Death and the White Rose: Part Two
The White Rose: Death, commingled with love and youth. Fragile purity. Faith – not religion, but honest to goodness spirituality. A symbol to remember as we dig deeper in to their story.
Yesterday, late in the evening, I spied a white rose. It is said that white flowers are for the dead – but death, love, and youth are all one and the same. (The dead, insofar as they really live inside of us, live transformed as the image of shining youth!) Therefore it is precisely the white rose with its fragrance and its fragile purity that is the symbol of eternal youth. I thought of that this very moment. I love to give people white flowers (and all Christians make the sign of the cross when they see one). I am sending a white rose petal to you with a kiss. F.
Fritz Rook wrote those words to Lieselotte Fürst-Ramdohr in August 1941, long before the White Rose friends adopted it as their “brand,” as the symbol of what their work was about. Lilo showed her penpal’s letter to Alexander Schmorell, Alex copied it out for Hans Scholl, and the rest, as they say, is history.
The imagery Fritz Rook used relied on knowledge of German symbolism. A white rose has long been the “death flower” in German classical literature. Just as a nightingale almost always foreshadows impending death, a white rose celebrates one who has died. But Fritz Rook’s commentary added a twist that would have appealed to White Rose students: Death, commingled with love and youth. Fragile purity. Faith – not religion, but honest to goodness spirituality.[1]
Keep this imagery in mind as you read on.
SUICIDE
From May 1, 1942 through the end of the war, there is no record of anyone connected to White Rose resistance, or to their broader circle of family and friends, suiciding.
But surprisingly, several individuals not only considered suicide, but talked out loud about it to friends and family.
Sophie Scholl. In September 1941, Sophie had a no-holds-barred conversation with her best friend, Otl Aicher. She asked him point blank if he had ever considered suicide. He replied that he indeed had. His awareness of alienation from the larger community had caused him to feel that the battle for survival as a loner was not worthwhile. Those days, he thought about putting an end to his misery.
Otl could not understand Sophie’s suicidal ideation. He thought the Scholl family provided her with the love and support she needed. Her parents granted her a great deal of independence. Yet here was Sophie telling him that she was unworthy to be loved, either by humans or by God, much less by herself.
Fast forward to February 16, 1943, less than thirty-six hours before the arrests. Hans and Sophie Scholl dined with Wilhelm Geyer at the Bodega. Sophie ‘borrowed’ money from Geyer for a ticket to a concert. Hans left dinner to spend most of the evening with Josef Söhngen.
When Sophie returned from the concert, she went to the studio to chat with Geyer. As they talked, he drew her portrait. While Geyer sketched, they talked about the things that bothered her. Sophie confessed that they knew the Gestapo was on their trail. She and Hans had considered fleeing, but feared what could happen to their family and friends should they simply disappear.
“So many people are dying for this regime,” Sophie said, “it is high time that someone died in opposition to it.” She held out little hope for the future and could hardly bring herself to think about what would happen “after the war.” If they were to be arrested, she maintained, it should be publicly, not secretly, so the whole world would know about it.
From that moment, Geyer feared for the lives of Hans and Sophie Scholl. He “heard” Sophie’s words as wish for public arrest and execution, ‘suicide by cop.’[2]
Hans Scholl. Hans’ suicidal ideations were not as intense as those of his sister. While in Russia, he prattled into his journal about various topics, few of which made good sense. Among those, suicide. “It isn’t melancholy that drives a man to suicide. By the time he’s ready to surrender by engaging in a last, monstrous act of self-destruction, melancholy has entirely deserted him, because melancholy was insufficient to restrain him.”
Those musings alone would not have been enough to add his name to this section. Except that he used threats of suicide – along with morphine – to convince Gisela Schertling to have sex with him.[3]
Hans Hirzel. Although Hans Hirzel was not the person who betrayed White Rose friends to the Gestapo, he was one of its three weakest links. Once arrested, he decided to tell only the truth. This truth-telling resulted in the arrests of far too many minor players in the White Rose saga.
