Hermann Krings: Signs versus examples

From Hermann Krings, I learned to think about White Rose resistance in unambiguous language. How do you see the White Rose, as sign or as example? Read on to see what Krings thought.

Rembrandt’s The Philosopher in Meditation. Public domain.

Like other philosophers of his era, Prof. Dr. Hermann Krings considered the impact of words when writing about freedom, personal responsibility, justice, and related themes. He drew deeply on personal experience as a young man in Germany, during a time of tyranny, the collective, and massive injustice. Krings’ attention to detail shone especially brightly when he spoke or wrote about White Rose resistance. Unlike theologians and thinkers like Romano Guardini, for whom White Rose was theory, for Krings these people were flesh and blood. Willi Graf was his friend. Krings had debated Prof. Dr. Kurt Huber face to face.

Although my correspondence with him was short – he was already ill in 1995 – he made an indelible impression on our work. I’d already taken Erich Schmorell’s words to heart, his admonition to tell the real story. I had vowed to Fritz Hartnagel that I would not make anything up. I had sat with Herta and Micha Probst, sensing their distrust after so many not-scholars had twisted their words, quoted them out of context, all to generate sensational untruths about their beloved husband and father.

And now this August 12, 1995 letter from Hermann Krings.

I will try to answer your questions. I am doing this, by the way, in the interest of working against a certain trend to turn the ‘White Rose’ into a legend. After the student resistance was re-discovered at the beginning of the 1980s – following decades of silence – and after it has been brought up by many different people, an ‘image’ has arisen that does not do the events of that time justice.

The rest of that letter, Krings disproved the mythology that had grown up around Fritz Leist’s insertion of himself (Leist) and the so-called “Siegfriedstraβe” into White Rose legend. Krings insisted that neither he nor anyone else in the circle of friends who met at the Siegfriedstraβe to discuss Catholic liturgy were involved with White Rose. Further, he debunked the notion of Siegfriedstraβe as a meeting place for a cell of Catholic resistance. It was simply a meeting place for friends of the old New Germany, friends who did not participate in Willi Graf’s work.

Krings’ letter to me, along with the letter he had written Inge Aicher-Scholl on November 16, 1981, gave me a better understanding of Willi Graf’s group of friends. In 1995, I had not yet grasped that the White Rose friends maintained relationships outside the circle that wrote and distributed leaflets or painted graffiti. Krings opened that door for me, showing me the Willi Graf Venn diagram of friendships, one that intersected with but did not consist merely of Hans, Sophie, Christoph, and others. This White Rose “Venn diagram” is topic for another post.

More importantly, Krings contributed to my understanding of White Rose dynamics by the two speeches he’d given, and which he provided me.

In 1963, on the twentieth anniversary of Willi Graf’s execution, Krings spoke at the Universität des Saarlandes. It’s a good speech, especially considering he gave it more than 25 years before the Protokolle were found. There are a few factual errors, but only a few. When a person does not overreach in his assessment of a matter, it’s easier to be correct.

Krings’ ability to use words incisively strikes the reader almost sixty years later. He described Hitler’s ascension to power as not one of primary force, but rather the monstrous undertow of a vacuum. Krings recalled what it was like to be a student in those days: His feelings of hopelessness, the sense that even if he tried to do something, he would not prevail against the military power – not political power, but military – of Hitler’s regime. And what it felt like when he saw a White Rose leaflet for the first time.

A beam flickered in this night. The night was so dark and the beam so radiant, that it has remained unforgettable. Even today, this beam gives light: The open outburst of outrage, in the leaflets of the White Rose.

And in 1963, Krings was in no mood to give fellow Germans of his youth a pass.

The death of Willi Graf and his friends, as well as the deaths of the men of July 20, is not a sign that the German Volk was not all that bad. Rather, it is a sign of how bad it was. These students did not stand in the forefront as heroes of an heroic Volk. Rather, they were the lone signifiers of truth in the midst of a collective that allowed themselves to be represented by the screaming [Geschrei] of Hitler and Freisler.

Krings’ speech to this point sounds like others that had been and would be given on the topic of White Rose heroism. Better written, clearer in its denunciation of fellow German citizens perhaps, strong as the words of a 50-year-old in the prime of life are wont to be.

The closing portion of his speech in 1963 made me sit up straight and think out loud. Reading it in 1995, I began to appreciate the value of specificity, the weight of unambiguous language.

For the sake of the extraordinary nature of personal and Christian character, I must refrain from presenting Willi Graf as an example [Beispiel]. For many, perhaps it (sic) does set an example; this person or the other may complete his education in an exemplary manner. Death, however, is without example [beispiellos, also unprecedented]. And not only death, but that moment of a genuine decision.

