In search of military records

Administrative building of the military complex in Munich, 1935. Postcard photo. Public domain.

When working through the Protokolle that tend to be overlooked by most White Rose (and German resistance) scholars, I was surprised to find large chunks of Willi Graf’s military records in his clemency file. Clearly, these documents did not comprise all of his service records. His attorney used only the evaluations and statements that put Willi Graf in the best possible light for the NSDAP.

The little evidence we have of Willi Graf’s military duty greatly exceeds what we know of others’ service. Below are things we know, or think we know, but where primary source materials are missing.

Why this matters? When people talk about themselves (a lot) and block access to documents from their past, it’s likely that what they’re blocking contradicts their public story. This applies whether we’re talking about German soldiers who fought in World War II — think Günter Grass; or institutions that supported slavery before, during and after our Civil War, and now quietly remove that information from the “About” page of their Web site; or modern politicians who reinvent themselves to trend on Twitter.

It matters. Facts matter. Background matters, context matters.

Before the paywall: If you are the rare scholar with deep understanding of the Shoah and military history, who is bilingual (German and English), please contact us. This is a significant gap in scholarship regarding German resistance during the Shoah (in general) and White Rose in particular. I’d love to apply for a grant to fund this research. The military and denazification records have to be there. It’s just a matter of tracking them down.

In strictly alphabetical order.

Otl Aicher:

In one of those humorous errors that Inge Aicher-Scholl either missed or purposely overlooked, the translator of the Hans and Sophie letters (At the Heart of the White Rose) mistranslated the heading of one of Otl’s letters. The English text for the return address reads, ‘Otl Aicher, Officer Candidate.’

In innenseiten des kriegs, Otl made a very big deal about refusing to take any competency exams for promotion, happy to serve as a private in the infantry. He claimed he did not want to be part of Hitler’s war machinery.

Dr. Ziegler was able to drill down via IfZ and learned that Otl had simply abbreviated his name in the return address. Translator missed that one.

Otl also claimed to have deserted in 1942, an assertion that has since been challenged. Ziegler believed that was not true. Without access to Otl’s records, it’s hard to know.

Hubert Furtwängler and Adalbert Grundel:

Combined, because they are primarily known for their very strong friendship with Willi Graf. They met when stationed together in the Black Forest in the lead-up to the Blitzkrieg.

Willi Graf:

The excerpts are tantalizing and cover only Willi Graf’s service in Russia from June 1941-March 1942. We know that of all the student-soldiers, Willi Graf had the worst luck. A superficial overview of his tours of duty reveals that as a medic, he saw the worst battles of the worst wars.

In “back of the napkin” discussions with Dr. Armin Ziegler, using rough calculations based on the routes Willi Graf’s divisions marched (gleaned from his letters and diary entries), we estimated that Willi Graf must have personally seen between 1 – 2 million POWs, and horrific numbers of “enemies” dead in ditches. Those numbers would have been worse in Belarus and Russia, but would have been awful in Belgium, France, Yugoslavia, and Poland as well.

It's no wonder that Willi Graf often complained in letters to close friends of nightmares he could not escape, of isolation even among friends, of inexorable trauma.

Review of his military records could paint an even clearer picture of the sights he could not shake.

Hellmut Hartert:

I would not add him to this list, since he was a non-entity as far as the White Rose friends went (he had left Munich by May 1942). Yes, he was a friend of Hans Scholl. They had a falling out (never explained, except by Wittenstein, which does not count).

But.

Like Wittenstein, after the war Hartert claimed to have been a co-founder of the White Rose. Hartert’s father was a member of the NSDAP and a respected surgeon — which required compromises that would likely be troubling if pursued further.

Despite Hartert’s postwar claims regarding his resistance efforts, there is zero indication that he was aware of what his former friend Hans Scholl was doing. Wittenstein is the only person who supported Hartert’s claims of a “Berlin branch of the White Rose” – and that was part of their mutual Persilscheine after the war. Not one other person mentioned Hartert as someone they should consider recruiting, at least among published or open primary sources. I double-checked the massive volume of Schmorell and Probst letters (edited by Christiane Moll). No Hartert, except in Moll’s text. In contrast, Alex mentioned Otmar Hammerstein several times!

