June 2 - June 6, 1942.
Summary:
Hans Hirzel’s medical experiments with friends Kurt Glöckler and Max Gutbrodt turned into addiction to hallucinogenic drugs, specifically LSD and jimsonweed. He used these drugs to escape the reality of his parents’ constant fights and a National Socialist world in which he did not belong.
Hans Hirzel also abused anesthetics like (homemade) ethyl chloride to combat insomnia. He worried more about possible impurities in that drug than he did about LSD.
Striking about this narrative - no one in Ulm seems to have picked up on Hans Hirzel’s increasing isolation and paranoia. Not even his parents or siblings.
Willi Graf faced similar feelings of isolation and loneliness, although not connected to drug use of any sort. Instead, he felt like he had no “real friends” in Munich, no one who noticed or cared for him. He was always left out, solitude overwhelming his waking hours.
Willi replied to a letter from his younger sister Anneliese. She had expressed her disaffection with religion in general and the Catholic Church in particular. Willi’s answer provides us with deep insights into his own religious struggles. He told Anneliese that everything they had learned in their parents’ home had been empty - comfortable but empty. Every adult person must question what they learned as a child, if their faith and belief are to be defensible.
Why This Matters:
It’s easy to gripe about “Gen-Z” [just as Silent Gen griped about Boomers, Boomers griped about Gen-X, etc.] and write them off for lack of commitment. Or whatever the current complaint is. We need to listen and observe and help. If someone had noticed that Hans Hirzel was lost and confused and paranoid, perhaps he would have found answers in rational places. Instead, adults ignored his cries for help.
Willi Graf provides us with a blueprint for coming to terms with the faith we were raised in. His willingness to question and read and demand answers… that led him to reject empty religion and seek justice, mercy, and truth.
What resonates with you?
White Rose History, Volume II, pages 48-51.
Notes and references
Hans Hirzel:
Hirzel, Hans. “Das groβe Miβverständnis. Warum die Mehrzahl der Deutschen sich Hitler unterordnete.” In Hinrich Siefken (Ed.). Die Weiβe Rose: Student Resistance to National Socialism 1942/43, Forschungsergebnisse und Erfahrungsberichte (pp. 147-182). Nottingham: The University of Nottingham, 1991.
ZC13267, Volume 3. 2/18/43 interrogation of Sophie Scholl.
ZC14116, Volume 1. 3/17/43 interrogation of Hans Hirzel; 2/24/43 interrogation of Emilie Glöckler. Publication in 2024/2025.
Willi Graf:
“Junger Mann sucht Anschluβ” is a typical formulation for a personal ad.
Ernestine Schlant’s assessment of Werner Bergengruen can be found in Schlant, The Language of Silence: West German Literature and the Holocaust.
Schlant places Bergengruen in the same category as Ernst Jünger – and briefly debunks the concept of “inner emigration” (for which I thank her). This particular novel by Werner Bergengruen could be read and enjoyed by National Socialists who would have accepted the story of sixteenth century Berlin as historical fiction, but the warnings of death and destruction due to the fallibility and conceit of a ruler who loved to make laws would have resonated with those in the White Rose, and with other dissidents.
The novel (published in 1940) was not banned during the Third Reich.
Knoop-Graf, Anneliese and Jens, Inge (Eds.). Willi Graf: Briefe und Aufzeichnungen. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH, 1994.
Schlant, Ernestine. The Language of Silence: West German Literature and the Holocaust. New York: Routledge, 1999.
Podcast © 2024 Denise Elaine Heap. White Rose History, Volume II, Chapter 04 © 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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