White Rose Histories

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit deniseelaineheap.substack.com July 1 - July 10, 1942. Summary (all 2007 update): Someone mails a leaflet to the high-ranking Nazi librarian, Dr. Halm. When questioned about this in 1943, Alex says he knows nothing about it. Robert Mohr is assigned to the White Rose case. Despite his postwar spin that he ‘never wished to belong to the Ge...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit deniseelaineheap.substack.com July 10 - July 12, 1942. Summary: After the Haecker reading on July 10, 1942, Willi Graf sits for a “long time” with Hans Scholl and Alexander Schmorell. He does not say what they discussed, only that it makes an impression on him. Hans Hirzel is still determined to know for certain who is behind the White...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit deniseelaineheap.substack.com July 5 - July 10, 1942. Summary: Although the four friends - Hans, Sophie, Alex, and Christl - need help with production and distribution of the leaflets, the issue of trust keeps their circle small. Traute is excluded because of a rupture in her relationship with Hans Scholl. Raimund Samüller does not trus...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit deniseelaineheap.substack.com July 1 - July 4, 1942. Summary: Hans Scholl and Alexander Schmorell write Leaflet III. As with Leaflet II, Hans pens the “philosophical” part of the leaflet, appealing to fellow citizens’ “moral duty” to put an end to the System. He evokes images from the US Declaration of Independence, especially the right...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit deniseelaineheap.substack.com July 1, 1942. Summary: First week of July 1942, recipients of Leaflets of the White Rose begin turning them over to Gestapo headquarters in Munich. Robert Mohr is assigned to the case. He cannot determine authorship of the leaflets, but he starts a file. Reception to the first two leaflets is mixed. Georg S...

This leaflet was mailed June 29 - July 1, 1942. Had I tried to meticulously plan the schedule for these “podcasts” or segments of the serialized audiobook, I could not have planned better. Happy Independence Day to everyone in the USA! Even if you are outside the USA, the timing should resonate with you. I wonder sometimes if Hans Scholl and Alexander Schmorell would have been great orators had th...

June 27 - June 29, 1942. Summary: The four friends continue to work out of Alex’s third-floor room in his parents’ home. Since his parents already disapprove of Alex’s life choices, he ensures that no one in the house can observe anything they are doing. They mail Leaflet II to persons they believe support their cause, and they try to remember from one leaflet to the next whom they deem “sympathet...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit deniseelaineheap.substack.com June 30, 1942. Summary: As a researcher, I am curious not only as to why these students resisted, but also why they chose the last two weeks of June 1942 as the time to start their work. Lilo points to the “thousand plane” bombings as motivation (I concur). Elisabeth Scholl thinks it was the execution of te...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit deniseelaineheap.substack.com June 29 - June 30, 1942. Summary: Sophie Scholl relapses into depression just as they are working on Leaflet II. She feels that she cannot pray to God as “Du” or informally, as to a friend. Rather, if she prays at all, it must be in formal terms, to God as “Sie.” The students mail Leaflet II with less effic...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit deniseelaineheap.substack.com June 27 - June 28, 1942. Summary: The second leaflet is not paid for out of Alexander Schmorell’s allowance, as he could not ask his father for an advance without giving away their activity. So Hans Scholl asks Dr. Muth for money, while Lilo gives Alex what she can afford to donate. Hans Scholl writes the f...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit deniseelaineheap.substack.com June 18 - June 28, 1942. Summary: Alexander Schmorell mails a copy of Leaflet I to his uncle in Aachen, Franz Monheim. Monheim owned the Trumpf Chocolate Factory in that city. [Yes, I recognize the current-day humor in the name of that chocolate factory.] The Gestapo believes Monheim was Jewish and tries to...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit deniseelaineheap.substack.com June 26, 1942 - June 28, 1942. Summary: Willi Graf struggled with his second abscessed tooth. Despite the pain, he still visited Hans Friedmann in the hospital and joined friends at the Siegfriedstrasse to prepare for Sunday’s Mass. Hans, Sophie, Alex, and Christl get the first leaflet out the door. They ta...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit deniseelaineheap.substack.com June 25, 1942. Summary: Heated discussion at the literary soiree held at Alexander Schmorell’s home. Hans Scholl took center stage, immediately steering the discussion to two topics: * Germany’s conduct in the war. * Sound forms of government. This evening, essentially Kurt Huber and Heinrich Ellermann face...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit deniseelaineheap.substack.com June 21 - June 24, 1942. Summary: Sophie Scholl ponders musings from a discussion earlier in the week, whether Nature requires redemption. Sitting in a beautiful, sunset-filled valley, she decides it most certainly does not . A larger group of friends meet to read Paul Claudel’s Satin Slipper aloud. Sophie,...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit deniseelaineheap.substack.com June 18 - June 21, 1942. Summary: Despite friction in their relationship, Hans Scholl wants Traute Lafrenz’s opinion of Leaflet I . She tells him, “This must have been written by a person of superior intelligence.” Professor Huber does not share Traute’s opinion. He takes the leaflet to Dr. Karl Alexander v...