It's likely that Hartert’s military - and denazification - records would reveal the true nature of his political ideology.

Fritz Hartnagel:

After the war, Fritz surrendered to Allied forces and was held for trial (Nürnberg trials). He was released in September 1945.

Before anyone goes ballistic: Yes, I fully recognize all the good that Fritz Hartnagel did after the war. As a jurist, he worked to create and defend Germany’s laws protecting conscientious objectors. As a person, he used his prominence to publicly protest US nuclear weapons on German soil and the militarization of the Bundesrepublik Deutschland. And when the USA filed a lawsuit against Walter Jens for sheltering conscientious objectors who had fled the USA for Germany instead of fighting in Vietnam, Fritz Hartnagel successfully defended Jens. Regardless of your political persuasion on those topics, it is safe to say that Fritz Hartnagel dedicated his life to ensuring that no young German ever had to fight in a war he did not believe in.

I also personally liked Fritz Hartnagel. I very much liked Fritz Hartnagel. I wish the correspondence between him and Sophie had not been blocked for so long. I would have asked him hard questions in 1995. I fully believe he would have answered those questions and would not have shied away from hard truths.

Because there are many hard truths that are hidden by lack of access to his military records.

What we know:

• Fritz Hartnagel studied at the NSDAP Kriegsschule [military academy] in Potsdam.

• He applied for, and was denied, transfer to aviation. Not Luftwaffe, at least not according to his correspondence, but aviation.

• His specialty was military intel. He was first lieutenant of a signal corps unit, later promoted to Hauptmann [Captain].

• His signal corps-intel unit served in Stalingrad.

• Fritz Hartnagel was airlifted out of Stalingrad, not abandoned there as most German soldiers were. This has been my hard, ineffable question. Why was he airlifted out when thousands upon thousands were not? Dr. Ziegler said I should never ask this question. I am asking it now.

• Fritz Hartnagel never fully embraced National Socialist ideology, but he did not argue with some of its tenets.

  • He used antisemitic slurs (Judenhandel, or Jewish trade, as but one example).

  • While stationed in the Donets basin (coal!) or Donbas, he bore witness to the Holomodor. He told Sophie the awful Bolshevists (Russians) had reduced the Ukrainian population to “nomadic families who will exchange their last pieces of clothing for flour.” At the same time, Fritz seemed oblivious to the German contribution to Ukrainian starvation when he wrote about how well they ate, the bounty of food commandeered from local farmers. He never made the connection between his full stomach, appropriation of Ukrainian housing, and starving, drifting refugees.

  • In stark contrast to the White Rose soldier-students, during the war First Lieutenant and then Captain Fritz Hartnagel did not lose his disdain for Russian peasants.

• Since Fritz’s correspondence with Sophie Scholl ceased after February 1943, and since his correspondence with anyone else has not been published (except for short-short excerpts in Inge Aicher-Scholl’s Sippenhaft), we cannot know where he served or what he did between February 1943 and April 1945. The tiny bit of information included in Sippenhaft regarding Fritz Hartnagel after February 1943 serves to make both him and the Scholl family look as good as possible.

Fritz Hartnagel is also one of three* people for whom denazification records would reveal a great deal about his full life, not the censored version we see in Inge Aicher-Scholl’s or Thomas Hartnagel’s publications. [Note: I am grateful to Thomas Hartnagel for the degree of transparency he permitted. We know about Fritz Hartnagel’s flaws because his son let us read those letters. But even Thomas Hartnagel censored correspondence from critical dates and events.]

*The other two are Hellmut Hartert and Jürgen Wittenstein.

Xaver Kuhn:

In the Second Student Company. He also knew Hans Scholl from their military service in France following the Blitzkrieg.

When Ricarda Huch and then Inge Scholl asked for eyewitness accounts about the White Rose friends, Xaver submitted his memories. He knew a lot about the White Rose friends in his company, including distribution of the leaflets among the student-soldiers.

