Abandoning the Nazi fold. Walking away from family.

If your primary knowledge of White Rose resistance comes from popular liturgy, you likely believe that our White Rose friends grew up in homes that were unequivocally anti-Nazi. Inge Scholl’s description of Scholl family dynamics insists that was the case in their household. Writers have extrapolated her claims to the rest of the circle.

Although Anneliese Knoop-Graf allowed access to her brother’s letters and diaries that intimated otherwise, now that she is gone, the remaining Graf family members are rewriting their story, reinventing their family. At the October 2023 “Willi Graf” conference in Munich, the family — encouraged by some would-be scholars — peddled the notion that all those documents that spoke about Gerhard Graf’s immense service to the NSDAP, the League of Nations lawsuit, his close friendships with Saarbrücken’s top Nazis, that that was all fiction. That in truth, their dad was NOT a Nazi, but rather a good Christian man.

If we are to understand White Rose resistance, we must quickly and forever disabuse ourselves of this notion. The more I write about White Rose resistance, the more I am reminded all over again just how well-connected most of “our” students were. Or at least their parents.

WILLI GRAF

Willi Graf’s father was an early member of the NSDAP. In the run-up to the January 1935 referendum on the Saarland’s territorial status – join Germany or remain a League of Nations mandate – Gerhard Graf offered his restaurant and services to the NSDAP. Since the Johannishof was the second-largest restaurant in Saarbrücken, it was one of the few that could hold conferences and political meetings.

At the behest of the NSDAP, Gerhard Graf permitted opposition parties — defined as those who opposed the NSDAP — to use the Johannishof for their meetings. And then he proceeded to bug the room and pass along the information to Nazi bigwigs, enabling the NSDAP to stay one step ahead of those in favor of remaining a mandate of the League of Nations.

Don’t take my word for it. Here’s what Peter Schaub wrote on May 11, 1943.

For example, one day he [Gerhard Graf] secured the installation of a secret microphone in the Johannishof, though so doing greatly endangered the very existence of his family. With the aid of this microphone, I was then able to spy on a highly-regarded opponent of the Saar’s return to the German Reich. I then could use that material in the highly politicized trial of the League of Nations against Röchling and other leaders of the German Front. Only through Gerhard Graf’s assistance was I able to obtain this factual material, which in turn allowed the dismissal of the case to be called for by the League of Nations, because had they not, they would have been open to incredible embarrassment.

On May 18, 1943, Willi Graf’s attorney Hans Folz submitted a clemency petition in the form of a telegram dated May 3, 1943 from Willi Schmelcher, who gave his title as “SS and Police Führer Tschernigow [Chernihiv, Ukraine] — SS Brigade Führer.” The attorney Hans Folz would refer to Schmelcher as “Major General.”

In my capacity as police chief in Saarbrücken in the last peaceful years following the return of the Saar to the German Reich, as well as in my capacity as local commandant of the city of Saarbrücken from the time of the evacuation of the populace till the time that they returned, I herewith confirm upon request that those seeking clemency, Mr. & Mrs. Gerhard Graf, Saarbrücken, are well-known for their national and social thoughts and actions.

Peter Schaub was “Retired County Commissioner and Mayor Emeritus of Quierschied/Saar” and as Folz told it, instrumental in the NSDAP’s winning of the January 1935 plebiscite. Willi Schmelcher’s status allowed him frequent face-time with Adolf Hitler. Schmelcher had also recently received a promotion to “Staff of the Ordnungspolizei” in Hitler’s cabinet and would be stationed in Berlin. The Ordnungspolizei was the union of all levels of regular law enforcement.

Two more close friends of Gerhard Graf also submitted clemency petitions on behalf of Willi Graf: Hermann Röchling and Peter Kiefer. Röchling was long-time steel magnate in nearby Völklingen. The Treaty of Versailles had stripped him of his steelworks, with Röchling barely escaping imprisonment. He continued to pay his unemployed workers, which made him much-loved in the Saarland. In fact, when I wrote about Röchling and Gerhard Graf’s connection to him, my friend and conscientious scholar Armin Ziegler was uncomfortable with my harsh words about Röchling. As an economist, Ziegler respected Röchling’s commitment to employees, despite his strong antisemitism and use of forced labor once the Saarland returned to Germany and he regained possession of his factories. So a clemency petition from Hermann Röchling carried immense weight.