Mid-June 1942 (before June 25, 1942). Full leaflet text. Nothing is more shameful to a civilized nation than to allow itself to be “governed” by an irresponsible clique of sovereigns who have given themselves over to dark urges – and that without resisting. Isn’t it true that every honest German is ashamed of his government these days? Who among us can imagine the degree of shame that will come up...

June 16 - June 25, 1942. Summary: Alexander Schmorell, Christoph Probst, Hans Scholl, and Sophie Scholl decide that Hans and Alex would each generate a leaflet draft. They would then meld the documents into a single manuscript. The ultimate in collaborative writing! Alex borrows an American-made Remington typewriter from his neighbor, Karl Pötzl, telling him he had started writing poetry. Alex als...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit deniseelaineheap.substack.com Mid-June 1942. Summary: Alexander Schmorell embraces his “Otherness,” especially regarding Russian immigrants in Munich. This part of his life is all but off-limits to his White Rose friends. Otl Aicher hears about a major German victory in Kharkiv. He goes to the battlefield to see if it measures up to his...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit deniseelaineheap.substack.com This is the first “podcast” or serialized audiobook segment that is for paid subscribers only. To our free subscribers: I truly hope you have enjoyed the taste of this moving historical record. We’d love to have you join us on the rest of the journey. If you’re a student, or retired, or otherwise struggling...

June 6 - June 15, 1942. Summary: Sophie Scholl’s “reminder” letter, asking her parents to send her bicycle, does not contain much cheery news. She will not be able to gain an exemption for munitiions work in August. Seems to withdraw from her family. Willi Graf takes the advice he gave his younger sister and accepted his friends in the Siegfried Strasse as they were, with lower expectations. He no...

June 2 - June 6, 1942. Summary: Hans Hirzel’s medical experiments with friends Kurt Glöckler and Max Gutbrodt turned into addiction to hallucinogenic drugs, specifically LSD and jimsonweed. He used these drugs to escape the reality of his parents’ constant fights and a National Socialist world in which he did not belong. Hans Hirzel also abused anesthetics like (homemade) ethyl chloride to combat...

June 1 - June 4, 1942. Summary: As result of growing estrangement from Hans Scholl, Traute Lafrenz begins reading to a blind artist named Hermann Tröltsch. She decides not to introduce him to Hans, although Hermann would have been the sort of person the embryonic White Rose would have wanted. Hermann is dying. Traute noted shortly after the war (1946) that during this time, they associated solely...

In White Rose History, Volume II , this chapter is subtitled For serious readers only . However, I am not labeling it as such in this podcast because of its importance in understanding both the life of Josef Söhngen and Professor Kurt Huber, as well as the difficulty of discerning who was what. This segment is also twice as long as usual, 28 minutes instead of 10-15. Kurt Huber is such a pivotal c...

In White Rose History, Volume II , this chapter is subtitled For serious readers only . However, I am not labeling it as such in this podcast because of its importance in understanding both the life of Josef Söhngen and Professor Kurt Huber, as well as the difficulty of discerning who was what. Were these two men appropriately defined as dissidents? The Gestapo thought so. Our 20-20 hindsight can...

May 30 - May 31, 1942. Alexander Schmorell and Lilo Ramdohr at Bumpererhof, near Chiemsee. May 30/31, 1942 bombing of Cologne. Otl Aicher in Ukraine. Willi Graf response to bombing of Cologne. 2007 update: Last meeting of Fritz Hartnagel and Sophie Scholl in Munich, May 20, 1942. Fritz’s deployment to Mariupol. White Rose History, Volume II , pages 29-32. Notes and references Alexander Schmorell a...