White Rose Histories

May 1 - May 10, 1942.

“Point of order” about handling of 2007 updates in this audio book.

Sophie Scholl and Fritz Hartnagel.

White Rose History, Volume II, pages 11-13.

Notes and references:

* Thomas Hartnagel, ed. Sophie Scholl, Fritz Hartnagel: Damit wir uns nicht verlieren: Briefwechsel 1937 – 1943 (Frankfurt a.M.: S. Fischer Verlag, 2005).

* Compare with our April 1995 interview with Fritz and Elisabeth Hartnagel.

Podcast © 2024 Denise Elaine Heap. White Rose History, Volume II, Chapter 01 (2007 update) © 2007 Denise Elaine Heap and Exclamation! Publishers. 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.

This podcast is a project of WHY THIS MATTERS, a newsletter of Center for White Rose Studies, that explores the reasons that voices silenced more than eighty years ago still speak to us today.

Why This Matters is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

May 9 - May 12, 1942.

Sophie Scholl’s 21st birthday.

Willi Graf and friends at the Siegfriedstrasse, especially Fritz Leist, Emil Martin, and Hermann Krings.

Willi Graf: Fencing!

White Rose History, Volume II, pages 10-11.

Notes and references for Sophie Scholl’s 21st birthday:

* Traute Lafrenz, Bericht. Letter to Inge Scholl, dated February 21, 1946.

* Inge Scholl, Students Against Tyranny: The Resistance of the White Rose, Munich, 1942-43, translated by Arthur R. Schultz (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1970).

Notes and references for Willi Graf and Siegfriedstrasse:

* Anneliese Knoop-Graf and Inge Jens (Eds.), Willi Graf: Briefe und Aufzeichnungen (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuchverlag GmbH, 1994).

* 8/12/95 letter from Dr. Hermann Krings to author.

* Klaus Vielhaber, ed., Gewalt und Gewissen: Willi Graf und die “Weisse Rose” (Würzburg, Germany: Echter-Verlag, 1963).

Notes and references for Willi Graf and fencing:

* Anneliese Knoop-Graf and Inge Jens (Eds.), Willi Graf: Briefe und Aufzeichnungen (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuchverlag GmbH, 1994).

Podcast © 2024 Denise Elaine Heap. White Rose History, Volume II, Chapter 01 © 2002 Denise Elaine Heap and Exclamation! Publishers. 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.

This podcast is a project of WHY THIS MATTERS, a newsletter of Center for White Rose Studies, that explores the reasons that voices silenced more than eighty years ago still speak to us today.

Why This Matters is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

May 4 - May 8, 1942.

Sophie Scholl’s choice of majors (Philosophy and Natural Sciences), with a look at the Natural Sciences department in Munich at that time. It was known for its tolerance if not encouragement of anti-Nazi thought.

Susanne Hirzel and her brother Hans Hirzel. Family life, with parents always fighting. Susanne’s recognition for her musical abilities. Hans Hirzel moving away from hands-on science to theoretical, abstract ideas.

Peter Hirzel on the Russian front.

Gisela Schertling studying in Freiburg.

Hans Scholl: Birthday greetings to his mother and discussion of “poverty” and meaning of life. Renewed friendship with Xaver Kuhn.

Willi Graf reconnecting with Hubert Furtwängler, joining Bach Chorale, Hans Carossa reading.

Second Student Company confined to barracks.

White Rose History, Volume II, pages 6-10.

Notes and references for Natural Sciences account, and Sophie’s major:

* Freddy Litten, “Die Carathéodory-Nachfolge in München 1938-1944,” in Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology, Vol. 37, Issue 2, 1994.

* ZC13267, Volume 3. 2/18/43 interrogation of Sophie Scholl.

* ZC13267, Volume 1. 2/21/43 indictment of Hans and Sophie Scholl, and Christoph Probst.

Notes and references for Susanne and Hans Hirzel:

* ZC14116 Volume 2. 3/1/43 interrogation of Susanne Hirzel; 3/10/43 interrogation of Susanne Hirzel; March 1943 report about Susanne Hirzel, written by her mother Margarete Hirzel nee Gradmann; 3/8/43 C.V. of Susanne Hirzel. (Publication in 2024/25.)

* ZC14116 Volume 1. 3/11-3/12/43 report written by Ernst Hirzel on behalf of Hans and Susanne Hirzel; 3/2/43 letter from Margarete Hirzel regarding her son Hans Hirzel; 3/8/43 report filed by Emilie Glöckler about her son Kurt, and her subsequent interrogation. (Publication in 2024/25.)

Notes and references for Peter Hirzel:

* Susanne Hirzel, Vom Ja Zum Nein: Eine schwäbische Jugend 1933-1945 (Tübingen: Klöpfer, Meyer & Co. Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, 1998).

Notes and references for Gisela Schertling:

* ZC13267, Volume 15. Gisela Schertling’s autobiography written for the Gestapo, March 1943; 2/18/43 interrogation of Gisela Schertling.

