Ongoing projects
ARCHIVE PROJECTS
If you would like to sponsor all or part of a specific venture, please let us know. Send us a quick note after donating towards the restricted fund designated for projects and we will apply it to those costs. It is not necessary to support an entire project.
Detailed budget for each project is available upon request. Should you underwrite one of these tasks, we will acknowledge your contribution in the publication and online. We will also send you a financial report on that project when it is completed.
We strive for transparency and openness in all we do. It’s the only way to build trust and accomplish great things.
All contributions are fully tax deductible!
Note that estimated costs include archive acquisition, IT support, personnel costs (assume team of five per project), modest travel expenses, and database entry. Exclamation! Publishers will bear all costs related to publication of project findings.
Project A: After the White Rose. What happened to the friends and family members after 1945? Publication of primary source documents in English translation; and, publication of book about their lives.
Estimated cost: $52,900.
Project B: Churches and Alignment — Case Studies (Working Title Only). Taking primary source documents for churches in Germany during the Third Reich, Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist (or other Freikirchen), and Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints — one “good” example and one “bad” example each — to see how the anti-Nazi clergy came to their conclusions.
This project should add substantially to our understanding of what it takes to act on the courage of one’s convictions.
Estimated cost: $33,600.
Project C: Helle (Helmut) Hirsch. Twenty-one when he was executed for a planned assassination attempt, Helle Hirsch is a unique case in the annals of anti-Nazi resistance. He was German, American, and Jewish. There are several existing biographies (both in German and in English) about Hirsch’s life.
We intend only to publish his Gestapo interrogation transcripts and related documents in English translation, so non-German-speaking scholars can use them for work and for interdisciplinary coursework.
Estimated cost: $26,800.
Project D: Helmuth Hübener. Hübener was the youngest person executed by the Nazis for resisting Hitler. Only a teenager, he and two of his friends stood up against the leaders of his church (he was LDS) and called for the overthrow of Hitler.
Several biographies have already been written about Hübener and his two friends, and at least one documentary has been made of their lives. We do not wish to duplicate those efforts.
Rather, we intend to publish the Gestapo interrogation transcripts and related church documents in English translation.
Estimated cost: $28,130.
Project E: The Edelweiss Pirates. As with the projects listed above, here we intend solely to publish Gestapo interrogation transcripts and related documents in English translation to enable non-German-speaking scholars to use them in their research and for interdisciplinary projects.
This was a fairly large group and has a great deal more documentation than others listed above.
Estimated cost: $42,200
Project F: Family history project. We have access to approximately two dozen sets of family “newsletters” published during the Third Reich. These newsletters generally spanned about five or six years of genealogy research carried out to prove a family’s “Aryan” status.
However, in addition to the latest work on the family tree, the families shared stories about daily life, family reunions, and political considerations. In other words, these newsletters provide a snapshot of daily life under Hitler, unfiltered by postwar considerations.
Costs include only copies and translation. We will publish as many in English translation as are funded. One such family's newsletters will be published towards the end of 2024.
Estimate cost per family: $7500.
Project G: Forgotten White Rose heroes. The groups outside Munich that were affiliated with White Rose resistance have been largely ignored. We would like to publish their Gestapo interrogation transcripts and related documents in English translation and publish a book dedicated to their activities.
Estimate cost: $39,600.
Project J: Father Jean Bernard. His Gestapo interrogation transcripts and related documentation in English translation.
Estimated cost: $24,300.
Project L: August Landmesser. First, publication of his daughter's biography of her father, if possible. Then publication (in English translation) of his Gestapo files.
Estimated cost: $23,300.
Project M: The Munich Gestapo project. It has long been believed that the files of the Munich Gestapo were forever lost in the war; that “fact” is commonly cited in nearly every White Rose history. The ZC13267 and NJ1704 files held by the Bundesarchiv in Berlin are merely the prosecutor’s files, not the Gestapo files. They contain only the Gestapo documents used by Weyersberg, Bischoff, et al to prosecute the White Rose friends, not the entire set of interrogations and evidentiary material.
The 1947 speech of George J. Wittenstein, however, referenced the Munich Gestapo files. At the time, he apparently was working for the CIC (predecessor to the CIA). In that speech, he referenced interrogation quotes that are not contained in the ZC13267 and NJ1704 files, evidence that the Munich Gestapo files did in fact survive the war. We want to find them, and publish them in English translation. Note: We think we are on this trail!
Estimated cost: $29,800.
Project O: The Open Door Project. Rent, utilities, and staffing for our archive facilities. Estimated cost for one month: $7200.
Project S: The Shades of Grey Project. Ask us!
NON-ARCHIVAL PROJECTS
Research Center
We wish to have a stand-alone facility that will permit scholars to study primary and secondary sources “hands-on,” either in the original German or in English translation. Our Access database will be made available free of charge, as will our library ... if we can get the funding!
To make this a reality, we need substantial donations or investment, as well as contributions of time to catalog and (wo)man the facility, and materials (books, videos, DVDs, archival materials, or computer equipment).
In the beginning, we will focus on White Rose resistance. Our mid- and long-term goals include expanding to other German resistance, then to European (Jewish, French, Danish, Belgian, Albanian, etc.), and finally to informed dissent whenever and wherever it has occurred and continues to occur.
Estimated cost: ?.
Speakers Bureau
To help us "get the word out" to high schools, community, colleges, and universities that can pay for some but not all of the cost of a lecture series, you can make a difference by contributing to this fund. Typically, educational institutions require a subsidy of approximately 30%.
- High School for a Day. $500 funds a one-day speaking engagement at a public school; $1,500 funds textbooks and newsletters, plus one-day speaking engagement, to an entire classroom of public high school kids; $5,000 provides textbooks and newsletters to five classrooms in public schools; $7,500 provides textbooks and newsletters, plus individual one-day speaking engagements, to five classrooms in public schools.
- Jewish-German Dialog. $1,500 funds an afternoon or evening in a synagogue or church; $7,500 funds a mini-conference (two days), complete with White Rose books for fifty people, in a synagogue or church; $15,000 funds a mini-conference (two days), complete with White Rose books for 250 people, in a synagogue or church; $25,000 funds a five-day conference, complete with White Rose books for 250 people, in a synagogue or church.
- $750,000 funds the making of two one-hour documentaries (targeted at high school and college students) on the research that went into the White Rose. Includes interviews with members of the White Rose resistance movement who have since died.
- $100,000 funds five years of making the documentary available to high schools and universities free of charge.