Moral dilemmas – the hard topics
The decision to resist Hitler’s regime was based on informed dissent: Knowledge of specific wrongs, specific injustices, that had rendered the National Socialist government criminal, and illegitimate.
It’s one thing to write about “inner emigration” and “inner renewal.” It’s not hard writing about the validity of oaths of loyalty to a despot. It’s even relatively easy to write about Romans 13 and the notion that citizens of a country are theologically required to obey the government, no matter what. Those are subjects we need to discuss, to be sure.
Unless you’re talking to a Bible-thumper who must be right 100% of the time about Romans 13, or unless you’re talking to a wishy-washy chameleon who has no backbone about standing up for justice, it’s fairly stress-free to have a meaningful conversation on these moral dilemmas.
Once you shift to these next two topics? Things can get ugly fast – even if your conversation partner is not overly opinionated or aggressive. Because in 2024, these hit us fast. And hard. Where we live. Where we work. Where we vote.
Up front, I wish to emphasize that this is not a partisan post. I am not advocating for or against particular political parties. Both pushback and support could come from either side of the aisle. My goal here is to initiate dialog, to make you think about current events, to go beyond the tepid reporting of New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN, beyond the highly partisan reporting of Fox News and MSNBC.
For two seconds, please exit your silo, your echo chamber. I am trying to do the same even as I write this. I know how hard that is.
The final two issues that our students of the White Rose debated – and when I say “debated,” I mean based on facts, philosophical writings, and historical events – could not be resolved before their executions. Well, that is not exactly true. For some, these concepts were not up for debate. They were either for or against, and did not let the debates within the larger group affect their decisions.
First, what is “resistance” anyway? And what constitutes “active” versus “passive” resistance? And what is the place of “informed dissent” in this question?
As Dr. William E. Scheuermann points out in his essay, What is Political Resistance?, “resistance” historically meant only active, usually-violent acts meant to overthrow either a regime or forcefully right an injustice. Scheuermann points to the change in the title of Thoreau’s well known “Civil Disobedience.” Originally, it was called “Resistance to Civil Government.”
What I am here discussing as “active” versus “passive” resistance, has also been talked about in terms of “violent” versus “non-violent” protest, or “covert” versus “overt” resistance. The terms are not identical. But close enough.
To minimize confusion, I’ll stick with active resistance, passive resistance. And talk in terms that White Rose students (and adults) used themselves when they debated what they should do, what they morally could do. Although as you will see, they themselves seemed unsure, if not outright divided, over the form their resistance efforts should take.
Their decision to resist Hitler’s regime was based on informed dissent, that is, knowledge of specific wrongs, specific injustices, that had rendered the National Socialist government criminal, and hence illegitimate. Their grievances had nothing to do with restrictions of their personal freedoms. Hans and Sophie Scholl may have moved from being hardcore, convinced Nazis to practicing resistance because of their perception that their personal freedoms had been limited. But by the time they joined with others to form White Rose resistance, they had moved beyond personal injury to broader objectives.
White Rose resistance focused on the following known violations of civil – indeed, of human – rights:
Infringement of basic civil rights: They protested loss of freedom of the press, freedom to worship as one pleased, freedom of thought, freedom of academics to write as they wished. Freedom of the press perhaps disturbed them most of all.
Mass murders of Jews and civilians: Their anger over the known deaths of 300,000 Jews in Poland is palpable in their writing. Alexander Schmorell twice insisted that all Germans knew this was happening and chose to do nothing.
Illegality of Hitler’s government: The unconstitutionality of the National Socialist government – unconstitutional even by the standards of the NSDAP Constitution in effect – infuriated them.
Yes, they were furious that Hitler was losing the war. But their true wrath centered on German apathy in the face of crimes that every German knew about, and chose to ignore.
This was informed dissent. No “summer of discontent” or other such nonsense. They saw it as their sacred duty to take a stand against injustice and criminal acts.
This is first step to legitimate resistance: Informed dissent. Know what is being protested, what the specifics of the criminal acts are. This isn’t dress-up, play-acting, a reality TV show. This is real life, making things right.
The next choice these students faced: Active or passive resistance? It appears that at first, they thought passive resistance would be the proper course of action. Indeed, they largely practiced passive resistance.
To put this in non-Shoah, non-contemporary terms: In the lead-up to the Civil War as some Southerners practiced resistance against the act of enslaving other human beings, there were two trains of thought. [Thanks to Laurel Sneed’s concise analysis on this topic, and to National Endowment for the Humanities for making it available.]
