Questions about the Russian front

Russian steppes, 1942. Postcard used for propaganda purposes. Public domain.

For scholars or researchers knowledgeable about military activities on the Russian front from 1941-1943, or about Russian geography and history, this post is for you. Normal searches have been fruitless. Specialists in this field likely know the answers in their sleep.

Consider this post an addition to our Call for Papers.

PLACES

HVP Plankenhorn from 8/1-10/31/1942: This Hauptverbandplatz was “home” to the White Rose friends for almost three months. We know a lot about what they did, with whom they associated (primarily Russians). We also know it was located in a forest about six miles from the front lines.

Other than that, there is precious little information about it in primary source materials, much less in secondary sources. Note that Wikipedia.de information is largely wrong and needs to be corrected, as it cites Jürgen Wittenstein’s falsehoods, along with Detlef Bald and Sönke Zankel’s repetition of Wittenstein’s information.

Accurate primary source materials or a thorough, ethical history of HVP Plankenhorn – without Wittenstein!, since he was not there – would be welcome!

The towns of Afanassyevka, Kolesniki, Petrezova, and Polkino: The White Rose friends mentioned these towns in letters and diary entries from their time on the front. My research from 1999-2002 yielded information about German atrocities committed in those places, beginning with the gutting of the towns, along with the nightmare of villagers locked in a barn and burned alive. (My source: Nürnberg Trials of 1946, citing atrocities committed by German military in Soviet towns.)

Years after my White Rose histories were published, both Bald and Zankel gave the same little bit of information, without citing me and without adding significant new information to the conversation, except for the names of the commanding officers.

Apparently none of the atrocities happened between 8/1/1942-10/31/1942, so the friends would have only seen the results in the form of gutted villages and burned buildings. It would greatly improve our understanding of the things that gave them nightmares if we knew precisely what they observed over those three months.

The atrocities themselves deserve comprehensive research by a true military historian who can take the little bits of information in the Nürnberg Trials and flesh them out. The villagers should be remembered as human beings who were brutally murdered.

Finally, I could not find these towns in modern-day Russia. Were they rebuilt and renamed? Were they left in ruins? What is done to commemorate these losses?

Warsaw-Praga: Hoffmann propaganda and other war-time photographs of this section of Warsaw do not support the idea that it was cleaner or more civilized than the rest of Warsaw. This is puzzling. Did Hitler indeed minimize destruction of this quarter? If so, why? If not, why would there be reference to it as more civilized?

“The American Palace” in Warsaw: Does anyone know what Hans Scholl could have referred to as “the American palace” in Warsaw? Villanova? Belvedere? Both were prominent palatial structures. Did either have American connections in 1942? Was this simply an expression of speech?

The Blue Duck in Warsaw: Intriguing. Any information? Was this a well-known place catering to German military? That the White Rose friends made a point of returning to it on the way home suggests some sort of significance.

PEOPLE

Vera, Sina: In the last 20+ years, has anyone ascertained the identity of the two women who sang and danced for the White Rose friends, and who made them feel at home *in their homes* in Russia? Vera lived near HVP Plankenhorn, Sina in Sosonovka.

Heini: The soldier whom Willi Graf and Hubert Furtwängler trusted (in Sosonovka) has never been identified, as far as I know. If Willi Graf trusted him with “sensible conversation,” we should know more about him. Identity should be available through military records.

Jörn Weitz: The soldier they met up with in Warsaw who provided detailed account of their rowdy dinner. I want to know more about him. Why wasn’t he part of White Rose resistance?

Heinrich Hoffmann: In this Substack series about Russia, you will have noticed that I’ve often used Heinrich Hoffmann’s propaganda pictures to illustrate the posts. We know that one of the clemency petitions for Alexander Schmorell references his stepmother’s family; her name was Elisabeth Schmorell nee Hoffmann. The clemency petition notes that her relatives are in Hitler’s inner circle. When the clemency petition was denied, that relationship is acknowledged, and clemency denied nonetheless.

Was Heinrich Hoffmann related to Alexander Schmorell’s stepmother?

GENERAL TOPICS

Train trip to Russian front: Any reason the train carrying the Second Student Company would have diverted from its direct route and headed west? Were they skirting battles?

Translation: In his letter dated September 16, 1942, Fritz mentioned his “old tin cigarette box” in which Sophie had written “Yest man teberat” in Russian. Thomas Hartnagel noted that the inscription cannot be translated. Any guesses? Assuming Thomas Hartnagel transcribed the Cyrillic correctly. Maybe he did not?

Public breaches of the Geneva Convention: On October 18, 1942, Fritz Hartnagel said that he feared that the war could quickly take a more gruesome turn. A “gas war” – that is, use of toxic gases or biological warfare – was inevitable, he believed. “During the last army reports they were openly talking about a breach of the Geneva Convention!”

I’ve tried to pinpoint the military report to which Fritz referred. However, Hitler’s Kommandobefehl dated October 18, 1942 had been distributed to C.O.s and all other officers, with the order that all troops were to be advised of its contents. That order referred to what Hitler described as the brutal and insidious behavior of British commandos, who allegedly were acting on orders to murder unarmed POWs who were “ballast” or any other form of hindrance.

