suffice to keep them afloat in a corrupt society.
At the same time, the courts are processing all four clemency petitions submitted on behalf of Robert Scholl - clemency petitions from Mrs. Scholl, Hans Scholl, Werner Scholl, and Fritz Hartnagel.
Although Werner knows his brother is no longer at HVP Plankenhorn, he drops by the HVP to talk with Willi Graf. They - perhaps with Alex and Hubert - take a long walk, hugging the edge of the forest for safety, enjoying the sunset.
That evening, the soldier students - including Werner Scholl - visit Russian POWs in their barracks. The Russian soldiers sing songs of their homeland, which Willi finds “awesome.”
Early the next morning, Hubert, Alex, and Willi pack their things. They clamber aboard a horse-drawn cart, taking them to their next assignment in Sosnovka. When it gets too cold, Willi walks beside the cart. The 24-mile trip takes four hours, but the friends do not mind. The vastness of the landscape calms them.
In Sosnovka, they are billeted on families, not housed in bunkers. Houses are situated far apart on a knoll.
Apparently there is a small Jewish community hanging on by a thread in this town.
The soldier students are surprised to learn that they will also be caring for the civilian population, not just wounded soldiers. Willi uses his first day of “official” rounds, visiting patients, to get to know the town. He realizes he could get used to this, with vast skies, and villages on every little knoll.
The evening of their first full day, Willi Graf receives two discomforting letters. The first one includes the death notice for Hans Lieverscheidt, an old and cherished friend from his days at the university in Bonn. “I cannot comprehend it,” Willi tells his diary.
Second, Anneliese seems to be waffling regarding her studies during the winter semester. Willi knows she would be crazy to pass up the opportunity to study in Geneva - and get out of Germany! - but now it sounds like she’s going to be in Munich instead.
He dislikes indecision.
Why this matters:
Every time I read this section, and the primary source documents that support it, I am disgusted all over again by Robert, Magdalena, and Inge Scholl. It’s galling to see Mrs. Scholl defending her husband’s “rights” to receive his damn newspaper, when those three Scholls had no problem whatever with their Jewish friends and neighbors losing far more basic and fundamental rights.
If any of those three Scholls had ever taken a stand on behalf of the six Jewish families in their apartment building on Adolf-Hitler-Ring; if any of those Scholls had ever protested the loss of livelihood of Robert Scholl’s fellow CPAs in Ulm, a loss just because they were Jewish; if any Scholl had ever taken a principled stand when a German neighbor was publicly shorn for having slept with a non-Aryan man, or when the Rebbe in Ulm was beaten nearly to a pulp, or when…
But they did not.
However, Mrs. Scholl could sure get irate when her husband’s newspaper subscription was denied him while he was in jail (not prison, jail). Those rights were worth fighting for.
And yet: We do the same thing in 2024. Regardless of political stripe, our personal rights are far more important to us than the rights of our neighbors and fellow citizens and immigrants and strangers among us. We sure as hell will protest when our property taxes go up, or when a factory in our town closes, or when our kids are cut from a school’s sports team.
Meanwhile, much greater injustices go unprotested. We are not any better than Robert, Magdalena, and Inge Scholl. I am not any better than Robert, Magdalena, and Inge Scholl.
This particular post, comment section, and podcast (audiobook) segment are all free. Because this topic is far too important to put behind a paywall. Please share with your friends and colleagues.
White Rose History, Volume II, pages 210-212.
Notes and references
Home front:
Inge Scholl’s illegible letters were not included in the Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg file.
Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg, E3569, Vol. 4325. 10/5/42 letter from Ulm prison to Lina (Magdalena) Scholl; 10/7/1942 letter from Lina Scholl to prison officials. Publication in 2025/2026.
Stadtarchiv Nürnberg, KV-Prozesse, Fall 3. 3282. 10/7/1942 letter from Lina Scholl to prison officials; 10/21/42 letter from attorney general to prison officials in re Robert Scholl. Publication in 2025/2026.
Russian front:
Willi Graf’s word translated here as “awesome” was ungeheuer, even stronger.
Regarding Jewish residents of Sosnovka in October 1942: I ran across this phenomenon in 1999, quite by accident, looking up Jenny Grimminger nee Stern’s record in Yad Vashem’s database. A family named Stern survived in Sosnovka until March 1943, when they were sent to Auschwitz.
Fortunately for the memories of those who died in the Shoah, and unfortunately for my bibliography, so many “Stern” individuals have been added to Yad Vashem’s database that I could not re-retrieve that particular record. However, both Aron Dozortzev and Berul Fridyland were still living in Sosnovka when the White Rose soldier students arrived there.
For anyone interested in pursuing this thread: Note that there is a Sosnovka in Poland as well, which should not be confused with Sosnovka in Russia. Also, before anything can be stated emphatically, this subject requires more research!
If you do decide to follow this rabbit hole, the first matter of business will be determining correct orthography. It’s “easy” enough to determine where the White Rose friends were stationed. But I’ve seen the town written as Sosnówka, Sosnovo, Sosnivka, Sosnovka, Sosonovka, and sometimes with one or both of the s’s doubled (e.g. Ssossonovka).
In 2002, Internet standardization of the Russian orthography was Sosonovka. In 2024, it’s Sosnovka. To get an idea of the issue faced now, check out the Wikipedia list of all Sosnovkas in Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Kyrgyzstan, Bashkortostan, Buryatia, the Chuvash Republic, Kaliningrad, Republic of Karelia, Mari El Republic, Republic of Mordovia, Sakha Republic, Republic of Tatarstan, Tuva Republic, Udmurt Republic, and dozens of Oblasts and Krais in Russia.
Jens, Inge (Ed.). At the Heart of the White Rose: Letters and Diaries of Hans and Sophie Scholl. Translation by J. Maxwell Brownjohn. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., 1987.
Knoop-Graf, Anneliese and Jens, Inge (Eds.). Willi Graf: Briefe und Aufzeichnungen. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH, 1994.
Yad Vashem, The Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names, retrieved from www.yadvashem.org.
Errata to auto-generated transcript:
She further insisted that Robert Scholl was a model prisoner, just as he had been a model civil servant (ignoring his status as CPA to Nazi stars and playing on the sympathy of prison officials who were also civil servants). “He will perform all tasks assigned to him with his usual punctuality, expert knowledge, and with diligence. We were also always careful to conscientiously follow prison rules.” — Italicized portion omitted from transcript.
Podcast © 2024 Denise Elaine Heap. White Rose History, Volume II, Chapter 17, © 2002 Denise Elaine Heap and Exclamation! Publishers. Please contact us for permission to quote.
This podcast is a project of WHY THIS MATTERS, a newsletter of Center for White Rose Studies, that explores the reasons that voices silenced more than eighty years ago still speak to us today.
To order digital version of White Rose History, Volume II, click here. Digital version of White Rose History, Volume I is available here.
Chapter 17, part 3: Vast Skies and Song