I tend to be cynical, if not outright suspicious, about people who knew a lot about others in those days. Was Xaver working for the Gestapo? Or for military intelligence? Was he source of information in February 1943 and beyond?

Or was he simply a friend?

Christoph Probst:

His letters to family and friends while in school bear witness to his disdain for the military. Indeed, his letters as well as the memories of the people who knew him well, confirm that he never lost that contempt for the uniform.

Since his military “career” took a different tack than that of the student-soldiers in the Second Student Company, we know almost nothing about his assignments. We do know he was not sent to the Russian front in July 1942. And: What did he do during the Blitzkrieg?

Raimund Samüller (alt. Sammüller):

Raimund Samüller initially was very close friend of Hans Scholl. He had been heavily recruited when they started their White Rose work in 1942. Raimund refused to join their work, although he agreed with everything they wrote, because he did not trust Hans Scholl. Raimund thought Hans was too reckless.

However, he remained close to the White Rose circle of friends, including Traute Lafrenz. He was the fifth person in the train compartment on the long trip to the Russian front in July 1942.

Alexander Schmorell:

Alex’s military records would be interesting for a completely different reason. He did not try to hide his disdain for military service. That fact was used against him during his interrogations. Even his father decried his son’s lack of loyalty to the Führer.

Yet Alex “earned” designations he did not want for participating in the annexation of Austria. Where Hans Scholl yearned to join the Bavarians marching into Austria, Alex did not wish to do so, and yet was ordered there.

I am also interested in the connection between Alex’s stepmother Elisabeth Schmorell nee Hoffmann and the Hoffmanns who were part of Hitler’s inner circle. The clemency petitions reference these connections. Was Heinrich Hoffmann the propagandist “related to” Alex through his stepmother? And if so, how did that impact Alex’s military service?

Would also like to see if (or how many times) he was written up by his commanding officers. A soldier who was known for not wanting to swear the oath of allegiance to Hitler was likely a headache for his C.O.s.

Speaking of Commanding Officers: Erich Schmorell was already dating Hertha Buhl in 1942-43. Hertha Buhl was the daughter of the C.O. of the Second Student Company, to which Alex and most of the other White Rose soldier-students were assigned. What did Paul Buhl have to say about Alex?

Paul Buhl would make an interesting PhD dissertation. There are multiple testimonials regarding his protection of “his men” following the February 18 arrests. Otmar Hammerstein credited him for a fast transfer to the Netherlands, out of the reach of the Munich Gestapo. Others noted that Buhl went to their interrogations with them, vouching for their character and obtaining their release.

Hans Scholl:

We know from Hans’ letters that he twice applied for promotion to officer status. We know he spent a great deal of money to have officer-styled uniforms and coats, which he wore despite not being an officer: Once shortly before his §175(2) arrest, and the second time when Sophie Scholl wrote Fritz Hartnagel and asked for fabric, because Hans had used the family’s annual ration on himself.

At least the second application earned him provisional officer status, because he ate in the officers’ mess, despite rank as non-com sergeant. We also know how annoyed he was that his applications were denied.

Apparently, Hans Scholl was also denied the usual medals and ribbons for e.g. service on the Western front.

We know from Otl Aicher (and others, but Otl was very specific) that Hans Scholl loved the military and wanted to make it his career. He proudly wore the uniform, even as others around him could hardly wait to get into civvies.

His military records would likely reveal critical information about the lingering effects of that §175(2) arrest; his drug use; his general psychological profile. The reasons for denial of promotion would provide insight into who Hans Scholl was as a person and how superiors viewed him.

I would also like to understand why Hans Scholl and Fritz Hartnagel seemed to avoid one another from 1939/40 on. They would be minutes from one another for months at a time. Sophie Scholl would encourage Fritz to look up Hans, and he would not. There had to be something there.

Jürgen Wittenstein:

The “fun” one (sarcasm).

There are a few things we know that are disturbing.