Hitler ordered all German troops therefore to similarly ignore the rules regarding POWs as set forth by the Geneva Convention, and to destroy all such commando units whether they were in or out of uniform, armed or unarmed. The order did note that the ruling did not apply to regular army, Air Force, or Navy units captured by the German military.

First, that order likely would not have made its way to a Major on the Russian front the very same day. Second, it does not mention a “gas war” or any other biological warfare.

Does anyone know which order Fritz Hartnagel may (or would) have referenced?

Military history: If I were a military historian, I would attempt to decipher the reams of paper documenting every movement Hitler’s armies made and match the movements to the locations of Fritz, Otl, Hans, Willi, Alex, and the rest as they did their “patriotic duty” in the Wehrmacht. That is the only way we will know for certain what they saw – especially Willi Graf, whose undefined nightmares from interminable months with the 252nd Infantry Division on the Russian front (1941-1942) scarred him permanently. Until then, “what they saw” remains pure speculation.

If anyone wishes to undertake that task, please contact me!

Keep this central if you choose this project: Willi acknowledged that it had not been all fun and games. He alluded to the horrors of war that they had seen, horrors that have yet to be quantified and fully reported by any White Rose scholar with military historical expertise. “These weeks were also arduous, because at the same time, the most intense battles raged all around us. The dangers and horrors of war were often very near and prevented us from ever forgetting where we were and the harshness all around.”

If done as one of our Call for Papers (for publication by Exclamation! Publishers), we would expect detailed original or public domain maps (plural), showing their movements plus connection to specific campaigns. Also, proximity to Russian front – especially when measured in feet – would be useful. Photographs, either historical or current, would be even better.

Service records: We only have excerpts of Willi Graf’s military records. If we could find the records for all of them, we would understand the dynamics of their friendships and resistance much better. Contact me if this interests you, and if you would like a complete list of their names.

A TRUE PUZZLE: PLACE + PERSONS

The town of Sosonovka and its inhabitants Aron Dozortzev, Berul Fridyland, and the Stern family: The last couple of weeks on the Russian front, the White Rose friends were assigned to a field hospital in Sosonovka.

Quite by accident, looking up Jenny Grimminger nee Stern’s record in Yad Vashem’s database, I found records of Jewish families living in Sosonovka in the summer of 1942. In fact, the Stern family apparently lived in Sosonovka until March 1943, when they were sent to Auschwitz. [Source: Yad Vashem, The Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names, retrieved from www.yadvashem.org.]

Fortunately for the memories of those who died in the Shoah, and unfortunately for my bibliography, so many “Stern” individuals have been added to Yad Vashem’s database that I could not re-retrieve that particular record. However, both Aron Dozortzev and Berul Fridyland were still living in Sosonovka when the White Rose soldier students arrived there. (For anyone interested in pursuing this thread: Note that there is a Sosonovka in Poland as well, which should not be confused with Sosonovka in Russia.)

When researching this town in 2001-2002, I could only find one in Russia. Now it appears that there are actually five Russian villages by that name.

Can anyone with sound knowledge of Russian geography and history determine in which Sosonovka the White Rose students lived? (It would have been near Gzhatsk.) And if the Sosonovka that was home to the Fridylands, Dozortzevs, and Sterns was the same Sosonovka? And if it was, why Jewish families were living there unmolested in 1942/43? I am glad that Jewish families survived that long in any Russian town during the German invasion of the USSR. It’s more my surprise that the families stayed and did not head east.

Postscript #1. In the town of Sosonovka, Russia, a man named Berul Fridyland died on 10/17/42. He was seventy-two years old, a cabinet maker born in Rogachev, Gomel (Belarus). His father’s name was Iosif, mother Riva nee Smolkina. Berul’s death was different than most, because his wife Rode nee Epshtein sat shiva for him. Berul was Jewish.

There is no way to know whether Berul was the silver-haired man Willi Graf had treated for a carcinoma a few days earlier, or whether a German soldier discovered the family and murdered the gentleman. None of the soldier students mentioned Berul’s death. It was not so much as a blip on their radar.

Postscript #2. In his excellent essay “Neues von der ‘Weiβen Rose’?,” Johannes Tuchel of the Gedenkstätte deutscher Widerstand [Museum of German Resistance] properly criticized Detlef Bald’s conclusion that Hans, Alex, Hubert, and Willi experienced “a massive form of homicide (Tötungsgewalt)” during their tour of duty in Russia. Bald claimed that the young men were shaken up by what they saw and had to work through the events in their letters and diaries.

Tuchel does not dispute Bald’s argument, but he refutes the incidents that Bald cites to support his thesis. “Even in this point, Bald cannot point to ‘White Rose’ sources; rather he relies on a publication regarding experiences on the front lines during World War I.” [World War ONE, you read that right.]

The case of Berul Fridyland reveals how enormous the gaps in White Rose scholarship still are.

Questions? Comments? Chat Room.

Respectfully request that researchers not reinvent the wheel I wrote extensively about in White Rose History: Volume II - Journey to Freedom © 2002, 2007 Exclamation! Publishers and Denise Heap. It's not original research if I've already written about it!