Lilo’s three Christmases

Even in the worst of times, life goes on. Babies cry, couples dance at weddings, children jump rope and skin their knees. Even in the worst of times, we laugh, we cry, we hold our loved ones close.

Black Americans light the seven Kwanzaa candles. Jewish children play with dreidels as parents relate the story of oil that didn’t run out. Christian homes of most denominations gather round the Christmas tree. Buddhist faithful meditate on Bodhi Day. And I dare say that some of us may air our grievances around a Festivus pole.

The world may be falling apart around us, but we hold fast to our traditions.

This was also true of our White Rose students and the adults who worked alongside them. More often than not, we think of them as noble warriors. Yet just as we do, they celebrated according to their family and religious customs. Here’s a taste of their lives. Starting with Lilo.

1940

Lilo Ramdohr’s horrid 1940 ended splendidly when the Harnacks descended on her apartment in Munich. Falk brought along Arvid and Mildred, and his mother as well. They celebrated Christmas in the cramped quarters of her residence. Falk had been concerned about Lilo after the death of her guardian, Willi Ramdohr. He had stayed in touch throughout December, writing her words of comfort and cheer, reminding her how rich her life had been with that man who had been father and mentor.

And now the family was with her in the flesh! Lilo’s admiration for Mildred intensified the better she got to know that middle-aged American woman. Mildred and Arvid had been offered the opportunity to remain in the United States out of harm’s way. They could have left Germany and carried out their resistance activities in safety. Mildred’s mother worked in Washington, DC, and her connections to American senators and congressmen were impeccable. It had to have been tempting, that offer of shelter from danger.

Over Christmas, Lilo got an inkling of the ideas that motivated Arvid and Mildred Harnack, of the political principles that made him more than an economist and her more than an editor. They spoke of liberating Germany, of the need for political change. Since Hitler had responded well to advice from others in his government regarding the war in France, Arvid apparently remained fiercely optimistic that Hitler could be persuaded to modify his positions if he were surrounded by adequately crafty counsel.

1941

Barely a year later, Hitler’s renewed war effort also meant that Lilo’s husband’s three-week December 1941 leave had been revoked. When Otto advised Lilo that he would be spending Christmas on the Russian front, it was neither that news nor her fears for his survival that overwhelmed her. Lilo’s husband, he who had spoken so eloquently against the Führer, now wrote that his fighting in Hitler’s war was a “wonderful fulfillment of duty.” His changed attitude gave him “new strength to fulfill every job, every duty that is given me here.”

She was aghast as she read on. When they first met, he had been angry with her for not revolting against her assignment in a military hospital. Now Otto Berndl, who claimed to have seen the “big picture,” said his wife should volunteer for duty before they drafted her again.

1942

Somehow, 1942 managed to grow ever darker. Arvid and Mildred Harnack, those beloved souls who had graced Lilo’s apartment only two years prior, had been arrested for their “treasonous” activity.

December 22, 1942, Adolf Hitler ordered the execution of the first thirteen condemned men from the Harnack-Schulze-Boysen resistance movement. Arvid Harnack was among those who would die by hanging that same day at Berlin-Plötzensee.

When Falk heard about his brother’s death, he fell to pieces. “It took almost every ounce of my life energy,” he said later. Falk was devastated beyond words.

Prison officials allowed Arvid to pen one final letter to his family, a letter the prison guards mailed to Arvid’s mother in Neckargmünd as soon as censors were done with it.

Arvid told his family that he knew his death was imminent and thanked them for the tangible love they had demonstrated to him. “Thinking of it made all heaviness seem light.” He contemplated the beauty of nature, reciting poetry that gladdened his soul. “Above all, I think of the fact that humanity is advancing.”

He congratulated Falk and Lilo on their (supposed) engagement, specifying that his signet rings should indeed be used to pledge their troth. Arvid assured his family that before his execution, he would hold a small pre-Christmas celebration, reading the Christmas story for himself, alone in his cell. That would prepare him for “the moment of departing.”

Closing with hugs and kisses, Arvid asked his family to “celebrate Christmas really well. That is my last wish. And also sing, Ich bete an die Macht der Liebe.” Literally, “I pray to the power of love,” but usually sung in English as “O Power of Love, All Else Transcending.”

From the moment Falk picked Lilo up at the train station, she was conscious of the depth of his grief. He would not want her to see him cry or say anything that would demonstrate weakness. He would have to be strong.

So when Falk put his arm under hers and gripped her hand tightly, Lilo knew that was the closest he would ever come to expressing his ineffable grief. It was enough to hold her hand and have her close.

As soon as they arrived at “Muhmi’s” home, Ansa Harnack (one of Falk’s sisters) took Lilo straight to the brokenhearted mother. “Mrs. Harnack sat still as a rock in her chair,” Lilo recalled. “She nodded at us. Her eyes were wide open, with a perplexed expression peering into the depths of the emptiness that had torn her son away from her. The pain of this dear woman was indescribable. And yet, with what superhuman greatness she bore that sorrow! ‘What kind of poor souls are they who must carry out such a death sentence?’ she said almost inaudibly.”

Lilo was shaken, speechless at Muhmi’s declaration. She had sympathy for the executioners? She did not wait until they asked for forgiveness? Hitler had taken her son from her. Muhmi was not supposed to forgive!

Suddenly, for the first time since Alexander Schmorell had cautiously told her what the friends who wrote those leaflets called White Rose planned to do, Lilo understood. She finally, finally felt a personal association with Schurik’s plans.

But Muhmi had collapsed. “She appeared awfully tiny to me in her chair. Her beautiful blue eyes burned in their dark caverns. Death was near her, in her, around her. We hardly dared to move, lest we touch her frailty with our youthful power.”

This was the woman the Gestapo feared so much, this “Muhmi” who could not move from her chair? They called her a “gasbag,” ridiculed her political views. She had once vowed that her sons would never fight the Russians. And now she sat unmoving, forgiveness on her lips, life drained from her body.

Lilo observed the helplessness with which Falk and Ansa regarded their mother. There was so much pain in that room, it had almost become tangible. “Pain too great for tears,” Lilo noted. No one dared wonder aloud what would become of Mildred. At her trial, Hermann Göring had said she looked like an angel, then followed that statement with invectives so horrible, they could not be repeated in mixed company.

Though Lilo knew she would have to tell Alex about Arvid’s death, she privately vowed never to tell him the full story. She felt bound to silence by the “quiet horror” of those days, that Christmas of 1942.

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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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