Learning from Henry Sledge
Look for the silences. Watch for gaps. Observe questions that are not asked. And start digging there. Ask the questions you’ve heard are “better not asked.” That’s where the truth begins.
At the end of September, I took time off from White Rose to immerse myself in Gettysburg’s World War II Weekend. While most Americans know Gettysburg as site of the Gettysburg Campaign during the Civil War, the town has slowly adopted World War II as a second – but by no means secondary – historical site.
This year, Gettysburg College’s Eisenhower Institute and the National Park Service’s Eisenhower National Historic Site co-sponsored a lecture by Henry Sledge, son of Eugene Sledge. Since my focus has been limited to the European Theater of World War II, both Henry and his father were relatively unknown to me.
As with the Gettysburg Film Festival’s Ken Burns panel in April, I thought I would be able to check my “White Rose brain” and simply enjoy a lecture about a topic new to me. As with that Ken Burns panel discussion, I was dead wrong.
The first thing that jumped out at me was Henry’s discussion of his father’s story as a “tactile” and not a philosophical exercise. His stories of a dad who had been sickly, who had joined the “toughest” military division (Marines) to prove his toughness, who had served in Peleliu and Okinawa in the Pacific Theater, whose memoirs With the Old Breed had been turned into a documentary and HBO series – those stories were not ones learned in a classroom. Eugene’s stories had seeped into his son’s life as the family sat around the dinner table, or on vacations, or sitting in the living room talking, or as Henry eavesdropped on his dad’s phone calls with buddies from those days.
Tactile, not philosophical.
I had been struggling to define the differences between my White Rose research and more recent versions. This applies. “Alex and the Limburger cheese” was not something learned from a dusty document. No, I heard it over white asparagus, potatoes, and wine, gales of laughter shared with Erich and Hertha Schmorell.
Henry’s observation enabled me to better identify my role in White Rose historiography. There is untold value in the “tactile” version, especially when it is combined with hard digging in archives.
Henry Sledge mentioned what it had meant to him to travel to Peleliu and Okinawa, to see for himself the places where his father had served. “The importance of place,” Henry said. Since this work began in July 1994, place has been central. I have known the places our White Rose students inhabited since I first set foot in Germany in June 1973. Knowing their places made them more real to me, even as I knew almost nothing about the people.
Walking “place” into one’s soles is critical. Yes, it must be combined with hard work in dusty archives, with interviews, with asking a million questions. But place brings history to life as little else can. I’ve written about this before. It felt good to have it validated by someone outside of White Rose space.
Henry noted that as he visited places, it also warmed his heart to see for himself the “Sledge Runway” in Peleliu. To know that his father’s life had made a difference – to him as family member, that emotion ran deep.
If you have followed our work for very long, you know this is a sore point for me. There are hundreds of schools and streets and buildings named for Hans and Sophie Scholl. There are a handful named for Alexander Schmorell, Willi Graf, Kurt Huber, and Christoph Probst. There are as good as none named for Katharina Schüddekopf, Traute Lafrenz, Raimund Samüller, Hubert Furtwängler, Hans Hirzel, Susanne Hirzel (and yes, the latter two, despite their politics after 1994), Wilhelm Geyer!, Manfred Eickemeyer, Tilly Hahn, Eugen Grimminger!, and the rest.
Towards the end of her life, Elisabeth Hartnagel nee Scholl spoke out against this practice. “They were equals among equals,” she insisted about her siblings. “I was there and saw the group in action. Inge was not.”
She waited too long to protest, however. Scholl-mania had already taken root.
If Henry Sledge was that touched by the naming of a runway after his father, what do you think would be the case if there were a Lilo-Ramdohr-Strasse near Schloβ Nymphenburg, or if there were Stolpersteine laid for ALL of those who risked their lives, not just the ones whose big sister reinvented herself through their legend?
One of Henry’s statements reminded me how touchy it still can be to write and speak about World War II. An audience member asked Henry Sledge about the death of Eugene Sledge’s captain. Since this is not my area of expertise, I will admit, I am in the dark about this controversy.
Henry’s response is one I’ve heard frequently regarding White Rose scholarship. “There were some questions that were better not asked.”
Ever since I heard Ernestine Schlant speak about her book, Language of Silence, I think about the Shoah differently. Schlant’s premise: When you read anything written about the Holocaust; when you read something about someone who lived during the Holocaust; when you read Holocaust-centric works written after the war – you should always look for the silences. Look for what is not said. Dig in those gaps, because that is where the truth can start to be uncovered.
It's the reason I yell, scream, and holler about the earsplitting silences surrounding Kristallnacht in White Rose archives, published editions of letters, and memoirs. Susanne Hirzel is the only person who dared broach that awful night. The published letters of everyone else conveniently skip from the end of October 1938 to sometime in December. This applies to the Inge Jens edition of the Scholl letters and diary entries; to the Thomas Hartnagel edition of the Fritz-Sophie letters; to the Knoop-Graf/Jens edition of Willi Graf’s letters and diary entries; to Vielhaber’s edition of Willi Graf’s letters and diary entries; and to Christiane Moll’s edition of Alexander Schmorell and Christoph Probst’s letters.