First was that slaves themselves and regular citizens should practice passive resistance: Slaves could feign illness or work more slowly. People could write stirring songs, or books and essays protesting slavery. Brave clergy could preach against slavery. Equally brave journalists could pen op-eds detailing the criminal nature of slavery. People with connections could work behind the scenes to form alliances to free slaves or to prepare for impending, inevitable war.
Second approach: Active resistance. Arson, burning crops and fields. Breaking tools. Leaving the South to join the Union Army. Rebellion and visible protests that shut down a plantation owner’s ability to do business. In the extreme case of John Brown, raiding a Southern armory at Harper’s Ferry and killing men in the process. John Brown believed violence was necessary to right the longstanding wrong of slavery. He despised those who resorted to passive resistance, thinking their efforts ineffective.
White Rose students, along with the adults who joined their cause, essentially practiced passive resistance, while advocating for active resistance. They also seemed to use the terms interchangeably, not seeing the contradictions in what they wrote or discussed.
At the “literary soiree” at Alexander Schmorell’s house on June 25, 1942, the students wrangled with Professor Kurt Huber and the publisher Heinrich Ellermann over this topic. Hans Scholl argued that the Nazi government did not want peace, and that anyone who wanted the war to end would be forced to practice “passive resistance.” He defined this as posters or graffiti that would incite anti-Nazi sentiments. As of this date, Hans Scholl correctly understood their leaflet work as passive resistance and clearly thought that they would be able to force Hitler’s regime – including the military – to make peace, simply by writing and distributing leaflets, and by painting graffiti in public spaces.
Kurt Huber said passive resistance would be all right, depending on what a person intended to protest. But Heinrich Ellermann said that in a time of war, resistance of any kind was not proper. In this conversation, students bested teachers.
In the first leaflet, Hans Scholl called for passive resistance. [This leaflet had been written but not mailed before the soiree at the Schmorells’ home.] Although he did not indicate what that would look like, he stated that the objective would be prevention of the continuation of the “atheistic war machine” before all German cities were destroyed, a clear reference to the air raid in Cologne a few weeks earlier.
At this time, they still seemed to focus on true passive resistance. Lilo Ramdohr remembered Alexander Schmorell coming to her small apartment after the first leaflet had been mailed. He stood in the middle of her living room, eyes fixed on her. Unlike the Schurik she knew, Alex spoke in incomplete sentences, almost garbled. He spoke of passive resistance, first steps, a concrete beginning. She understood him to say something about duplicating machines, leaflets. Lilo knew what her friend was doing and feared for his life.
Therefore by the end of June 1942, friends in the White Rose circle believed that if they simply got the word out, if they could write and distribute leaflets, the change they wanted would come. Passive resistance, nothing more.
Just as the third leaflet was underway – likely only the drafts had been written – Hans Scholl mentioned to Traute Lafrenz that one way to achieve passive resistance could entail convincing factory workers to be less productive.
Something happened between that conversation and the final version of Leaflet III. In the first section, written by Hans Scholl, we read:
Many, perhaps most of the readers of these leaflets are not certain how they can practice resistance. They do not see the possibility of so doing. We will attempt to show you that every person is in a position to contribute something to the overthrow of this system. … There are not a great many choices we have regarding the means to use; one and only one is at our disposal – passive resistance. The purpose and the goal of passive resistance is the overthrow of National Socialism. … National Socialism must be attacked in every place in which it is vulnerable. This Un-State must be brought quickly to an end.
Hans Scholl labeled what he promoted as “passive resistance,” but the overthrow of National Socialism – not just the government, but the entire system – as well as calling for it to be attacked, to be brought quickly to an end? That ventures into the realm of active resistance. Not yet as extreme as John Brown’s attack of the armory at Harper’s Ferry, but unquestionably outside the limits of passive resistance.
If Hans Scholl did not take that step to advocating active resistance, in the same leaflet Alexander Schmorell exhibited no inhibitions about doing so.
And now every resolute opponent of National Socialism must ask himself this question: How can he most effectively contend with the current “State”? How can he deal it the severest blow? Undoubtedly through passive resistance. Clearly, it is impossible for us to give every individual specific guidelines for his personal conduct. We can only allude to general issues. Everyone must find his own way to realize resistance. Sabotage… Seek out all your acquaintances from among the lower classes of the people and seek to convince them of the senselessness of continuing the war, of the hopelessness of ever winning, tell them of the intellectual and economic enslavement by National Socialism, of the destruction of all moral and religious values. Prevail upon them to exercise passive resistance!
What Alexander Schmorell called passive resistance, anyone else would call active. And those in power saw it not only as active resistance, but as treason.
To be continued on Friday, July 5, 2024.
© 2024 Denise Elaine Heap. Please contact us for permission to quote. To order digital version of White Rose History, Volume II, click here. Digital version of White Rose History, Volume I is available here.