On February 21, 1943, as he was strip-searched before being placed in a Gestapo cell in Ulm, the agent found the vial of cyanide that Hans Hirzel had kept on his person since Autumn of 1942. Hans Hirzel and one of the Glöckner sons had experimented in a makeshift lab in the Glöckners’ attic, manufacturing crude forms of LSD and Zyankali, potassium cyanide. Hans Hirzel had made liberal use of the first drug in his attempt to escape the discomfort of Otherness.
After his grandfather told them he never went to an air raid shelter without his vial of poison, ‘in case he was buried alive,’ Hans Hirzel toyed with the idea of suiciding as alternative to life in Nazi Germany. When his lab partner was drafted, Hans Hirzel sneaked into the Glöckners’ attic and stole a large vial of cyanide.
Hans Hirzel’s distress had two sources. The first, his oft-discussed objections to National Socialist policy, objections that swung like a pendulum depending on the awards and honors he received from that political system. If Hitler Youth beat him up, called him names, deemed him a sissy, he was firmly in the camp of resistance. If he received a prestigious award for his musical ability or was asked to play in the Hitler Youth orchestra, he rejoined the camp of the Party. That incessant swinging from camp to camp left him exhausted, thinking about taking his own life.
Second, he clearly had a crush on Hans Scholl. The Gestapo – knowing full well about Hans Scholl’s §175(2) conviction – assumed that Hans Hirzel was gay, that his overwhelming affection for the older Hans was rooted in a desire for a sexual relationship. It’s not clear either from the Protokolle, or from Hans Hirzel’s postwar writings, whether he himself understood his attraction to Hans Scholl, what was going on. The Gestapo used that uncertainty as wedge.
Hans Hirzel stated that he felt estranged from Hans Scholl. He noted that he knew he should denounce the Scholls for their treason, but they were friends, and he could not. Suicide therefore seemed an alternative, one that would preclude the necessity of making a decision. The decision rested not on denouncing Hans and Sophie Scholl, but on his dilemma at keeping his word to Hans Scholl.
Rev. Ernst Hirzel, father of Hans and Susanne Hirzel, failed to recognize the internal battle his son was dealing with. Instead, Rev. Hirzel told the Gestapo that everything was his (the father’s) fault, for not having provided Hans with an “informed upbringing” that would let him hear “both sides.”[4]
Professor Kurt Huber. While researching White Rose, the person contemplating suicide who surprised me the most: Professor Kurt Huber. Thinking about it, about him, over the years, this anecdote makes more sense. It’s the initial shock of Eduard’s story…
Excerpt from White Rose History, Volume II.
A student named Eduard had served on the Russian front and was in the Munich area on leave. He resolved to drop in on Professor Huber during a short layover in town.
Evidently, Professor Huber had heard some of the natter about atrocities in Poland. During his conversation with Eduard, he introduced the topic of forced sterilizations of Polish Jews and female Polish students. (If he had received Leaflet III, he would have known even more.) Professor Huber may have assented to the Nazi political platform, but forced sterilizations bothered him. That wasn’t right.
Eduard stunned the professor with his next words. He had personally witnessed the mass execution of Jews in the Crimea. Sparing Kurt Huber not one detail, Eduard described the horrors he had seen with his own eyes.
Eduard tried to leave. He had only planned to stay until midnight, but the more he divulged, the more Kurt Huber wanted to hear.
Huber’s anger built up inside him, finally releasing in a thunderous shout. It was 3 o’clock in the morning. Klara Huber ran out of their bedroom, beseeching her enraged husband to be quiet “because of the neighbors.”
Even then, Professor Huber would not allow Eduard to depart. He kept insisting that the young soldier tell him more. Shortly before 3:45 am – the absolutely latest time that Eduard could leave Professor Huber’s house in Gräfelfing and make it to the train station on time – Huber astonished him with an exchange that Eduard could never forget.