Peter Kiefer’s words as well were powerful defense for Willi Graf, speaking to the bonds that Gerhard Graf had forged as a loyal Nazi. Kiefer’s title? “Propaganda Director and Member of the Führer’s Council of the Former German Front, Currently Member of the Greater Germany Reichstag, Saarbrücken.”

Gerhard Graf’s Nazi credentials were impeccable. That he was religious to boot? Frankly, that helped.

FALK HARNACK

Falk Harnack’s mother, Clara nee Reichau had two brothers in very close proximity to power. Werner Reichau was a Kammergerichtsrat or judge. Rudolf Reichau was a department head in the Reich Ministry of Justice in Berlin. We know this only because Clara Emilie Harnack nee Reichau emphasized it in her attempts to obtain the release of her son Falk.

HIRZEL FAMILY

Hans and Susanne Hirzel had ‘good’ connections to prominent National Socialists on both sides of their family. Their maternal grandfather, Dr. Robert Gradmann, had quite a bit of money well into the Nazi regime, a sign of fealty to Adolf Hitler. Although Susanne Hirzel told funny little stories about that grandfather, there are plenty of secrets there. Among other things, the Gradmanns lived in Forchtenberg, where Robert Scholl was mayor from 1920 to 1930, leaving under a cloud.

However, Susanne Hirzel grew extremely defensive when I asked about her uncle, Walter Hirzel. My assumption is that she did not know Robert Gradmann particularly well, but Walter Hirzel, likely better. And she did not like my questions about him.

In her book, it’s clear that the Hirzel family knew better than most families what was going on because of this uncle. He had been a member of the German National Party, which aligned with the NSDAP fairly quickly. As the NSDAP slowly imposed its Gau structure on Germany, Walter Hirzel was appointed to the state government in Württemberg, what would later become the Gau. He apparently remained in that position after the restructuring.

By the time Susanne entered the music academy in Stuttgart, Walter Hirzel was City Treasurer and still a prominent member of the NSDAP. She initially lived with his family and expressed surprise when Uncle Walter said Germany had lost the war once Hitler invaded Russia. Not typical for conversations in his household.

(Susanne accused me of besmirching her uncle’s good name by labeling him a Nazi. I’m sorry, but when someone IS a Nazi and serves as a high-ranking Nazi, it’s not defamation. He wasn’t a railroad conductor or a teacher, jobs that required NSDAP membership. No, he was in the leadership of the Gau and later City Treasurer. In Stuttgart. In 1941.)

TRAUTE LAFRENZ

Traute Lafrenz’s father was an early joiner of the NSDAP. Carl Lafrenz applied during the membership “pause” from 1933-1937. Good Germans could apply, but it would be almost four years before membership numbers were issued. Carl Lafrenz received his on May 1, 1937, member #4230464. He proudly belonged to the Hamburg-Stadtpark precinct of the Party.

ALEXANDER SCHMORELL

Alexander Schmorell’s stepmother was related to three of the Hoffmanns who formed Adolf Hitler’s inner circle. On March 17, 1943, one of those brothers (first name unknown) submitted a clemency petition on behalf of Alex. The petition was signed by all three brothers. Heinrich Himmler personally responded to “Party Member Hoffmann” on April 11, 1943, with a firm denial of the clemency petition.

I find it very decent on your part as an old member of the Party that you should wish to advocate on behalf of your sister and brother-in-law. Nevertheless, I am very sorry that I must advise you that I cannot support a pardon. I would be happy to grant you access to the investigative files so that you can determine for yourself that the reprehensible deeds of Alexander Schmorell (which certainly are largely attributable to his Russian bloodline) have earned a just punishment.

As thousands of valuable German people put their lives on the line for the Fatherland, it would be irresponsible to set aside the death sentence in this case. Occasionally an unworthy individual is found within a family — but then it is necessary to eliminate this one from the community of our nation and our kin.

Note that Alexander Schmorell was still eight days away from his trial when Reichsführer Himmler stated it would be irresponsible to set aside the death sentence.

Elisabeth Schmorell nee Hoffmann was also sister-in-law of Franz Monheim, who ran the Trumpf Chocolate Factory in Aachen. Despite speculation that Franz and Ella Monheim were sympathetic to White Rose resistance, that was not the case. In 1921 Trumpf chocolates expanded to Berlin, with that branch named Trumpf Schokoladenwerk Weiβensee. Photo below is of its retail location in 1937.

