Unvarnished words

Today, I won’t talk much. I am simply going to present you with two conflicting world views. No commentary.

All I ask is that you read this post while you are not distracted, so the power of the texts can soak in. I am book-ending the NSDAP platform with words that Christoph Probst’s loved ones spoke in remembrance of a man they loved so dearly. A man who knew that resistance meant losing his life, but who believed that not resisting would mean he was not a good father.

Bernhard Knoop, brother-in-law of Christoph Probst

“When doubts began to arise within the circle of friends of the White Rose regarding the meaning and possibility of success of such an unequal battle, Christl said:

“Just once, that which is human must be exalted. Then one day, the breakthrough will come. We must risk this ‘No’ against a power that not only wishes to eradicate everyone who thinks differently, but that increasingly places itself above that which is at the core and the holiest of the individual. We must do this for the sake of life. No one can take this responsibility from us. National Socialism is the name of an evil, intellectual illness that has befallen our nation. We may not watch and keep silent as it is slowly subverted.

“With these words, Christoph Probst pointed out what he considered to be the goal and direction of his actions.”

We must do this for the sake of life.

The Platform of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party

The platform of the German Workers’ Party is a static platform. The leaders reject the idea of setting new goals after the initial aims laid down in the platform have been achieved simply in order to ensure the continued existence of the party by artificially increasing unrest among the masses.

1. We demand the uniting together of all Germans, on the basis of the people’s right of self-determination, in a greater Germany.

2. We demand equal status for Germany vis à vis other nations and the annulling of the peace treaties drawn up in Versailles and St. Germain.

3. We demand land and property (colonies) to provide food for our nations and settlement areas for our population surplus.

4. Only a fellow German can have right of citizenship. A fellow German can only be so if he is of German parentage, irrespective of religion. Therefore no Jew can be considered to be a fellow German.

5. Those people who have no right of citizenship should only be guests in Germany and must be subject to laws concerning foreigners.

6. Only citizens should have the right to decide the leadership and laws of the state. Therefore we demand that only those with rights of citizenship should have access to employment in any public office, whether it be at national, state, or local level—we oppose the corrupt parliamentary system in which people are employed only on the basis of which party they belong to and not according to their character and ability.

7. We demand that the first priority of the state should be to ensure that its citizens have a job and a decent life. If it should prove impossible to feed the whole population of the state, foreign nationals (with no right of citizenship) should be repatriated.

8. Any further immigration of non-Germans must be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans who have entered the Reich since August 2, 1914 be forced to leave immediately.

9. All citizens must have equal rights and obligations.

10. The first duty of all fellow citizens must be to work, either physically or mentally. The actions of an individual must not run contrary to the general interest and must have consideration for the common good.

THEREFORE WE DEMAND:

11. Abolition of income for unemployed people or for those making no effort.

The breaking of the dominance of invested capital:

12. With regard to the huge physical and personal sacrifice which all wars demand of the people, personal enrichment by means of war must be seen as a crime against the nation. Therefore, we demand the collection of all wartime profits.

13. We demand the nationalization of all publicly owned companies (trusts).

14. We demand profit-sharing by large companies.

15. We demand that generous improvements be made in the old age pension system.

16. We demand the establishment and maintenance of a healthy middle class. The large department stores should be immediately placed under the control of the local authority and should be rented out to small businesses at low prices. All small businesses should have the keenest regard for their deliveries to the nation, the states, or the local authorities.

17. We demand property reform, which is in line with our requirements, and the creation of a law, which would allow the confiscation of property without compensation if this were in the general interest of the nation. We demand the abolition of all property taxes and the banning of all property speculation.

18. We demand an all-out battle against those who damage the common interest by the actions—criminals against the nation, profiteers, racketeers, etc. should be punished by death, without regard for religion or race.

19. We demand the replacement of the system of Roman law, which serves the materialistic world order, by a system of German common law.

20. In order to make it possible for all capable and diligent Germans to receive a good education, thus enabling them to take up leading positions of employment, the state must carry the burden of a thorough overhaul of the national education system. The curricula of all institutions of education must adapt to the practical requirements of life. We must aim to instill national ideas from the earliest age (lessons in citizenship). We demand that the brightest children of poor parents should be supported by the state irrespective of their class or job.