[Professor Huber:] “I envy you, that you are going to the front. At least there you can place yourself in the line of fire and die.”
“But isn't that suicide?” I asked.
“No, when the strain [Spannungen] is unbearable, that is the only way. Because that death makes sense.”
To which I said, “I don't know. Suicide is never good.”
And he, “There are situations in which that is legal – including that which is morally legal – is transcended.”
And those were the last words I ever heard him say.[5]
KILLED IN ACTION/MISSING IN ACTION
Hans Lieverscheidt. Friend of Willi Graf. While serving on the Russian Front in summer of 1942, Willi Graf’s normally happy “mail call” day on October 6, 1942 quickly darkened. Hans Lieverscheidt, a ‘reliable’ friend from his days at the university in Bonn, had been killed in action.
“I cannot comprehend it,” Willi wrote in his diary.[6]
Willi Schwarz. A little over a month later, Willi Graf sat with old New Germany friends in Merzig, a town thirty miles northwest of Saarbrücken. It was already hard enough, seeing his old and trusted friend Rudi Alt with severe war wounds that rendered him almost disabled – except that it was Rudi, and he maintained his cheerful state of mind, wounds be damned.
Two things rattled Willi Graf that day. First, when good old Rudi said he could see making a career of the military. That was unexpected! And when Willi Graf learned that Willi Schwarz had been killed in action. Another dependable, cherished friend, lost to Hitler’s war.[7]
Willi Graf reaction. Among those recruited for White Rose resistance activities: Willi Reiter. Willi Reiter had also been a friend from New Germany days. He was in Saarbrücken when Willi Graf returned from the Russian Front in November 1942. Willi Graf used the opportunity to ‘evaluate’ Willi Reiter for the work.
Willi Reiter had been badly wounded on the front lines, losing the fingers on his right hand. Willi Graf assumed that would make him a good candidate, that he would be filled with anger over his injuries. Instead, Willi Reiter was taking his war wounds in stride.
Willi Reiter later described the disquieting changes he noticed in Willi Graf. “I knew Willi Graf as a quiet, reserved friend; therefore, I was astonished and scared by the openness with which he condemned the war, the senseless deaths, and those who were then in power. He believed that something must be done and spoke of friends who thought the same way with exactly the same goals. Since I was aware of the danger he was in, I expressly advised him to be cautious.”[8]
Ernst Reden. The most perplexing of those associated with White Rose, even loosely: Ernst Reden. Twenty-three-year-old Reden had sexually molested fourteen-year-old Werner Scholl on at least two separate occasions. Mrs. Scholl knew his reputation before granting him access to her teenage children. She warned Hans Scholl about association with Ernst Reden, but did nothing to protect her youngest child Werner from the predator. (Ernst Reden also sexually assaulted an 11-year-old boy in Hans Scholl’s Jungvolk club.)
This is not a discussion about Ernst Reden’s sexual orientation. The topic is introduced merely to frame the Scholl reaction to Ernst Reden’s death on the Russian front. Inge Scholl strongly implied that she and Ernst Reden were a couple. Either he was bisexual, or it’s a fable. Because his homosexuality was well-known in his hometown of Cologne, and in Ulm.
On August 23, 1942 when the Scholl family received news that Ernst Reden had fallen on the front, Sophie Scholl allegedly said, “Enough. Now I must do something.” Source of this report? Inge Scholl. Who was unaware that Sophie and Hans were already doing something. There are no published reports from either letters or diary entries made by Sophie Scholl that provide a firsthand glimpse into her true reaction to Ernst Reden’s death.
We do have a fleeting look into Hans Scholl’s reaction, which was impersonal, that is, he did not record his own feelings at the death of Ernst Reden. His September 5, 1942 diary entry merely stated that he knew that Inge mourned Ernst Reden’s death. “I see the void and cannot fill it, nor do I wish to. I know that it should not be filled. It must remain empty until, through grief, he is with her again in spirit, transfigured.”