The life and death of a person like Willi Graf may not be used as an example; national-pedagogical usage [as such] would be a mockery.

And yet in 1963, it is as if Krings was working through this idea himself. He continued to note the ineffectiveness of comfortable protest, even while decrying the perception that death is necessary or “exemplary” to effect change.

By 1983, his thoughts had gelled. Seventy-year-old Hermann Krings had internalized that which he had tried to express in 1963. His words are stronger and more specific. His opening salvo:

The White Rose is a sign. Signs are often difficult to interpret. More important than the interpretation, however, is the perception of the sign in the first place, and allowing oneself to be affected by it. The purpose of the commemoration that has just taken place: Giving expression to this impact.

A sign? Krings had used that word in 1963, but sparingly. He had wrestled then with the concept of example, exemplary, precedence. I admit, I was confused when his 1983 speech concentrated so much effort of thought on signs, Zeichen.

The sign of the White Rose was not a sign from heaven, but rather a sign on earth. It was placed here, in this house, in this city. It was like a bolt of lightning that instantly lit up the whole city and many other cities and for one moment, the whole country.

Then came death: The death of Hans Scholl, Christoph Probst, and Sophie Scholl, of Kurt Huber, Alexander Schmorell, and Willi Graf, and finally of Hans Leipelt. But this death too was a sign. It pointed to the fact that it would take a million times more deaths and finally the self-destruction of Germany before this terror would end.

The signs from those days are still signs today. In those days, we were directly affected. Today we must allow ourselves to be affected by them indirectly. We must interpret the signs of the White Rose. How shall we understand them?

Being an honest philosopher, Krings laid out his “givens,” the logical bases for his conclusions. He pointed to his close personal friendship with Willi Graf, his knowledge that there was a group in the Second Student Company that ‘met with Hans Scholl.’ He described his relationship with Kurt Huber, and specifically which class he took with that professor and what topics they discussed outside the classroom. Krings stressed as well that other contemporaries from those days could reach different conclusions than he, and that they could differ from his own. Further – and as a non-contemporary of Hermann Krings’ youth, I appreciate this – he conceded that people who came later could credibly look at the events from another perspective completely.

The next one-third of Krings’ speech – remember, this was for students – described what it was like growing up in Hitler’s Germany. With no defense whatever for German enthusiasm for Nazism, Krings spoke about bündische youth attempts to distance themselves from Hitler Youth. He pointed out that this was not resistance, then explained that 1980s concept of resistance could not be compared with Third Reich resistance. Again, he did not apologize for lack of resistance, merely noted that resistance in his youth “looked” different than student-led protests in the decades thereafter. Even the understanding about what constituted “politics” lacked sufficient comparison.

He also made a point that should be stressed more loudly in writings about bündische youth in general, and White Rose in particular. Teenagers and young adults did not approach their disagreements about Third Reich policies from a single perspective. Krings commented on the dispute between Kurt Huber and White Rose students over Huber’s remarks about the military in the leaflet he wrote. Krings did not dismiss that as trivial, but neither did he ignore the discord. “[Their] attitudes were unambiguous, … but not undisputed [unumstritten].”

Throughout Krings’ exegesis on life as a young person during the Third Reich – even when mentioning White Rose friends – he did not mention the “sign” that opened his speech... until page 311 if you’re following along in the Stimmen publication. He talked about the manner in which the NSDAP had replaced politics with terrorism, asserting that Hitler’s mantras such as “total war,” “final solution of the Jewish question,” and “other products of criminal nihilism” were not political in nature.

He returned to the notion of “signs” when declaring that for many people, tyrannicide became the only solution. [Krings did not say this, but of all the White Rose friends, Willi Graf and Alexander Schmorell were the two most engrossed with the idea that assassinating Hitler would be the only thing that could save Germany.]

But tyrannicide is not politics, rather it is a sign that politics has ceased to be.

Krings clearly continued to wrestle with the problem of “resistance” during the Third Reich. Before concluding with the meat of this 1983 speech, he talked out the problematic – the utter suppression of dissident speech juxtaposed with the compliance of the German majority during the Third Reich. It is this internal struggle that is so evident in Krings’ words that has made him a high priority for our Call for Papers. He was well-known for his philosophical texts about freedom. Understanding how Krings’ internal struggle over resistance to tyranny colored his philosophical work? That would be priceless for everyone considering German resistance during the Shoah.

Krings began the conclusion to his speech with a short paragraph that I fully co-sign.

This landscape of political destruction, and within it the sign of the White Rose, explain the reason I cannot present their persons and their actions to you as example, much less as heroic example. They would not have tolerated hero worship.

