Black History Month and the White Rose

In 2007 and with thirteen years of White Rose research behind me, I thought nothing could surprise me. Those pesky gaps – Kristallnacht, the Scholls’ move to the great apartment on Münsterplatz, antisemitism implied in multiple letters – I considered myself immune to surprises. What could be worse than silence surrounding Kristallnacht and ellipses as soon as the topic turned to Jewish neighbors in Hans and Sophie’s letters and diary entries?

Those pesky gaping gaps.

When Armin Ziegler gave me a copy of Thomas Hartnagel’s book entitled Sophie Scholl/Fritz Hartnagel: Damit wir uns nicht verlieren, I learned I was not in fact immune to surprises. That some of those gaps contain prejudices and character traits that exceeded my imagination.

The first of those: Sophie’s “Leonberg” letter written August 15, 1938. It shatters the mythology that Fritz and Sophie were engaged to be married. Although Sophie would reconcile to a certain extent with the man who loved her deeply, her feeling that she was unworthy of love would never allow her to accept the affection that Fritz offered her. After a while, he was not permitted to touch her without anger at his advances.

Next on the wha-at list: Fritz’s affair with a Yugoslavian woman named Luise in Amsterdam (August 1940). After all, Sophie had told him to find another woman. So he did. Where Sophie denied Fritz the smallest sign of affection, Luise welcomed Fritz to her bed. Despite feeling guilty about “cheating” on Sophie, Fritz seemed to have genuinely cared for Luise. And although Sophie did not want Fritz, she did not want another woman to have him either. Letters over the following months are tense, at best.

With this turmoil between him and Sophie unresolved, Fritz returned often to Amsterdam. The published letters from August 1940 to February 1941 do not mention additional hook-ups with Luise.

Fritz Hartnagel’s February 28, 1941 letter, and Sophie’s response to it, provided another cold-water-on-face moment. Fritz wrote Sophie, “The civilian population was demonstrating against the arrests of Jews that had been undertaken in recent days. Street cars and a majority of the shops were on strike. The SS attacked those assembled by force of arms. They said there were twenty dead. The populace is naturally quite embittered.”

Fritz had not seen the origins of the violence. From February 9 to 11, dockworkers in Amsterdam had gone on strike, protesting the increasingly harsh measures taken against the city’s Jewish population. Germans responded with raids on the Jewish quarter, which only exacerbated matters and provoked Dutch citizens to up the ante.

By the time Fritz witnessed the conflagration, the SS had begun cracking down on any resistance efforts, any protests against National Socialist policy. Sixty Dutch dockworkers were sent to German concentration camps, and four hundred Dutch-Jewish civilians shipped to Mauthausen, where they were murdered.

March 7, 1941, Sophie commented briefly and disturbingly on the civil disobedience and its aftermath that Fritz had witnessed in Amsterdam. “By the way, I can only say that it is good that one proceeds radically everywhere (as in Amsterdam). It is less disconcerting as it would be if one saw something good here and bad there and did not know what was genuine.”

To Thomas Hartnagel’s credit, he footnoted Sophie’s disconcerting utterance. “Sophie Scholl’s espousal of radical proceedings against the Jews has a shocking effect. Obviously, she wished for the Nazi regime to be exposed openly, visibly, and clearly as inhuman. Nevertheless, her remark leaves a bitter aftertaste, if to a certain extent the suffering individual is sacrificed for an overriding cause.”

[Yes, Thomas Hartnagel, to say it has a shocking effect is an understatement. Perhaps if you and your family would publish the 85-90 letters you’re still holding back from Fritz-Sophie correspondence, we could better understand why she would write such seemingly flippant words.]

Around the same time – “beginning of March 1941” – Fritz narrated a debate for Sophie that started me down a proverbial rabbit hole, a rabbit hole that has more questions than answers. And it is a debate to which Fritz would return, and about which Sophie rarely commented. In March 1941, the debate centered on Black soldiers. In 1942, Fritz would write about Jewish citizens in Eastern Europe, non-combatants.

The larger context of the ongoing debate

Orders that German soldiers received that would require them to directly contravene the Geneva Convention regarding treatment of prisoners of war.