Noteworthy is Scholl silence regarding Werner Scholl’s reaction to Ernst Reden’s death. Although Hans Scholl frequently saw his brother while they were stationed close to one another on the Russian Front, Hans wrote around that time about their efforts to gain clemency for their father, and about visits with one another. Nothing about discussing Ernst Reden’s death.
Perhaps the most fascinating response to Ernst Reden’s death came from a man who had little use for Ernst Reden in real life: Fritz Hartnagel. In December 1942 as Fritz was entrenched in the death trap known as Stalingrad, he suddenly recalled what he had meant to write Inge Scholl a few months prior, related to Ernst Reden’s death.
“My sorrow was so great only because I poured out my heart into the sand in that I loved a mortal as though he would not die.” The quote was from Augustine’s writings. Inge would like that.[9]
[I am aware that the sexual orientation of both Hans Scholl and Ernst Reden is problematic, not because they were gay. Yes, that was an issue in that era, with homosexuals treated almost as severely as Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, socialists, Communists, Roma/Sinti, and others who did not pass Nazi muster. At minimum, homosexuality condemned a person to concentration camp, if not death, unless – as with Hans Scholl, but not Ernst Reden – one’s family was well-connected.
With Scholl and Reden, there’s the added layer of pedophilia, of sexual assault of a person under one’s command. I wish to emphasize that I am not equating Scholl/Reden pedophilia with homosexuality. The two are false equivalents. Hans Scholl was also attracted to preteen girls.
I’m not qualified to evaluate their psychological profiles. High on my wish list: Finding someone who IS qualified. Because Hans Scholl’s sexual issues caused the death of at least Christoph Probst, if not others, as the Gestapo used his fear of being outed to get him to talk.]
Werner Scholl. Traute Lafrenz described Werner as the only Scholl sibling who was capable of independent thought. After the arrests, after the trial, after the executions, Traute and Werner took care of personal matters related to Hans and Sophie Scholl. They scrubbed the siblings’ apartment for additional incriminating evidence, with Traute convincing her former landlord – Gisela Schertling’s current landlord – to permit them use of the basement furnace to destroy that evidence.
As the Scholl family fell apart, Traute and Werner remained their strength. To the derision and ridicule of Ulmers.
Yet when Werner Scholl went missing in Russia, it’s as if he disappeared from Scholl family life. The sole photograph of him at a “White Rose” exhibit in Ulm, around 1994/1995, was mislabeled as “Young Hans Scholl.” By Inge Scholl.
I’ve often wondered if Werner did what Hans said he thought about doing, namely at the end of the war, strike out East in Russia, losing himself among a people that he – Werner – understood and cared for. Werner had no issue with the political beliefs of the very-Communist Scheringer family in Ulm. He helped them bring in the harvest and spent time learning about their political viewpoint.
I wish we could track this young man’s last movements in 1943/1944. What was his last known location? And go from there.
He deserves better. He was the first Scholl to see through National Socialism and distance himself completely from that movement, long before his more acclaimed siblings did so. He was also the first Scholl to practice resistance, covering the eyes of Lady Justice in front of the courthouse in Ulm, setting off a loud train whistle during a Nazi rally.
We remember Werner Scholl. Without him, Sophie likely would have remained in the Fatherland camp.
Werner Scholl: Born November 13, 1922, declared MIA June 1944.
© 2024 Denise Elaine Heap. Please contact us for permission to quote. To order digital version of White Rose History, Volume II, click here. Digital version of White Rose History, Volume I is available here. White Rose Histories excerpts © 2002, 2003, 2007.
Coming on Sunday, May 26, 2024: Death and the White Rose: Part 3. Remembering the lives and work of those executed for their resistance in 1943.
Footnotes and bibliography are available to paid subscribers only.
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