No, Dr. Krings, they would not have tolerated hero worship. They knew their foibles, their flaws. They owned mirrors that showed every zit, every scar, the dark circles under their eyes, their unwashed hair. These White Rose friends knew themselves. Some hated that reflection, felt unworthy, knew depression, could not shake aloneness.

These friends – as Lilo Ramdohr said, from dysfunctional families all – knew that their leaflets probably would not overthrow the tyrant. They found comfort among outcasts like themselves, outcasts who were Others in a society doomed to conformity. They worked, unsure that their efforts would yield fruit, despairing that anyone would listen. Perhaps they knew glimmers of hope that January 13 when students in Munich protested Nazi misogyny. And yet.

Krings concluded his 1983 speech with words that resonate.

Not only for that reason may the sign of the White Rose not be understood as an example. An example does not consist only of the virtuous actions of an individual, rather it includes an appropriate environ­ment. Those days – as I have described – were not days for an action that could serve as an example. What they did was not exemplary. At best, what they did was something that an individual living in an evil time could personally justify or what he believed he must do.

Even this was not possible without living a lie day in, day out. This action that was supposed to resist evil can hardly be put forward as exemplary. To hide oneself daily, to keep silent, to lie, to conceal things even from friends, in order one day to break out, and finally, to be ready to die – this cannot be understood as exemplary.

Such a breaking-out is a sign. It is the sign of an unbroken spirit, but it is also the sign of an evil time. It is a light in the darkness.

But this sign may not serve as an alibi for Germans. Neither the death of Hans Scholl and his friends, nor the deaths of those men associated with the July 20, 1944 resistance, may be used as a sign to say the German people were not so bad.

Rather, this sign says how bad they really were. This death is a sign that points to the thousands upon thousands of deaths caused by this regime, that points even to the not-public deaths, such as those driven to their deaths in prisons and concentration camps, yes, even to the 364 soldiers who were condemned and executed after their court-martial at the valley by Stalingrad.

I am speaking of an evil time. For that person who was trapped in primitive thoughts and driven by hate, that person who rose to become head of State and dictator in Germany, did not stand alone. He had around him a whole hierarchy of unscrupulous functionaries who served the power apparatus and instruments of terror.

And finally, he was supported by many in the land who consumed National Socialism as a political and psychic narcotic. [The prophet] Jeremiah did not oppose only the kings, priests, and prophets, but also “the people of the land.” The first leaflet [of the White Rose] spoke of a spiritless and cowardly mass. The whole was bad, and not only bad, but evil. …

Forty years ago today, Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl, and Christoph Probst were executed. On July 13, Alexander Schmorell and Kurt Huber. On October 12, Willi Graf (and two years later, Hans Leipelt). This resistance, born witness to in death, is the sign for victory over evil, as far as it is possible to conquer evil in our earthly existence. It is not grounds for enthusiasm, but it is grounds for hope.

We should take hope with us and leave the example behind. The example leads to misunderstandings. How are we to see an example in resistance that ended in death? We must search for new rules and better forms for our lives. Possibly we will even seek political alternatives. But that is the exception. Certainly any one of us could be subjected to that exception – then he will recall possible examples, if he has enough time.

The White Rose is a sign. The death of the friends is a sign. Signs are hard to read. But no matter how we read this sign, we have a sign of hope. It reveals that when we have done all that is humanly possible, there is still something else we can do – something that cannot be touched and is eternal.

I have puzzled over Krings’ musings for several decades now. It has taken time for his words to sink in, for his parsing of the difference between signs and examples to make sense. If I read him correctly, I hope that we – “we” in the broadest sense possible, not limited to political ideology – will internalize White Rose resistance as a call to stop the terrorism of tyranny before it’s too late. That we will see the work of White Rose friends as a sign of the only alternative left once it is too late. And that none of us is compelled to follow their example.

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How do you understand Krings’ contemplations? Do you understand his differentiation between the two concepts? What does White Rose resistance mean to you?

We must interpret the signs of the White Rose. How shall we understand them?

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German copyright for Hermann Krings’ two speeches held by Prof. Dr. Hermann Krings and respective publishers, Ernst Klett Verlag (1964) and Verlag Herder (1983). Translation © 1995 Denise Heap. Used by permission of Prof. Dr. Hermann Krings.

For permission to quote this article, please contact us.

Hermann Krings. “Gedenkrede für Willi Graf.” In Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, ed. by K. D. Erdmann and F. Messerschmid. Issue 5, 1964. Stuttgart: Ernst Klett Verlag, 1964.

Hermann Krings. “Das Zeichen der Weiβen Rose: Zur politischen Bedeutung des studentischen Widerstands.” In Stimmen, Issue 5, Vol. 201. Freiburg: Verlag Herder, May 1983.