In White Rose History, Volume II, this chapter is subtitled For serious readers only. However, I am not labeling it as such in this podcast because of its importance in understanding both the life of Josef Söhngen and Professor Kurt Huber, as well as the difficulty of discerning who was what.
This segment is also twice as long as usual, 28 minutes instead of 10-15. Kurt Huber is such a pivotal character for White Rose students, I did not wish to split consideration of his story in half. It’s been thirty years, and I still have such strong, mixed emotions about Kurt Huber! I hope you better understand this man after listening to this podcast.
White Rose History, Volume II, pages 37-44.
Notes and references
One of those little things: Huber’s full name did not appear on any Gestapo documents until after the trial. For everyone else, full name showed up on indictment and verdict. First time Huber’s full name appears? 4/19/43 intake form (Stadelheim) for Kurt Huber.
During his 2/27/43 interrogation, Huber gives conflicting information about his education. There he says he graduated summa cum laude in 1918 with a degree in musicology, and that he qualified as a university lecturer in philosophy (only) in 1923.
Except for Huber’s statement that his father was a teacher, specifically a lecturer at the Zentralstelle für Gewerbe und Handel in Stuttgart, he left behind scant information about his parents, especially about his mother. Her maiden name was Jakobi, she was from Kempten, and her family ran the Jakobi Erziehungsinstitut in that town.
There was no specific reason given for not approving Huber’s transfer application. During a speech at Siena College, Wittenstein said that Huber was denied the position because they could only have professors who could also serve as officers. Reliability of that statement is in doubt, because Wittenstein also claims in the same paragraph that Huber therefore “subsisted” on a salary of 300 Marks or $2,400 per month, whereas in reality Huber earned 640 RM or $5,120 net of taxes.
Huber supporters will likely decry use of his Gestapo interrogation transcripts to corroborate information about his pro-Nazi, anti-Hitler stance. Indeed, it took years before I was willing to do so. The words of the sixth leaflet are just too beautiful. I want to believe that he was unequivocally “good.”
But a few factors speak to the authenticity of his pro-Nazi words. 1) The friendships Professor Huber formed with leading Nazi academics were not inconsequential. 2) He contributed articles to overtly Nazi publications. 3) Unlike others in the White Rose (Falk Harnack comes to mind) who attempted to get off by lying about their political convictions at every turn, Kurt Huber clearly stated that he was telling the truth because he wanted Adolf Hitler to read his transcripts and hopefully turn Germany back to the original pathway of National Socialism. This last point is the most troubling, because Huber was not attempting to escape a death sentence. He understood that if his request for an audience with Hitler was denied, his words would convict him.
Technical note: My publisher’s style sheet calls for following German standards when writing names, e.g., “Martin, Alfred von,” where Martin is treated as the last name. However, every German text on Karl Alexander von Müller referred to him as “von Müller, Karl Alexander”; we have therefore followed their lead.
Finally:
If you are unfamiliar with the scope of Professor Kurt Huber’s work with “Kiem Pauli” and what a rock star that made of Kurt Huber, check out this production from Bayerischer Rundfunk: Unter unserem Himmel. Der Kiem Pauli und das oberbairische Lied (video). It’s an 11-minute look into that long-ago, yet still very current, world of Bavarian folk music. The narrator mentions Kurt Huber around the 7-minute mark.
The production allows the music and very old film to shine, but the parts that are narrated are spoken in High German with a Bavarian accent. When Kiem Pauli speaks, or when the quartets sing, you will hear the same Bavarian dialect that is spoken now, was spoken then, and has been spoken for centuries on that corner of the earth. I’ve had it in my ear since 1973… The scenery in these old film clips? Hardly changed.
Extended through Chapter Four…
This is the last free podcast (serialized audio book), except for occasional segments that need a wider audience, such as the three White Rose trials.
I will continue to post a free, very short excerpt with each segment. Also, free subscribers will be able to read the segment notes, but not the bibliography.
Please join our work! We need every single reader! You may not realize how you fuel our work…
Bayerische Volkspartei. Retrieved from bayerische-volkspartei.exsugo.de.
Dill, Marshall. Germany: A Modern History. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1961.
Dumanski, Fritz. “Zwischen Bierkeller und Salon – Hitler im München vor 1933.” Transcript of a Bayern 2 radio presentation.
Huber, Kurt, & Kiem, Paul. Oberbayerische Volkslieder. Munich: Verlag Knorr & Hirth GmbH, 1930. Illustrated by Eduard Thöny.
Huber, Kurt. Volkslied und Volkstanz: Aufsätze zur Volksliedkunde des bajuwarischen Raumes. Ettal: Buch-Kunstverlag Ettal (undated).
Klönne, Arno. “Karrieren im Kampf gegen das ‘Weltjudentum’: Wissenschaftsbetrieb im Nationalsozialismus.” Retrieved from www.oeko-net.de/kommune/kommune3-00/ KKLOENNE.HTM.
Kuttner, Sven. “Geraubte Bücher: Jüdische Provenienzen im Restbestand der Bibliothek der ‘Forschungsabteilung Judenfrage’ in der Bibliothek des Historicums der UB München.” In Bibliotheksdienst 37, Jahrgang 2003, Vol. 8/9, pp. 1059-1065.
Litten, Freddy. “Max Dingler – Die andere Seite.” In Literatur in Bayern, No. 43, pp. 10-23. (Also available online at http://litten.de/fulltext/dinglerc.htm.)
Mayo Clinic Staff. “Rickets.” Retrieved from www.mayoclinic.com/invoke.cfm?id=AN00220.
McVeigh, Daniel P. An Early History of the Telephone. © 2000. Retrieved from www.ilt.columbia.edu/ projects/bluetelephone/html/health.html.
Paterson, Colin. “Osteomalacia and rickets (vitamin D deficiency).” Retrieved from www.netdoctor.co.uk/diseases/facts/osteomalaciarickets.htm.
“Preissingen in Egern.” Retrieved from www.br-online.de/br-intern/thema/br-chronik/audio-sammlung.xml.
Shulman, S.T. “The History Of Pediatric Infectious Diseases.” In Pediatric Research 55:163-176 (International Pediatric Research Foundation, Inc., 2004). Retrieved from www.pedresearch.org/cgi/content/full/55/1/163.
Suckert, Hans-Ulrich. “Die Büchse der Pandora.” In Mahnung Gegen Rechts – Städte und Gemeinden in der Zeit von 1933 – 1945 (Zittau). Retrieved from www.mahnung-gegen-rechts.de/pages/staedte/ Zittau/pages/pandora.htm.
Winkler, Judith. “Die Volksmusik.” Retrieved from www.winkler-kreuth.de/tradition/ volksmusik.htm.
Wittenstein, George J. “The White Rose.” World War II Conference, Siena College. June 1993.
NJ1704, Volume 2. 4/16/43 interrogation of Kurt Huber.
NJ1704, Volume 7. Undated (March 1943) C.V. written by Professor Huber; 2/27/43 interrogation of Kurt Huber; 3/10/43 interrogation of Kurt Huber.
NJ1704, Volume 13. Notes to “mug shots” of Professor Kurt Huber; 5/4/43 clemency petition filed by Cotta Verlag on behalf of Kurt Huber; 4/21/43 clemency petition filed by August Deppisch.
NJ1704, Volume 20. 4/19/43 intake form (Stadelheim) for Kurt Huber.
ZC13267, Volume 2. 2/20/43 interrogation of Hans Scholl (second one of the day).
Podcast © 2024 Denise Elaine Heap. White Rose History, Volume II, Chapter 03 (supplement) © 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.
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