By March 1941, Germany had conquered and occupied France for almost nine months. Fritz Hartnagel was still stationed in Wissant, on the French coast near Calais. He and his men – signal corps unit – had been transferred from Champagne, France to Wissant towards the end of June 1940, shortly after war’s end. They had commandeered a French chateau nine miles from the coast. Fritz’s quarters overlooked a beautiful park.

For almost nine months, the doctor assigned to Fritz’s unit had been a pleasant fellow with whom Fritz had spent many evenings nattering over French wine. From his letters to Sophie, it was difficult to realize that Fritz’s French sojourn was anything but a nice vacation.

Right before Fritz’s March letter to Sophie, the old doctor had left. His replacement was arrogant and pretentious. Fritz could not stand him. But the new doctor loved to talk.

The day before that letter, Fritz and the new doctor had become embroiled in a nasty argument. The men from Fritz’s company had gossiped about rumors about the SS’s treatment of “Negro POWs.” Fritz’s men said they’d heard that the SS refused to accept them as POWs, instead shooting them on sight. The doctor said the actions of the SS were completely “justifiable,” although everyone present knew the gossip involved contravention of the Geneva Convention.

Fritz decided not to hold his tongue. He contradicted the doctor. “No, it is murder.”

Instead of backing down, the doctor added that any “Negroes” who were German prisoners should be shot. Tensions escalated to such a point that Fritz left the room to avoid fisticuffs.

Sophie either did not respond to this narrative, or her response has been censored.

Enter my rabbit hole.

I will not attempt to recreate the excellent scholarship of Dr. Raffael Scheck, Colby College. If you are interested in a deep dive, check out his book, Hitler’s African Victims: The German Army Massacres of Black French Soldiers in 1940 (Cambridge University Press, 2008).

The short-short version: France enlisted vast numbers of Senegalese and other African troops to fight in the Battle of France in 1940. The numbers cited in news reports from those days make me question the “gaping gaps” in military history and proper Holocaust studies. One account stated that two million Senegalese soldiers fought German troops. Thanks to Dr. Scheck, we know there were at least 120,000 Black POWs captured by Germany.

This was not the first time that France had called upon its colonies to support its war efforts. In 1898, France used its Senegalese subjects to fight in Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). In World War I, Senegalese troops supported France on the battlefield, earning the ire of German troops for their fierce combat style. One source noted that the Senegalese troops – or Tirailleurs Sénégalais – were the “Marines” of the French army.

In 1923, rebels in Dakar murdered sixty Senegalese soldiers. I found this news article in The Indianapolis News, dated October 9, 1923. It’s barely a footnote in chronicles of the Rif war (Spain and France versus the Berbers in Morocco). As they had done in World War I, the Tirailleurs Sénégalais aided their colonial overlords.

Less than eleven years later, Senegalese soldiers would help the Jewish community in Constantine, Algeria, as antisemitic gangs murdered over sixty Jews and injured 400 in less than two weeks. The remaining Jewish population survived, because France employed its tough Senegalese fighters to encircle the Jewish enclave and protect them. On August 8, 1934, The Roanoke Times would note that this was not political unrest, merely antisemitic hate. Three days later, the Daily News (New York) reported that once again, Senegalese soldiers stepped in to rescue Jewish Algerians, and that in the latest attack the rioting Arabs were slashing the throats of Jewish children.

The Senegalese “Marines” restored peace.

Their greatest challenge: In October 1939, fearing that Hitler would invade France next, and soon, France called up its Senegalese army to defend its legendary Maginot Line. An American eyewitness to this call-up recounted the arrival of the Tirailleurs Sénégalais. French citizens rarely if ever saw them, as their movements were routed around towns and cities, often during the night. As if France were ashamed of the very men they were relying on to keep their border secure.

This American Black reporter proudly stated that the Senegalese fighters were “savage,” in the best possible way. He was quick to emphasize that that was by no means an insult.

When the Blitzkrieg finally moved through Belgium and Luxembourg into France, behind the Maginot Line, Senegalese fighters stood their ground.

If you are like me, and you are reading this for the first time – what, Senegalese soldiers fighting the Battle of France, where are photos of them in American journalism? – you will understand my perplexity. It’s as if historians have written these Black soldiers out of the story completely, leaving instead noble Frenchmen, noble white Frenchmen, facing off against Nazi hordes.

It actually gets worse.