Notes and references for Hans Scholl:

* Inge Jens, ed., At the Heart of the White Rose: Letters and Diaries of Hans and Sophie Scholl, translated by J. Maxwell Brownjohn (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., 1987).

* March 2, 1973 letter from Xaver Kuhn to Inge Scholl. Unpublished.

Notes and references for Willi Graf:

* Anneliese Knoop-Graf and Inge Jens (Eds.), Willi Graf: Briefe und Aufzeichnungen (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuchverlag GmbH, 1994).

* Klaus Vielhaber, ed., Gewalt und Gewissen: Willi Graf und die “Weisse Rose”(Würzburg, Germany: Echter-Verlag, 1963).

Podcast © 2024 Denise Elaine Heap. White Rose History, Volume II, Chapter 01 © 2002 Denise Elaine Heap and Exclamation! Publishers. 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.

This podcast is a project of WHY THIS MATTERS, a newsletter of Center for White Rose Studies, that explores the reasons that voices silenced more than eighty years ago still speak to us today.

Why This Matters is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Today, we see the students as they finally, but finally, all come together in Munich.

Willi Graf’s expectations are high. He believes his old “Gray Order” friends will hear his testimony about the war crimes their fellow German soldiers were committing and would join him to DO SOMETHING about it. His disappointment is palpable.

Sophie Scholl also arrived in Munich, joining her brother and his friends. She is staying with Dr. Carl Muth.

As Fritz Hartnagel heads to the Russian front, Sophie asks him to submit a military requisition for a duplicating machine they can use to print leaflets. Fritz declines.

White Rose History, Volume II, pages 3-5.

Notes and references for Willi Graf account:

Marita Herfeldt proved an exception to the rule. Where other friends did not wish to hear about the atrocities Willi Graf had witnessed, Marita listened and tried to help. She was interested in Russian literature and art.

* Anneliese Knoop-Graf and Inge Jens (Eds.), Willi Graf: Briefe und Aufzeichnungen (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuchverlag GmbH, 1994).

* Klaus Vielhaber, ed. Gewalt und Gewissen: Willi Graf und die “Weisse Rose”(Würzburg, Germany: Echter-Verlag, 1963).

Notes and references for Sophie Scholl account:

Fritz and Elisabeth Hartnagel were insistent about the narrative regarding Sophie’s arrival in Munich. They stated they had tried to persuade Inge to change her story, since she was not there. She refused. My interview was the first time they forcefully contradicated Elisabeth’s sister, but it would not be the last. See especially Wiegrefe. They had even given her concrete evidence to support Fritz’s assertion.

In the 2007 update for this chapter (subsequent podcast), there is a minor correction to Fritz Hartnagel’s version of events. But minor. Substance stands.

Michael Verhoeven’s movie did a great deal to cement the Inge Scholl legend regarding Sophie’s arrival in Munich.

* Inge Aicher-Scholl, Verbindung zu Theodor Haecker (unpublished, no date).

* Fritz and Elisabeth Hartnagel, 4/30/95 interview at their residence.

* Rudi Kübler, “Zeitgeschichte: Vor 60 Jahren wurden Hans und Sophie Scholl von den Nazis hingerichtet,” in Südwestpresse, February 21, 2003.

* Traute Lafrenz, Bericht. Letter to Inge Scholl, dated February 21, 1946.

* Christiane Moll, “Acts of Resistance: The White Rose in the Light of New Archival Evidence,” translation by Betsy Mayer and Michael Geyer, in Resistance Against the Third Reich: 1933-1945, ed. Michael Geyer and John Boyer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).

* Inge Scholl, Students Against Tyranny: The Resistance of the White Rose, Munich, 1942-43, translated by Arthur R. Schultz (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1970).

* Klaus Wiegrefe, “Zeitgeschichte: ‘Immer einen Schritt weiter’,” in Spiegel, 07/2003.

* ZC13267, Volume 2. 2/20/1943 interrogation of Hans Scholl.

* ZC13267, Volume 3. 2/20/43 interrogation of Sophie Scholl.

* ZC13267 Vol. 4. 2/20/43 interrogation of Christoph Probst. (Publication coming 2024.)

* ZC13267 Vol. 6. 2/26/43 interrogation of Traute Lafrenz; 4/1/43 interrogation of Carl Lafrenz. (Publication coming 2024.)

Podcast © 2024 Denise Elaine Heap. White Rose History, Volume II, Chapter 01 © 2002 Denise Elaine Heap and Exclamation! Publishers. 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.

This podcast is a project of WHY THIS MATTERS, a newsletter of Center for White Rose Studies, that explores the reasons that voices silenced more than eighty years ago still speak to us today.

Why This Matters is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

We should not think that just because their “cause” was greater that they were more perfect. On the contrary. They were no worse than my “strange” bunch of friends, but they were certainly not better. They were human through and through.

This is the story that needs to be burned into our consciousness, the story of fragile, frail creatures taking on the insurmountable hierarchy of a criminal regime because they could no longer keep silent. We must honor them – feet of clay and all – for daring to do what precious few in their era would: They said No to injustice when and where they saw it.

