October 3 - October 10, 1942.
Storybook:
Sophie Scholl goes to the Schmorells’ home in Harlaching under the pretense of looking for a book in Schurik’s room. The words she had written the previous day come back to haunt her, thoughts of not being able to love and not being loved.
She chides herself for thinking she loved Alex for any reason other than that she “wanted to possess a person who was worth something in the estimation of others.” Sophie falls once again into deep melancholy.
That evening, she sits in Carl Muth’s backyard, admiring the red dahlias against the white garden gate, the green and orange foliage, and golden sunshine. But even those considerations turn into apocalyptic visions, with mankind and gunfire and blasphemy trying to drown out God and nature and songs of praise.
She says, “I will try to take the winning side.”
2007 update
Alexander Schmorell tells Angelika Probst about Willi Graf, describing him as a fellow medical student and a kindred spirit.
Sophie sends Fritz Hartnagel a package of cookies, a copy of Augustine’s Confessions, and a letter. He says he is trying not to eat all the cookies in one sitting, but he already has a copy of Confessions, and he has told her so. Seemingly worried about offending Sophie, Fritz adds, “But you could not have known that.”
German higher-ups assure Fritz Hartnagel yet again that he and his company will be wintering at their current location near the Don River, where they have constructed permanent bunkers. Fritz is worried, because the men who have been granted leave to go home on furlough are not returning. In addition, the river of refugees is no longer near Stalingrad. They are everywhere, starving and ragged.
Overnight, Fritz and his company are ordered to a position closer to Stalingrad. They must take ‘shelter’ in a gully carved out by spring melt. They have no roof over their heads, and no construction materials, no tools. And no way to acquire any.
Fritz is despairing and tells Sophie he is having a hard time concentrating enough to write her a coherent letter.
Why this matters:
As seen in an earlier segment, and especially here, men on the front lines were in fact telling their friends and family back home about conditions they were facing. The outcome at Stalingrad could not have been a surprise to most Germans.
Officially, defeat would not come until the end of January 1943. But letters like these painted a grim picture for those on the home front.
The issue of refugees - which Fritz Hartnagel depicts in detail on multiple occasions for the Scholls - like the military situation, was not hidden from German civilians.
It’s almost as if the closer the German military came to losing the war, the more violence and destruction they were committed to inflicting on civilians and on their own soldiers.
The parallels do not need further explanation.
White Rose History, Volume II, pages 214-216.
Notes and references available only to paid subscribers.
Listen to this episode with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Why This Matters to listen to this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.