By some accounts, those white French soldiers deserted the front lines and scurried back to the safety of Paris and other large cities, where they would be temporarily safer. If those accounts are true, that would mean that as Rommel – and Hans Scholl, and Fritz Hartnagel – fought the Battle of France, their primary challengers would have been Black soldiers from Senegal.

What is known, and well-documented: On June 20, 1940, less than a week before the armistice would be signed, German tank troops occupied Lyon. The French 25th regiment had held the small town of Chasselay, near Lyon. When they ran out of ammunition, they surrendered to the German army. Black Senegalese soldiers and their white French officers together laid down arms.

The Germans divided the newly-captured POWs into two groups: Senegalese (including the white colonial officers) and non-colonial. Colonial POWs were herded to a desolate field. White officers were directed to lie flat on the ground. Germans commanded the Black soldiers to stand in front of two tanks, then ordered to run. As they ran, they were slaughtered by machine gun fire. One German murdered a white officer, but the remaining white officers were spared. On that day, approximately fifty Black soldiers were murdered in cold blood.

I will repeat this again: In direct contravention of the Geneva Convention regarding the treatment of prisoners of war.

Fritz Hartnagel’s brief comment about the Nazi doctor’s advocacy for killing all Black POWs raises too many questions. How were our Black American soldiers treated? How many “killed in action” deaths of Black US soldiers were actually murders of POWs? Murders that may or may not have been prosecuted in Nürnberg after the war. Nazis did not care if Black soldiers came from Senegal or Seattle. To Aryans, all Black persons were subhumans. Period.

When I shout from the rooftops about “gaping gaps,” it’s because these gaps affect the full story. What did Hans Scholl, Werner Scholl, Willi Graf, Alexander Schmorell, Hubert Furtwängler, Adalbert Grundel, and Fritz Hartnagel see or know as they served in France? Did they document these awful encounters? As much as I admire Willi Graf as one of the first White Rose students who resisted because of general injustice, not merely because his personal freedoms were infringed, I want to know what has been held back from his frontline letters and diary entries. That extraordinary collection of his letters and diary entries starts in June 1942. Where’s 1940? Even in books about Willi Graf that include 1940, where are his descriptions of the battlefield?

Fritz’s letters to Sophie also reveal an almost flippant attitude towards the Holodomor (death by starvation in Ukraine), the ongoing starvation in Ukraine caused by German troops, the extermination of entire Jewish populations in the Crimea, and his “surprise” at hearing of the extermination of those Jewish populations. Why was it a surprise in June 1942? Fritz had been privy to that information long before and knew of Military High Command orders regarding Jews. After all, by then, he was a Captain.

So gaping gaps – until archives are open, we don’t know what we don’t know. If Thomas Hartnagel’s little 496-page book slaughtered a few sacred cows, what will we find when there’s truly sunshine?

But back to these Senegalese soldiers. Their story does not even come close to ending in June 1940.

An eyewitness named Walter Merguson related the real story of Senegalese valor in 1942. He is the source for the information that in June 1940, white French soldiers fled, leaving their Senegalese allies to fight German tanks alone. In June 1944, another journalist named Stephen Barber likewise filed an eyewitness account regarding the valor of Senegalese troops. He was embedded with Senegalese fighters in Corsica. When they came under attack, these “colonial” men saved his life. Barber’s story appeared in newspapers across the USA.

In March 1944, an American soldier who was being vetted upon his return to the USA (US military feared that some “returning soldiers” may actually be Nazis trying to infiltrate the country) defamed Senegalese soldiers. During his debriefing, he claimed – and newspapers across America reported – that Senegalese soldiers had murdered Nazi fighters in cold blood after the signing of the armistice in June 1940. The title of the article in the Palladium Item (and other newspapers) read, “Gripsholm Passenger Tells of Senegalese Massacre of Nazis.” The US soldier who defamed the men who died unjustly: Robert Markolt. I searched for additional information about Markolt and could find none. He claimed to have been an eyewitness. I can only surmise why he would have disparaged men who died fighting the Nazis.

And the final chapter for the Tirailleurs Sénégalais as the war ground to an end?

For all their valor, for all their courage, for all the abuse they received at the hands of German military men, when they returned to Senegal they were not hailed as heroes. Senegal soldiers had been held in concentration camps in France (so as not to ‘contaminate Aryan blood’), so were among the earliest prisoners liberated in 1944. France shipped them back to a camp in Thiaroye near Dakar. They were held in substandard conditions, without pay.