That is something we are all capable of accomplishing. If only we choose to do so.

Introductory chapter to White Rose History, Volume II.

Podcast © 2024 Denise Elaine Heap. White Rose History, Volume II, Chapter 00 (“Dear Readers”) © 2002 Denise Elaine Heap and Exclamation! Publishers. 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.

This podcast is a project of WHY THIS MATTERS, a newsletter of Center for White Rose Studies, that explores the reasons that voices silenced more than eighty years ago still speak to us today.

Why This Matters is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Thirty years ago, when I was first introduced to White Rose friends and their utter courage during a dark era, I knew I wanted to tell their story. I had ample experience writing stuffy scholarly theses and essays. You know the ones. Liberal use of passive voice, plenty of quotes from professors on the dissertation committee, dense. Not fun to read. Voice completely lost. And if that thesis or dissertation happens to be written in German, you can go three pages without starting a new paragraph.

Even in July 1994 as I saw White Rose resistance with starry eyes, buying into Inge Scholl legend, thinking “what a sweet story this is!,” I knew I wanted to tell their story. I wanted readers to hear their voices, to experience Erich Schmorell laughing as he recounted Alex’s rescue of Limburger cheese, to catch the smile in Lilo’s voice as she envisioned Hans, Christl, Willi, and of course Alex sitting like grownups on her sofa, chomping on pipes that had no tobacco. Readers should empathize with Susanne Hirzel’s annoyance at her father’s blind patriotism, wrestle with Willi Graf as he struggled with nightmares earned on the Russian Front. I wanted everyone to laugh along with me as Traute led her Gestapo interrogator down her carefully planned primrose path, knowing that a young, sweet woman was able to outsmart a man who would later be found guilty of violating basic human rights at his trial in Nürnberg.

And that is how it was written, those first several drafts. No footnotes, just like Marshall Dill’s history of Germany that I’ve read and re-read many times since it was first assigned as a world history textbook. That was the feel I was going for.

But… I had to add footnotes. The true story is so – extraordinary? So gut-wrenching? That without footnotes, doubters questioned the story’s veracity.

Footnotes or no, I still wanted to tell their story. If I could have done so, I would have personally visited every single person who’s interested in White Rose resistance and sat at their kitchen table, telling this amazing story to them over coffee (and cake, of course). I would have personally traveled to every Holocaust remembrance day at every university and narrated this heartrending history to students and professors alike.

Sadly, those options are not viable.

When Substack added podcasts to its repertoire, I saw the opportunity to do what I’ve wanted to do for thirty years: Tell you this story. Yes, I’m reading the written words. But as you will see, those written words represent the narrative that till now has been captured solely on paper or in a digital space.

Now I can speak them aloud. And as I do so, I’m visualizing your kitchen table, your back porch, your view of the Manhattan skyline, your glimpse of a garden or parking lot or brick wall or mountains or busy street, whatever your window opens to – and we are sitting and talking, like friends would do, about other friends eighty years ago who gave that ultimate sacrifice – for liberty, for justice, for freedom, to do what was right and good and just. If only it were a conversation and not a monologue…!

Fair warning. This is my first-ever podcast or audio book. I initially tried to do this with my computer’s microphone and quickly scrapped that idea. I bought a podcast microphone and set it up in my office, which overlooks a cornfield. This first microphone isn’t all that great. As things progress, I hope the sound quality improves. You get to grow and learn with me.

I’m not working out of a soundproof studio. I do shut doors that allow street noises in, so huge tractors rumbling by should not interrupt the recording. But I’m leaving my back windows open. You may occasionally hear my neighbor’s rooster crowing – he talks 24 hours a day – or perhaps even birds.

And yes, I am going to mess up non-German, non-English names. I can tell you right now that when I’m reading about Constantin Carathéodory, I will not pronounce his name correctly, no matter how hard I try. And I’ve tried. And please do not laugh when I try to say French or Russian names.

I’m reading White Rose History, Volume II without skipping anything. Not letting you off the hook! But I may tweak text when reading, as spoken word has a different rhythm than written.

Also, I’m using the text field for Substack podcasts for notes and bibliography. Since the text is spoken, my process for doing this may evolve. But I want you to be able to check things out for yourself. That’s part of the historical process, asking questions, not accepting facts at face value.

If you purchased White Rose History, Volume II before April 30, you’ve automatically been added as paid subscriber to this podcast or audio book. If you become a paid subscriber to this podcast, please contact me if you’d like a 50% discount coupon for the digital version of the History.

Finally: You will also have to bear with me when I reach parts of the story that still get to me, that still make me cry. You’d think after thirty years, I’d be immune to the emotions their lives and deaths evoke. But no. I don’t pause the recording when tears come. Perhaps you will understand why.

Please use the comments section for suggestions, questions, observations. That is your way of responding, as we drink coffee on your back porch or kitchen table.

Goal is to post a 10-15 minute recording per day. Wish me luck!

Oh, and in case you’re interested, I like chocolate cake with my coffee.

© 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.

Why This Matters is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.