Not only did the Berlin branch continue throughout the war, they benefited substantially from forced laborers. All three Trumpf branches, two in Aachen, one in Berlin, are on the list of companies that engaged forced labor during the war. The chocolate factory in Berlin was located in Weiβensee, but their flagship store was a prominent storefront on Ku’damm.

SCHOLL FAMILY

Hans and Sophie Scholl: As the truth about their family life trickles out — and it is a mere trickle at this point, with so much of their archival material still censored or blocked — we learn more and more about how dark, dysfunctional, and chaotic their homelife was. Robert Scholl did not join the NSDAP — he was an anarchist, according to his future son-in-law, Otl Aicher — but he made sure he joined the right Nazi clubs. Hans Hirzel recalled that Robert Scholl thought all governments should be abolished and peace maintained by a one-world court.

We know from Hans Scholl’s initial interrogation that Robert Scholl was a member of the National Socialist Association of Lawyers (I am still trying to research why, because he was not a lawyer). In August 1942, the trial judge wrote in the verdict, speaking of his tenure in Forchtenberg: “[H]e was valued as a useful civil servant with a social attitude. However, even at that time, his eccentric character and unrealistic idealism were noticeable.” In other words, it wasn’t Robert Scholl’s politics that got under the skin of friends and neighbors. It was his weirdness.

But it was Robert (and Inge) Scholl’s coziness with high-ranking National Socialists that belies Inge’s claim that the Scholl family, specifically she and her father, were always anti-Nazi. One day, that list of the top thirty Nazis who used Robert Scholl’s tax CPA services will surface and we will know more about the degree to which they were complicit. After all, those thirty Nazis gained special privileges for Robert and Inge Scholl while they were in jail in 1943. Not prison, but jail, and a short sentence. Because those thirty Nazis needed their tax returns done.

Robert and Inge Scholl attended extravagant social events together. One person we interviewed in Ulm said everyone thought Inge was his wife. Magdalena Scholl rarely if ever accompanied her husband to those events.

His business paid well, too. In September 1939, Sophie wrote Fritz that they had just acquired a custom-built bookcase that had cost them 400 RM ($3200) and that Inge had almost persuaded their father to buy a Blüthner grand piano. Those run $50,000+. Sophie also told Fritz about the fabulous concerts they attended. All of this would have been impossible had Robert Scholl been anti-Nazi, even a little bit.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, it’s the Scholl silences that are most disturbing. What they did when Nazis dragged their Jewish neighbors from apartments above and below them on Kristallnacht. Why there’s no mention of Heinrich Barth, the neighbor who was dragged from his bed from an apartment in their small building and beaten? Or Julius Barth, same, but who was shipped to Dachau where he died? Or Lotte Barth, Heinrich’s daughter, Julius’ niece, who was Sophie’s age and had not been permitted to attend German schools since 1935? Right there in the same building with Sophie, Hans, and the rest of the Scholls. No mention of the Barths, or the Einsteins (yes, those Einsteins), or others who lived in those few apartments and knew each other well. Sort of like living in New York City on September 11, 2001 and never mentioning it in diaries or letters.

And then there’s the move to Münsterplatz 33 in May 1939, to an apartment that had belonged to a Jewish family before Kristallnacht, and Robert Scholl’s sudden and immense good fortune that followed the Aryanization of Jewish businesses. With total blackout of all Scholl correspondence and diary entries for the two months of that move.

What. Will. We. Find. Once. Archives. Are. Opened?!

Especially since Inge herself talked about her father’s friends who ensured the Scholl family suffered as few ill effects as possible. Friends like Friedrich Mussgay. You know, the Gestapo chief in Stuttgart. Yeah, that one. The guy who issued the order that deported all of Stuttgart’s Jews, including Jenny Grimminger’s family, to Riga where they were murdered. The same Mussgay who put the guillotine in the atrium of the building so executions were public. That guy. One of Robert Scholl’s best buddies. Seriously.

And Ferdinand Dietrich, we cannot forget Ferdinand Dietrich! Fritz Hartnagel wrote the Scholls in September 1942, after Robert Scholl received a short jail sentence for calling Hitler a bad name. Fritz didn’t think it was fair that Robert Scholl was being treated like a common criminal. Couldn’t Magdalena Scholl call on their old friend Ferdinand Dietrich to get the sentence shortened?

You know, the Kreisleiter in Forchtenberg, Öhringen County, where Sophie Scholl was born and Robert Scholl mayored.

