History of the History of the White Rose: 1945-1979

“One of these days, someone needs to write a history about the history of the White Rose. And the resistance to the correct telling of the resistance!”

Ricarda Huch, Photo by Wanda von Debschitz-Kunowski. Public domain.

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In 2000/2001 as we were working on the White Rose histories, I met a wonderful German historian named Dr. Armin Ziegler. A retired economist, he had fallen into White Rose research because 1) He was from Crailsheim and Eugen Grimminger was from Crailsheim; and, 2) He was an economist, and Grimminger had also been an economist, even having a similar topical interest.

Ziegler read – and commented on! – every word of our histories. We similarly read and commented on his works in progress. Good synergy, boisterous debates, always learning.

One day we were commiserating about the abundance of very, very bad White Rose books on the market. It seemed that each new day brought a new book, each worse than the last.

Ziegler: “One of these days, someone needs to write a history about the history of the White Rose. And the resistance to the correct telling of the resistance!” – Dr. Ziegler ZT”L, of blessed memory, this post is for you. I’m the only one left from that merry group who sat at your table in Schönaich. I hope I am doing you, your family, and my family justice.

Let the voices be heard!

Prior to 1980:

George J. (“Jürgen”) Wittenstein wrote the first known, published White Rose “story” as part of his work, likely for the OSS. The US government paid for his research. Wittenstein met with Inge Scholl, who had apparently acquired the letters that had been sent to the eminent philosopher, historian, and writer Ricarda Huch (1864-1947). In March 1946, Huch had issued a call for letters from anyone who had knowledge of persons who had been involved in resistance during the Third Reich. (If only Huch had lived long enough to complete her project!)

Wittenstein was granted access to Gestapo interrogation transcripts in Starnberg as part of his early postwar research. Note that he was granted access to the Protokolle of the Gestapo agents at Wittelsbacher Palace, not the prosecutor’s files which Christiane Moll found in 1989. If anyone can ever uncover the actual Gestapo transcripts that we know exist, because Wittenstein stated he saw and used them after the war, White Rose research will go through another major upheaval.

Wittenstein’s 1947 essay was entitled Die Münchener Studentenbewegung [The Student Movement in Munich]. In 1947, it was published in Blick in die Welt (Hamburg); the essay was reprinted with minor edits in Die Lupe (Bern) in 1948. Wittenstein traveled all over Germany and even to the UK, reading his essay and preaching democracy. Note: Only a German-language version exists. If anyone has found the English version used in the UK, please contact us!

Since Wittenstein was not part of the White Rose, was not part of any resistance effort whatever, was not friends with anyone in the circle of friends, he relied solely on the Gestapo transcripts, Inge Scholl, and on the letters collected by Ricarda Huch. While the essay was promoted as portraying his memories, it falls short since he had no real memories to rely on. For example, Wittenstein never met Willi Graf. The 1947 essay contains only bare bones information about Willi.

Inge Scholl quickly followed with her little book, ostensibly about the White Rose. The English-language version, Students Against Tyranny, was first published in 1952, with that English-language version translated by Arthur R. Schultz. Inge had the documentation that Huch had collected, along with pictures Wittenstein had taken (which she then stamped with © Scholl Archives, per Wittenstein). She ignored the decent amount of information she had collected from Lisa Grote, Wilhelm Geyer, Traute Lafrenz, Hubert Furtwängler, and dozens more who had written to her directly. The only bits of their letters she used? Anything that talked about Hans or Sophie Scholl.

These first two publications set the stage for the mythology that would become known as White Rose history. Elisabeth Scholl and Fritz Hartnagel tried to combat that legend-ary version in the 1950s, but Inge refused to accept their version of events, even when they had been present at the event in question. Small, but clear, example: Inge’s insistence that Sophie Scholl went to Munich on her birthday, in 1942, and that Sophie and Hans were already sharing the apartment on Franz-Josef-Strasse. Sophie was with Fritz on her birthday, and the siblings did not share an apartment until November 1942. Inge insisted on keeping the legend intact.

The mythology was set in motion by two people who needed to attach themselves to anti-Nazi sentiment if they were to survive denazification. Wittenstein was NSDAP Party member #7667868, effective June 1940. After the White Rose executions in 1943, he was promoted to NS-Führungsoffizier, a rank that could only be granted by Hitler or Himmler. An NSFO was authorized to shoot suspected traitors on sight, without benefit of trial.

For her part, Inge Scholl was the second-ranking BDM/Jungmädel leader in the Ulm region. She was responsible for “education” – that is, for teaching Nazi racial ideology and antisemitism to Jungmädel leaders. Inge and her father Robert Scholl rubbed shoulders with the highest-ranking Nazis in Ulm; Robert Scholl was financial advisor and tax preparer for the top 30 men. Hans, Elisabeth, Sophie, and Werner were the outcasts in the family, with Werner being the first to recognize the evil of National Socialism. (Where is he in Inge’s book?)

Neither Wittenstein nor Inge Scholl ever recanted their Nazi ideology. But when the Allies, especially the US, started looking for Germans who were willing to educate fellow Germans about the wonders of democracy, both Inge Scholl and Wittenstein volunteered. Inge applied for, and won, McCloy and Marshall Funds, $2 million in 1950s currency, or $16 million in 2023. Wittenstein got something even more precious: Minimization of Party membership and non-inclusion of his NSFO rank in his denazification file, Persilscheine, and a clean bill of health that allowed him to emigrate to the US, despite American bans on immigration by anyone who had been a Party member. (He ultimately fell under the 1946 amnesty granted anyone born after 1/1/1919, with no further investigation into his military record.)