• He fulfilled his Reicharbeitsdienst (RAD) or Reich Labor Service in Messkirch (Shoah Foundation interview, 1997). The interviewer kept asking about his RAD, since he had stated the NSDAP used it for indoctrination. Wittenstein avoided her questions, finally stating merely that he had fulfilled it in Messkirch. Seems that RAD in Messkirch was dedicated to prospective sharpshooters, at least according to that town’s Schützenverein. Since Wittenstein had won Schule Schloβ Salem’s marksmanship awards on a regular basis (he was very proud of that fact), it makes sense that he would be recruited to a RAD camp for sharpshooters.

• After RAD, Wittenstein was stationed in Grafenwöhr. He had volunteered — he was not drafted as the White Rose friends were - and his mother had pulled strings to get him assigned to that elite facility. He has told so many versions of his life story for 1938-1940, it is difficult to know what’s real. We know he participated in the Anschluss (annexation of Austria). We know he participated in the “liberation” of the Sudetenland, October 1, 1938. Yet he also claimed to have been in Munich from April or May 1938 on, although he had said on other occasions that he was stationed in Grafenwöhr.

  • Small example: When Stuberg (Shoah Foundation) asked him what he saw during Kristallnacht (November 1938), he said he was in Grafenwöhr so unaware except for what he read in the news. He had also stated that he never saw Hitler in person. Except if he were in Grafenwöhr, he would have seen Hitler when the Führer inspected the base in June 1938. When I researched Grafenwöhr during Kristallnacht, I learned that it too experienced the pogrom. The military base was part of the town.

• Wittenstein was awarded the silver braid for marksmanship (sharpshooters). That braid can be seen on one of the photographs he liked to use of himself in 1942/43.

• Contrary to his assertions, Wittenstein did not travel with the five White Rose student-soldiers to the Russian front. He did not serve on the front lines with them. He did not return with them to Germany. These are known facts, not guesses. The orders behind his service in Russia should be revealing.

• Wittenstein received a major promotion to NS-Führungsoffizier, a special rank designed personally by Adolf Hitler in December 1943. In addition to the requirement that a candidate for NSFO status be “militant [kämpferische], fanatical [fanatische] National Socialists,” they also had to have proven themselves on the front lines (Frontbewährung).

• Likely because of this, Wittenstein repeatedly referred to Summer 1942 in Russia as “Frontbewährung” (proving oneself on the front lines) instead of as a “Feldfamulatur” or [medical] internship on the battlefield. Traute Lafrenz served a “Famulatur” in a German military hospital while the male medical students were in Russia. No one else among the White Rose circle of friends referred to time in Russia as “Frontbewährung” – only Wittenstein.

• Wittenstein was in Donauwörth during Hans Leipelt’s trial, an unexplained “coincidence.”

I’m stopping here – there’s more, but I am being cautious until I have more facts. Carol Stuberg (Shoah Foundation) pressed Wittenstein about his military service in 1944/45. He spun incredible fairy tales that did not track reported battles and events. Wittenstein really, really did not like to talk about anything after February 1943. To learn more about specific questions, see our Evolution of Memory.

There are others whose military records would broaden our understanding as we puzzle out White Rose resistance. Because if you notice, I’ve not included Willi Graf’s close friends in Saarbrücken, Bonn, Freiburg, even though the Bollingers were arrested and imprisoned after the April 1943 trial. I’ve not included the “Galen Group” in Ulm (Heinz Brenner et al). I’ve not included the non-White Rose friends of the circle, whose lives directly impacted the thinking and outlook of the White Rose friends.

First things first. Let’s better understand the student-soldiers whose lives are front and center.

Questions? Comments? Chat Room.

Excerpted from White Rose History, Volume I: Coming Together (January 1933-April 30, 1942) and White Rose History, Volume II: Journey to Freedom (May 1, 1942-October 12, 1943). WRH1 (c) 2002, 2003, 2007 Denise Elaine Heap. WRH2 (c) 2002, 2007 Denise Elaine Heap. You have to buy the book to see my references! Please contact us for permission to quote.

NB: The few people who have tackled “military” and White Rose - Detlef Bald comes to mind - have been willing to buy into the legend and not ask hard questions. We need scholars who believe in historical process and ethical research.