Chapter 3, part 3: Room Service

White Rose Histories

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Chapter 3, part 3: Room Service

From the nightmare in Cologne until the end of the war, every civilian living in Germany had to count on the consequences of war possibly meaning death and destruction to himself or his family.

Denise Elaine Heap

Jun 15, 2024

Transcript

Artist’s rendition of the bombing of Cologne, Germany, May 30/31, 1942. Official war art by W. Krogman Medium: Gouache on board. Image from The National Archives UK, no restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons.

May 30 - May 31, 1942.

Alexander Schmorell and Lilo Ramdohr at Bumpererhof, near Chiemsee.

May 30/31, 1942 bombing of Cologne.

Otl Aicher in Ukraine.

Willi Graf response to bombing of Cologne.

2007 update:

Last meeting of Fritz Hartnagel and Sophie Scholl in Munich, May 20, 1942. Fritz’s deployment to Mariupol.

White Rose History, Volume II, pages 29-32.

Notes and references

Alexander Schmorell and Lilo Ramdohr at Bumpererhof, near Chiemsee.

The event is only dated as “late spring 1942,” but this is the only weekend that makes sense with weather and other activities as noted. It is also clear that Alexander Schmorell did not accompany Hans and Sophie on the trip, which only underscores the probability that Lilo Fürst-Ramdohr’s narrative goes here in the timeline. If documentation surfaces that alters this timeline, that information will be included in a subsequent update.

Fürst-Ramdohr, Lilo. Freundschaften in der Weiβen Rose. Munich: Verlag Geschichtswerkstatt Neuhausen, 1995.

May 30/31, 1942 bombing of Cologne.

Inge Jens and Anneliese Knoop-Graf, Lilo Fürst-Ramdohr, and Susanne Hirzel all mention this air raid in their White Rose histories. It was that significant to the resistance work that was to come.

Susanne Hirzel’s narrative made me laugh, because she used the distinctly Swabian expression of “stille Zeit” as a euphemism regarding use of the toilet. A Swabian slang proverb still in use says Verse lernt man auf dem Klo, stille Zeit macht man sowieso when describing performing a secondary useful task while on the toilet. Literally means, “You learn verses on the toilet, you spend quiet time anyway.”

Fürst-Ramdohr, Lilo. Freundschaften in der Weiβen Rose. Munich: Verlag Geschichtswerkstatt Neuhausen, 1995.
Hirzel, Susanne. Vom Ja zum Nein: Eine schwäbische Jugend 1933-1945. Tübingen: Klöpfer, Mayer und Co. Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, 1998.
Knoop-Graf, Anneliese and Jens, Inge (Eds.). Willi Graf: Briefe und Aufzeichnungen. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH, 1994.
Lippman, David H. “World War II Plus 55.” Retrieved from www.usswashington.com/.
RAF History – Bomber Command 60th Anniversary. Retrieved from www.raf.mod.uk/ bombercommand/.

Otl Aicher in Ukraine.

Aicher, Otl. innenseiten des kriegs. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Verlag GmbH, 1985.

Willi Graf response to bombing of Cologne.

Knoop-Graf, Anneliese and Jens, Inge (Eds.). Willi Graf: Briefe und Aufzeichnungen. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH, 1994.

2007 update: Last meeting of Fritz Hartnagel and Sophie Scholl in Munich, May 20, 1942. Fritz’s deployment to Mariupol.

Hartnagel, Thomas (Ed.). Sophie Scholl, Fritz Hartnagel: “Damit wir uns nicht verlieren”: Briefwechsel 1937-1943. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag, 2005.

Podcast © 2024 Denise Elaine Heap. White Rose History, Volume II, Chapter 03, © 2002, Chapter 03, 2007 update © 2007, 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.

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