The next known work about the White Rose has a happier basis in fact. In 1963, Klaus Vielhaber penned a biography about Willi Graf! Gewalt und Gewissen: Willi Graf und die „Weisse Rose“ [Power and Conscience – Willi Graf and the “White Rose”]– originally entitled Widerstand im Namen der deutschen Jugend [Resistance in the Name of German Youth] – told Willi Graf’s story based on diary entries and correspondence available at that time. Although Vielhaber’s work was largely superseded by the Knoop-Graf/Jens edition of Willi Graf’s diary and correspondence, Vielhaber’s book is invaluable. We used it frequently to fill in a few gaps, since Knoop-Graf and Jens focused on June 1942-October 1943. Vielhaber’s book includes writings and events prior to that date.

ETA: Also in 1963, Dr. Hermann Krings gave the first of two speeches about the life and work of his friend, Willi Graf. (The second would be in 1983.) Like Vielhaber’s book, Krings’ speech moves the spotlight away from the Scholl-centric legend and honors the memory of an honorable young man.

Chronologically, we must go back to Wittenstein. In 1964, Wittenstein sent a copy of his 1947 essay to the Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich, addressed to Dr. Auerbach. Wittenstein was trying to establish his credentials as a so-called member of the White Rose. To his credit, Auerbach appears to have been skeptical.

1968 gives us our first non-“West German” White Rose history. Union Verlag of Berlin (DDR) published a book by Klaus Drobisch called Wir schweigen nicht – Die Geschwister Scholl und ihre Freunde [We Will Not Be Silent – the Scholl Siblings and their Friends]. I have not read this book so cannot comment, except to say that it clearly treats the Scholls as the leaders of the White Rose, which they simply were not. If anyone has access to a copy of this book, and that copy is not too expensive, please contact us.

That same year, we have our first attempt at a real history of the White Rose. Christian Petry’s Studenten aufs Schaffott [Students on the Scaffold] was published. Even as I am writing this, I pause for a minute to quietly thank Petry for what he tried to do. Because the subtitle of that book was Die Weiβe Rose und ihr Scheitern [The White Rose and its Failings]. Petry was close with the Probst family. He and one of the sons were in deep with the 1968 student revolts, which did not spare Munich. More than that, they thought about the 1968 student revolts with an eye to what White Rose had tried to do. Petry and Probst concluded that weaknesses in White Rose resistance were evident in the 1968 student revolt and they wrote about their views.

Twenty-seven years later, when I was in Germany researching for 3-1/2 months, I met a historian who had been burned by Inge Scholl. We bonded over our mutual experience. A little later in the conversation, I made a dismissive comment about Christian Petry. This historian cautioned me against doing so. He reminded me first that Petry’s book had appeared before Moll found the transcripts. Further, he said that initially Petry had been friendly with the Scholl family as he researched this book. When Petry mentioned this conclusion about weaknesses and “failing,” Inge Scholl made his life miserable. “I hope you don’t end up like Christian Petry,” the historian said. “He doesn’t like to write or talk about White Rose at all.”

Petry’s 1968 history may not be useful to modern historians. But that work is a buoy in a dangerous harbor. Pay attention to his work and his legacy.

Seven years later (1975), a memorial pamphlet – Erinnerungsschrift zur Feier des fünfundzwanzigsten Jahrestages der Freiheitsaktion Bayern am 27. und 28. April 1970 [Memorial Pamphlet on the Occasion of the 25th Anniversary of Operation Bavarian Freedom on April 27 and 28, 1970] – honored the memory of a small group of translators who had tried to save Munich from total destruction in 1945. They were not all necessarily anti-Nazi, but their actions were considered treasonous by the NSDAP. This document would not be in my historiography, except that our White Rose Histories are comprised of Volumes I (1/1933-4/1942), Volume II (5/1942-10/12/1943) and Volume III (10/13/1943-5/9/1945). For us, therefore, this small document is important. Harald Dohrn, Christoph Probst’s father-in-law, was part of the FAB, and was murdered by the NSDAP three days before war’s end.

1979, Richard Hanser gave us the best prose ever written regarding White Rose. That New York Times reporter wrote A Noble Treason: The Revolt of the Munich Students Against Hitler. Since Hanser wrote his book before Christiane Moll’s discovery of the Protokolle, he drew heavily on Scholl-centric material.

If Hanser had worked twenty years later, he would have been able to compose the only history needed. But, he did not. If any “serious” scholar quotes Hanser’s book, it’s a dead giveaway that they are lazy and have not gone past the mythology.

But oh! How badly I wish Hanser had taken on this project in 1999, and not 1979.

In the historiography of the White Rose, from 1945-1979 there is only one book that is worth reading, despite being superseded by the Knoop-Graf/Jens edition thirty-one years later: Klaus Vielhaber’s Gewalt und Gewissen. He did not cave to the Scholl-Wittenstein mythology.

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If you are curious about supporting documents for any of these Substack posts, check out our White Rose Histories (Volume I, 1/1933-4/30/1942, and Volume 2, 5/1/1942-10/12/1943), along with primary source materials. As always, if you have questions or private comments, please contact us.

Next post: History of the History of the White Rose (part 2, 1980-1989).

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