It also applies to closed archives. Scholl. Huber. Müller. Wittenstein. Hirzel.
These silences let us know that there’s something there. People don’t censor, block, or edit out when the information is positive. The silences point to missing truth that has the potential to blow up the White Rose story completely. Hence the full title of our histories: White Rose History, Volume I. Coming Together. January 31, 1933 - April 30, 1942. The Unfinished Story; and, White Rose History, Volume II. Journey to Freedom. May 1, 1942 - October 12, 1943. The Unfinished Story. The Unfinished Story. The Unfinished Story.
The final Henry-Sledge-comment that jumped out at me and held me fast: His attitude towards the HBO series based on his father’s memoirs.
First, Henry knew that the memoirs contained a carefully-edited selection of his father’s letters and diary entries. The underlying book was not the full story. It was skewed to the story his father wanted to tell. [Henry Sledge is trying to remedy that with publication of all his father’s letters and diary entries, even the embarrassing ones.]
Second, Henry initially hated the HBO series, because they took so many liberties with his father’s memoirs in the name of dramatic license. Many changes made no sense to him, because often portraying a scene truthfully would have been even more dramatic and gripping. He couldn’t understand why they’d be so lazy.
He said he finally came around (to the point that he even recommends the series), because “it gets the story out.”
At that point, I put my head in my hands. You have no idea how often I have heard that. About the Verhoeven movie. About the Breinersdorfer movie. About “popular” written treatments of the White Rose story. “Denise, just be happy. They are getting the story out.”
Even with Henry, I could see the flashing danger signs. He would have to catch himself once or twice as he related scenes from the HBO series as fact. He’d have to correct himself, “oh no, that’s the film, not real life.” It made me wonder how often he had done that in his speech without catching himself.
This quandary also reminded me of a venerated Holocaust Studies professor I corresponded with in the early 2010s. His university was screening the awful Breinersdorfer movie. Detailed deconstruction can be found here. I asked if they would please invite me as a co-presenter so I could explain the difference between the movie and the real White Rose story.
His response shook me to my core. “Well, Denise, once a movie has been made, that becomes the ‘real’ story.”
Now I question the advice to “be happy, they are getting the story out.” How do we handle these horrid treatments, treatments that fictionalize critical ingredients of history, treatments that write people out to satisfy the whims of someone like Inge Scholl, treatments that falsely portray Christoph Probst as weak and the Scholls as strong (eyewitness testimony tells of Hans nearly fainting, not Christl)?
I have not found a satisfying solution. I just know that hearing Henry Sledge quote scenes from an HBO series about his own father’s life, instead of what he knew to be true, certainly made me determined to fight untruths. And yes, I am seeing sloppy scholars cite Breinersdorfer’s movie as “fact” instead of doing a bit of hard digging on their own. It’s scary.
Two thought-provoking takeaways I’m working through, trying to keep front and center.
Henry Sledge said his overarching memory of his father’s recollections of those awful days in the Pacific Theater could be summed up in a single sentence. “Despite how much I hated my enemies, I became disgusted with killing at that point.” Because Eugene Sledge had been offered the opportunity to take part in an easy operation, picking off Japanese soldiers who were trapped. He turned down the plum assignment. Too much was too much.
Finally, Daniel Vermilya – the National Park Service ranger who moderated the lecture and Q&A – reminded us that there are two prongs to the annual World War II Weekend in Gettysburg. Commemorate. And remember.
We tend to be good at commemorating. We’ve just come off Veterans Day. In August, we celebrate V-J Day; in May, V-E Day and Memorial Day; and of course, in July, Independence Day. In Gettysburg, this weekend through November 19 we celebrate Remembrance Day, the date of President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. On the White Rose front, there’s so much commemoration in February, it’s as if there are no more important dates to commemorate. Although October 12 and July 13 slowly are working their way up from the basement where they’ve been relegated for eighty years.
It's the remembering part that gets us, that we need to work on. Universities and schools must hold “scholars” accountable for the accuracy of material presented. That starts with dissertation committees and thesis advisors, textbook selection committees, those who invite speakers, and includes students working on honors papers for their undergraduate degrees.
Look for the silences. Watch for gaps. Observe questions that are not asked. And start digging there.
Ask the questions you’ve heard are “better not asked.” That’s where the truth begins.
© 2024 Denise Elaine Heap. Please contact us for permission to quote.
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Your, and Henry’s, thesis applies widely. Dearth of curiosity is really perplexing. Thank you, as always, for your invitation to reflect more deeply. Loved your article.