In March 1933, Dietrich published an editorial in the regional newspaper, the Hohenloher Rundschau. He invited all farmers who had “been deceived by Jews” to submit documentation of the deception to him. Dietrich collected all the so-called evidence and turned it into a leaflet entitled Zur Abwehr. Greueltaten der Öhringer Juden. Oder was die Weltpresse verschweigt! [In Defense. Atrocities of the Jews in Öhringen. Or, What the World Press Conceals!]

That leaflet defamed and denigrated Jews in the worst manner imaginable. Accompanied by grotesque cartoons, the leaflet heralded the type of race-baiting that would become more prevalent in later years. And Ferdinand Dietrich signed his name to that leaflet.

Dietrich maintained his medical practice alongside his official National Socialist duties, sometimes combining the two. He participated in 130 sessions of the Erbgesundheitsgericht, or the “court” in charge of Nazi genetic (eugenics) policy. Dietrich wasn’t a mere bystander at these sessions. He was a committee member.

Even after the war, Dr. Ferdinand Dietrich would not back down from his Nazi racial and ‘useless eater’ ideology. On August 11, 1948, he said that his involvement was linked to the observations he had made in Forchtenberg, namely that mentally deficient persons were ruining his town.

Dietrich was well-known in the region for the physical brutality he meted out against any who opposed him politically or personally. People who disagreed with him? He would publicly beat them into submission.

That Ferdinand Dietrich. Couldn’t he help?

After the war, Robert Scholl wrote Persilscheine (letters of support during denazification) for Ferdinand Dietrich, Robert Mohr, and other hardcore Nazis.

So yeah, this was Scholl homelife. Not the pretty picture Inge painted, and filmmakers and “scholars” have blindly regurgitated.

KATHARINA SCHÜDDEKOPF

Katharina Schüddekopf’s father had been a gung-ho Nazi. Perhaps Käthe’s home life was more turbulent than that of her friends, because her mother hated Nazism, while her father and sister wholeheartedly embraced it. As with Carl Lafrenz, Käthe’s father’s membership in the NSDAP was likewise effective May 1, 1937.

AND YET.

And yet.

The children of these National Socialists, the children of these antisemitic, racist, homophobic, misogynistic, horrible people chose to walk away. They did not follow in their fathers’ footsteps.

They somehow figured out that what their parents believed, what their parents prayed, what their parents lived, was wrong. Not just wrong, but wrong to the depths of hell and back.

All of them, including Willi Graf, dipped their toes in the cesspool of National Socialism. Hans and Sophie Scholl waded in to their knees. Even Alex, who cherished his Russianness, tried to please his family by briefly joining Jung Stahlhelm and the cavalry version of the Sturmabteilung. As late as 1936, he received an SA sports medal. He would tell the Gestapo that his interest abated more and more, and he “requested [his] own discharge after a relatively short time.”

Traute Lafrenz tried to join Bund deutscher Mädel, but had no stomach for it. Käthe used her linguistics skills to translate for the NSDAP’s propaganda department, but the work infuriated her.

These young people and the adults who worked alongside them had a moral compass that would not quit. Their families may have been blind to injustice, but they were not. Their families may have made compromises that killed their souls, but our White Rose students would not compromise. Their families may have not understood them, may have tried in vain to force them back to the “straight and narrow” of the Volksgemeinschaft, the Nazi community.

But these friends found community stronger than anything that Nazis could offer. They found community among friends who were also broken, scared, lonely, afraid. As Lilo told me, We all came from broken homes.

And from that brokenness, from that dysfunction, they found light. They found justice. They found peace.

They wrote justice.

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Image credits: Top image--Trumpf Schokoladenfabrik (chocolate favtory) postcard from 1937. “With Trumpf through all the world.” On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the founding of that business. Public domain. Second image--Trumpf storefront in Berlin, Ku’damm, 1937. These cards were issued on the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Trumpf Schokoladenfabrik in Aachen. Public domain.

Bottom image--The new German airship DPN 28 at the anchor mast, advertising Trumpf chocolate. Public domain.

The above information is fully footnoted in our White Rose histories. Please purchase them for access to that material! To order digital version of White Rose History, Volume I: Coming Together (January 1933-April 30, 1942), click here. To order digital version of White Rose History, Volume II, click here. WRH1 is © 2002, 2003, 2007 by Denise Elaine Heap. WRH2 is © 2002, 2007 by Denise Elaine Heap.

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