I Pray to the Power of Love

If we wish to honor White Rose friends, then let’s do so properly. Join their work of tikkun olam, repairing our world. No matter what. We all have the same power of love. Let’s use it for good.

Building together. Microsoft stock photo. Used by permission.

As I continue to slog through the digitization of White Rose History, Volume II, I am once again empowered by the optimism, idealism, and strong sense of justice that permeated the minds and hearts of these young people. And the older friends who joined them in their work.

Not only were they convinced they could change the world, but they seemed to enjoy what they did. They envisioned the Germany to come, knowing that they would have been part of its transformation from genocidal dictatorship to a place where freedom and justice once again had meaning.

Their idealism proved harmful to their immediate success. They overestimated their ability to effect the necessary change without more powerful allies. True friends and co-conspirators like Susanne Hirzel and Hermann Krings tried to warn them. These friends told them – directly or indirectly – to get out of their silos, to understand the true situation, to link with better-organized groups. Only if they did all this would they succeed in overthrowing Hitler’s regime.

Traute Lafrenz expressed strong regret that they had not done so. Surrounding themselves with like-minded people gave them a false sense of security. They were susceptible to self-deception, for example on January 13, 1943 when students at Munich marched through the streets in protest. They saw that as a sign that the tide was changing. In reality, the protest march was not much more than German soldiers standing up for the honor of their fellow students – female students. They were not protesting genocide or mass murders or the war.

But White Rose friends misunderstood, took it as a sign they should dig in and work harder.

How their idealism impacted their work and destroyed all hope of success will be covered in a future post. Today, I want to look at how they maintained a sense of joy and hope in the middle of what was arguably one of the worst eras in modern human history.

Music played a significant role in their outlook. Whether Bach Chorale for Willi, Hubert, Regine, and more, or the concerts they faithfully attended (and dissected afterwards), or Alex’s pounding out Beethoven on Lilo’s piano when he could not handle life … without exception, these White Rose friends and the adults who joined their work turned to Bach, Beethoven, Russian folk songs, Messiah, or impromptu jam sessions to stay grounded. This is a constant golden thread through their story.

Nature too imbued their lives with wonder and awe. Hans and Sophie – sometimes with Alex – loved to strike out camping, sleeping under the stars. Christl noted how Daniel – the highest peak in the Ammergau Alps – filled him with joy when he could see it from his window. It reminded him of a happy, though strenuous hike he had taken with his younger brother Dieter. Because that in turn gave him a vision of a day when neither would be soldiers, and they could once again know the blessing of such excursions with loved ones. In peace.

And oh! How they loved to read! Their reading lists were immense and formidable. And best savored when they read aloud in a circle. We have all but lost the satisfaction that comes from reading aloud with friends. For these friends, such “readings” were events to be celebrated. Parties, if you will.

In the middle of hate, surrounded by swastikas and thugs, oppressed by censorship and rigid control of personal freedoms, these young people managed to be happy. Managed to hold fast together. Managed to laugh out loud in a world where very little was funny. Holy laughter, if you will. Laughter, joy that cocooned them.

Even Christl who suffered from debilitating depression, or Sophie who was suicidal, or Willi who never escaped the sense of standing alone, or Alex who felt like an Other, or Wilhelm Geyer who was overwhelmed by familial responsibilities while not-working as a banned artist, or Hubert who could not marry the woman he loved because she was British, or Käthe who lived every day fearful, knowing her physical handicap could be a death sentence … no matter what they faced, they grabbed on hard to the lifeboats of music, nature, reading, and most of all, to friendship, to one another.

And they were happy. They knew peace in a world that had long forsaken peace. They were certain that their efforts would bring about justice. Tikkun olam. Repairing the world. They had no doubt that what they did would repair the world.

When I re-read Arvid Harnack’s farewell letter to his family before his execution on December 22, 1942, this post gelled. Falk Harnack’s influence on White Rose work after the Russian front was profound. He was one person Hans and Alex would listen to, a person whose counsel they sought.

Because of Falk (and Lilo, whom Falk loved), White Rose friends were made very much aware of Harnack-Schulze-Boysen resistance, and more specifically, of their imprisonment and execution. More than one person noted that Hans Scholl especially seemed to take the news of Arvid’s arrest and execution hard.

Since it affected White Rose, I intended to spend one paragraph of White Rose History, Volume II talking about Arvid’s execution. Then I read Arvid’s farewell letter to his family, and it became two pages. Because: In closing, Arvid asked his family to celebrate Christmas really well. And to sing, I Pray to the Power of Love.

Twenty-plus years ago, that struck me as odd. I therefore dug around and found out what I could about that particular song. When you’re dealing with a man who was a Roosevelt Scholar, who was one of the great economic minds of the twentieth century, who did everything with purpose, something that specific jumps off the page.

Following is a short excerpt from White Rose History, Volume II.

“Closing with hugs and kisses, Arvid asked his family to ‘celebrate Christmas really well. That is my last wish. And also sing, I Pray to the Power of Love.’

“Arvid and Mildred were so aware of literary nuances that his ‘last wish’ puzzled me. Why that specific song? It is often sung at Christmas, perhaps as well-known as Silent Night to the average German. But I Pray to the Power of Love [Ich bete an die Macht der Liebe] was much more than a Christmas carol.

