History of the History of the White Rose: 1998
Kerstin Sonnenwald, Susanne Hirzel, and an anonymous writer from Munich: Good publications that greatly added to our understanding of White Rose resistance!
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The year 1998 was a good one for White Rose scholars. Three – two essays and one book – publications, and all three gave us new and valuable information, even if incomplete.
The first was an essay in a journal published by the Stadtarchiv (city archives) of Leonberg. Kerstin Sonnenwald was granted access to Lisa Remppis’ correspondence with Hans and Sophie Scholl. Not so much the letters from Hans Scholl. Sonnenwald expressed a bit of frustration at how little she was allowed to see of that. Scholl Archives…
August Schlehe, Lisa’s husband, opened his personal archives of Lisa’s letters for Sonnenwald to read. She turned her study into a short article entitled “Mit aller Liebe: Die Beziehungen der Lisa Remppis zu Sophie und Hans Scholl.”
I only wish that all the letters she read and summarized had been published. The small glimpse is better than nothing, but we could learn so much more if we could read the documents themselves, with her annotations.
Sonnenwald remarked that apparently once Lisa Remppis started dating August Schlehe seriously, Sophie grew jealous. The occasional snide remark was unmistakable. Although there was plenty of opportunity to do so – the train ride from Ulm to Stuttgart is short – Sophie never visited Lisa and August once they were engaged, nor is there evidence that the three met up at all.
Sonnenwald also attempted to parse August Schlehe’s statements. While she reported what he told her, she clearly took his accounts with a grain of salt.
An online article appeared in 1998, published by Kulturreferat der Landeshauptstadt München. The only name I could find related to the essay entitled “Der nationalsozialistiche Terror- und Verfolgungsapparat” was that of the page designer, Sascha Bartesch. I have written to the city of Munich, keeper of that office. Should additional information about the author become available, I will update this post.
It should be required reading for anyone writing about the Shoah, whether from viewpoint of Holocaust education, political science, German history – it does not matter. This little essay explains so much.
My review of the essay is long, but I respectfully request you read it. Critical issues the author addressed:
The abandonment of Jewish victims and members of the resistance once the Bundesrepublik Deutschland was established.
The reasons that so many who had been in the resistance kept silent.
Effect on German governance of Allied failure to follow through with denazification.
Complicity of the Catholic and Lutheran churches in postwar coverups.
The continued divide in the late 1960s, during the student revolts. Former Nazi adults versus idealistic youth. Dohrn versus Probst.
The “classes” of people to whom the German government refused to pay reparations.
This author had no patience for former Nazis who controlled the narrative after the war. They listed names of people in Munich and Bavaria who had been ardent Nazis, who were unjustly granted denazification status as clean, and then continued to inflict their antisemitic and racist ideology on the populace. Much of what the Allies accomplished between 1945-1950 was overturned once these men reclaimed power.
Like Hamm-Brücher, this unnamed author took on Germany’s sacred cows and did so in a well-written document that is easy to follow. I would like to shake this writer’s hand for one very good sentence. Wie schwierig die Bemühungen um ein Wachhalten der Erinnerung in einer Gesellschaft waren, die den “Heilschlaf des Vergessens” angetreten hatte..., or, How difficult the efforts to keep memory alive in a society that had embarked on “the healing sleep of forgetting’...
Finally, Susanne Zeller nee Hirzel’s memoirs were published this same year. Vom Ja Zum Nein [From Yes to No], this book had the potential to add substantially to our understanding of White Rose resistance. Until I obtained her Protokolle in 2002, I believed all of her assertions.
Not only did those Protokolle directly contradict statements in her memoirs, but she herself disavowed almost everything she wrote that had been of substance.
I still used her words in our White Rose histories – with asterisks the size of the Goodyear blimp. Her narrative may only be accepted when it corresponds to statements made in her interrogations and to postwar interviews and correspondence. I’m not speaking of statements made to mislead the Gestapo. Rather, her tales about Jungmädel and Bund deutscher Mädel, her anecdotes about life in their home, basic storylines must be verified and double-verified.
In her old age, Susanne Zeller-Hirzel renounced the democratic, justice-seeking ideology of her youth. She and her brother Hans adopted Republikaner dogma. In 1994, when Hans Hirzel ran for president on the Republikaner platform, that party was the closest to neo-Nazi allowed by German law.
The siblings blocked access to their Protokolle and reinvented themselves as anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, “Germany for Germans” ideologues. Especially Susanne enjoyed a great deal of attention in her new role.
The Hirzels became persona non grata in both the Weisse-Rose-Institut e.V. and the Weiβe-Rose-Stiftung. When we would speak with people who had known – and loved – them for decades, there was only sorrow. No anger, just sorrow.
Susanne’s memoirs are the last vestige of the person who was. When she insisted in December 2002 that she had not said what she said – despite literal quotes, cited directly from her book – it became difficult to maintain any semblance of connection.
Gentle reminder for all of us to pay attention to our sources.
Bibliography:
“Der nationalsozialistiche Terror- und Verfolgungsapparat: Kriegsgefangene und Zwangsarbeiter.” Designed by Sascha Bartesch. Author unknown. Munich: Kulturreferat der Landeshauptstadt München, 1998.
Hirzel, Susanne. Vom Ja zum Nein: Eine schwäbische Jugend 1933-1945. Tübingen: Klöpfer, Mayer und Co. Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, 1998.
Sonnenwald, Kerstin. “Mit aller Liebe: Die Beziehungen der Lisa Remppis zu Sophie und Hans Scholl.” In Nonne, Magd oder Ratsfrau – Frauenleben in Leonberg aus vier Jahrhunderten. Leonberg: Stadtarchiv Leonberg, 1998.
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