The morning of December 1, 1944, the French army opened fire and killed around 300 soldiers. France claimed they were putting down a mutiny. As the story unfolds, it appears French authorities had planned this final massacre before the soldiers arrived in Senegal.

On the eightieth anniversary of the December 1 massacre, Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and Senegalese historians issued a challenge to President Emmanuel Macron to open a full investigation. The Senegalese are no longer satisfied with warm beer. No longer a colony of France, but a free and independent sovereign nation, they wish to restore honor and dignity to their countrymen and to Black soldiers from other African nations. Their lives, their deaths, should be remembered.

Not just by France, but by all of us who benefited from the sacrifice these soldiers made, a sacrifice that was rewarded with injustice.

DR. RAFFAEL SCHECK'S RED PENCIL

Thanks to Dr. Raffael Scheck for reading and “fact-checking” my post! Here are his comments. I sincerely appreciate his interest in getting things right.

“France recruited approximately 120,000 tirailleurs sénégalais, but the Germans only captured around 15-16,000 (and massacred 1500-3000, plus killed an unknown number without giving them a chance to surrender).

“It is not true that Senegalese soldiers were the principal force opposing the German army after the first phase of the campaign. There were never more than 40,000 tirailleurs sénégalais engaged in combat with the Wehrmacht (the t. s. also came from all over French West Africa, a space much vaster than Senegal itself).

“The number of North African soldiers was larger, but still much less significant than the number of metropolitan French soldiers.

“Also, how many rebelling soldiers were killed in Thiaroye is up for debate. The official figure is 35, which is likely too low. But we do not know the real number.

“There were a few small-scale massacres of African Americans, the most famous in Wereth (Belgium) in late 1944, with 11 victims, and some murders of downed Black (and White) airmen.”

This demonstrates the necessity of the deep dive. My information was primarily gleaned from primary source documents – newspaper reports from 1939 through 1957. I already knew from White Rose work that although newspapers can be deemed “primary source documents,” they are not always reliable. See photo of “George Axelsson” in the dictionary next to “faulty primary source documents about White Rose resistance.” He wrote for the New York Times during the war.

Again, thank you, Dr. Scheck!

COMMENT WORTH KEEPING

Denise, this is so powerful... and so tragic. I’m not sure if recent events are causing me to have this strong emotional reaction to your work (I am sure at least partly) or if it’s learning of one more example of the hideous, savage cruelty of people.

Though this piece saddens me immeasurably, it also invigorates me to do something each day for the privileges I have been blessed with. Thank you, again.

--Sodak, February 3, 2025.

My response: Thank you, Steve! As I work on these posts, I often return to my White Rose histories to retrieve reference information. Wrote those between 1999-2003, with the 2007 update coming in 2007. In other words, the words originated over two decades ago.

Sometimes I am hit between the eyes with the utter courage that these flawed, imperfect human beings exhibited in 1943. While writing, I would often pose the question: Could this happen here? (I wrote a weekly column for a Jewish e-zine at the time.) Not only I, but those early readers would all say, "No. We have protections built in that they did not have. We are not German. We love our individuality."

I guess we are about to learn whether we too are capable of demonstrating the same utter courage that they did, flawed and imperfect as we are.

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Everything in this essay is thoroughly documented. Newspaper articles, dates, pages, and other reference materials... if you are researching this topic and would like me to share these references with you, please contact me. There will be a nominal $25 charge for that information, along with agreement to properly cite this post.

The above information related to White Rose 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.

Image credits: Top photograph--Senegalese soldiers on May 30, 1940. Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-L05109 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en>, via Wikimedia Commons.

Bottom photograph--A Senegalese Armed Forces (SAF) soldier practices firing an M-16 carbine during African Lion 22 in Dodji, Senegal, June 24, 2022. African Lion 22 is U.S. Africa Command’s largest, premier, joint, annual exercise hosted by Morocco, Ghana, Senegal and Tunisia, June 6-30. More than 7,500 participants from 28 nations and NATO train together with a focus on enhancing readiness for U.S. and partner nation forces. AL22 is a joint all-domain, multi-component and multinational exercise, employing a full array of mission capabilities with the goal to strengthen interoperability among participants and set the theater for strategic access. U.S. Army photo by Cpl. Zachary Myers. This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Federal Government as part of that person’s official duties under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code.

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