“Since the early nineteenth century, that song has been part of the German military’s tradition of Zapfenstreich or ‘taps,’ calling foot soldiers to turn in for the night. Its roots dated back to the fifteenth century, when foot soldiers serving local princes were permitted to while away evening hours at the tavern until the prince’s men instructed the barkeepers to shut down the taps.

“Over time, the military formalized the ceremony, with trumpets sounding the call to ‘taps,’ gathering soldiers to evening prayer. That prayer was sung, not spoken. Almost from the beginning, I Pray to the Power of Love became the soldiers’ hymn of choice. National Socialists tried to replace it with other songs when they assumed power in 1933, but this was one tradition Germans were not willing to relinquish. A ‘Lutheran’ hymn, it was embraced by Catholics and Lutherans alike, a song that unified a splintered nation.

“For Arvid, the song therefore fulfilled many purposes. It signaled his final rest, it affirmed his belief in the ‘power of love,’ it identified him as a patriot. And it typified the longing he and Mildred had for peace between east and west. For the lyrics had been written by a German mystic, but the melody came from a Russian composer.”

If you are unfamiliar with this very-old hymn, this is a good a cappella rendition of it.

Arvid’s farewell letter stands almost as template or blueprint or signpost for the manner in which White Rose friends lived and worked the last three months of their lives. I daresay they all knew that their work equaled a death sentence. They all knew that what they did would be judged treason.

Yet as Arvid and Mildred before them, they faced their ‘final rest’ confidently, almost with defiance. Working through this volume again, it is beyond clear that none of them ran when cornered. They practically dared their captors to take them in.

And as Arvid and Mildred before them, their belief in the power of love? Oh yes. Perhaps their belief was misplaced to a certain degree. Sophie, after all, thought that if they were arrested openly, students would rise up to defend them. Instead, students celebrated their executions. But the people who mattered? They got it. They knew. Wolf Jaeger’s heart broke as he watched his friends loaded into police transports on April 19. Lisa Grote was stunned. Hans Leipelt and friends in Heinrich Wieland’s chemistry department took the executions as a challenge to continue the work. The power of love? The power of love!

As Arvid and Mildred before them, White Rose friends may have been labeled traitors by the People’s Court, but those who mattered and the generations who followed understood: They were the ultimate patriots. They defended the actual German constitution, not the perversion that Hitler had introduced in 1933.¹ They stood up for the rights of all Germans, not just the ones who met NSDAP criteria. They may have been condemned by Roland Freisler, but in the Court that mattered, they were welcomed as faithful servants, as persons who defended righteousness and justice. No matter what.

As Arvid and Mildred before them, they longed for peace. They yearned for peace. The power of love. Peace.

As Eugen Grimminger would later say:

I did it, because I couldn’t not do it. I could not stand to look on while all kinds of horrors and crimes were committed. Every German who wanted to know could find out what was happening to Jews, what was happening in the concentration camps. … I thought, these people who are ruining our country, they can get away with anything: Murder, perjury. …

“I did it, because I couldn’t not do it.”

We are coming up on the time of year when the watered-down version of White Rose resistance will flood the airwaves. When all you will hear about is Hans and Sophie Scholl, probably Sophie Scholl more than anyone else. You’ll hear about heroes who walked around Munich with haloes on their heads and went home at night to stand on marble pedestals.

That’s not who these people were. They were flawed. They were broken. They suffered by being inundated by hate, by arrogance, by wanton disrespect for human rights. The crimes against humanity that they witnessed – in Warsaw, on streetcars in Munich, in factories where they fulfilled wartime duties, in POW camps on the Russian front, among Polish or Yugoslavian forced laborers they rubbed shoulders with in Ulm and Blumberg – those crimes against humanity would have eaten them alive.

Except for the power of love. A power that infused them with an inexplicable happiness, with joy that was not dependent on their surroundings.

They left this world, going to a “final rest” that they anticipated with dread and gladness. As patriots. Wishing for peace. Never letting go of their firm belief in the power of love.

On February 18, February 22, April 19, July 13, October 12, January 29 – if we wish to honor these young people and the older people who stood alongside them, then let’s do so properly. We can join their work of tikkun olam, repairing our world. No matter what.

Lutheran, Catholic, Freikirchler, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, anthroposophist, agnostic, atheist. We all possess the same power of love. Let’s use it for good.

© 2024 Denise Elaine Heap. White Rose History, Volume II excerpt © 2002, 2005 Denise Elaine Heap. Please contact us for permission to quote.

Planting together… for hope. Microsoft stock photo. Used by permission.

1. Note that the German constitution was not thrown out. The NSDAP continued to “rule” under the constitution that had preceded it, one that dated back 30-40 years. The perversion came from Hitler’s addition of Enabling Act, the Alien and Sedition Act, and concentration of legislative and judicial authority in the office of Chancellor. Those acts did not supersede the Constitution. Therefore when Nazis argued postwar that they were just following orders, that argument should have been thrown out. The German constitution clearly delineated which crimes were and were not prosecutable under the “following orders” argument. Political acts were not prosecutable (e.g., shutting down a newspaper), while criminal acts were (e.g., burning down a synagogue, murdering a political enemy, killing six million Jews). To learn more about the concept of duty in the German constitution, see Teutsch’s dissertation regarding same. His JD dissertation specifically addressed the Bavarian constitution of 1900, but the German constitution held to the same principles.