21. The state must ensure the general good health of its citizens, by providing for mothers and children, by banning child labor, by ensuring the development of physical fitness, by making it a legal obligation to participate in sport or gymnastics, and by providing all possible support for associations involved in instructing youth in physical fitness.

22. We demand the abolition of the “Söldnerheer” and its replacement by a people’s army (Volksheer).

23. We demand a legal battle against open political slander and its publication in the press. In order to make possible the establishment of a German press, we demand that: a) newspaper editors and employees whose work appears in German must have German citizenship rights; b) non-German newspapers must have the express permission of the state before they can appear in Germany. They must not be printed in German; and, c) any financial contributions to German newspapers or any influence at all by non-Germans should be banned by law. Furthermore, we demand that any contraventions of the above should lead to the closing down of the newspaper in question and to the immediate expulsion from the Reich of those non-Germans involved. Newspapers that are deemed to be against the common good should be banned. We demand a legal battle against any art and literature that exerts a harmful influence on public life and we demand that all institutions that contravene the afore-mentioned standards should be closed down.

24. We demand freedom of religion in the Reich so long as they do not endanger the position of the state or adversely affect the moral standards of the German race. As such the party represents a positively Christian position without binding itself to one particular faith. The party opposes the materialistic Jewish spirit within and beyond us and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our people can only be achieved on the basis of:

COMMON GOOD BEFORE PERSONAL GAIN.

25. In order to achieve all of the afore-going, we demand the setting up of a strong central administration of the Reich. We demand unrestricted authority for the central parliament over the whole Reich and its organizations. We demand the establishment of professional and industrial chambers to assist the implementation of the laws of the Reich in the states.

The leaders of the party promise to commit themselves fully to the achievement of the above aims, and to sacrifice their lives if need be.

Munich, February 24, 1920.
For the Party Committee: Anton Drexler.
Contributions should be sent to the Head Office: Cornelius Str. 12 (Tel. 236 20).
Business hours: 9-12 am, 2-6 pm.

Michael (“Micha”) Probst, Christoph Probst’s son

“The decision to publish my father’s letters after more than fifty years primarily was based on two reasons: I would like to hand down his message of love to posterity. But I would also like to strip him of a certain hero worship that has become customary in our country from time to time. Human behavior, as he carried it out, has no need of hero worship. Rather, human behavior makes pensive persons more thoughtful and can circumvent new “unculture”—such as always seems to crop up. Therefore my father’s words will conclude this very personal paper. They are found in the leaflet he drafted, the leaflet for whose message he died:

“All Germans shall be sacrificed to the emissaries of hate and extermination. Sacrificed to him who tormented the Jews, eradicated half of the Poles, and who wishes to destroy Russia. Sacrificed to him who took from you freedom, peace, domestic happiness, hope, and gaiety, and gave you inflationary money.

“That shall not, that may not come to pass! Hitler and his regime must fall so that Germany may live. Make up your minds: Stalingrad and destruction, or Tripoli and a future of hope. And when you have decided, act.”

Postscript: Exactly as Herta Probst and her son Micha admonished me in 2002, Micha also told his audience in Gilching that they should not politicize White Rose resistance in modern-day Germany. Please consider his words before affixing “White Rose” onto your resistance and advocacy work in the USA, in the 21st century.

From Micha’s speech:

In addition, politically the White Rose circle has been given many faces in accordance with postwar developments in the two German states. The German Democratic Republic tried to partake of this “anti-Fascist” inheritance. In the Federal Republic of Germany around 1968, the view was widely held that the members of the White Rose had been completely idealistic and politically naïve. For this reason, they were doomed to fail.

I participated in the public discussion for the first time in 1983. The White Rose movie [Verhoeven] that had just been filmed ended with the image of a falling guillotine blade. Subsequently, emotionally charged viewers saw the following words in large letters: “. . . In the opinion of the Federal courts of justice, the verdicts rendered by the People’s Court are just. They are in force to this day.”

This identification of the highest courts in the Federal Republic of Germany with the murderous justice of the Third Reich appalled me even more when the film was shown in what was then the East Bloc—in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and in East Germany. It therefore left the impression that the Federal Republic of Germany kept to the track of the Nazi dictatorship. I called this statement made by the film’s authors “disinformation of disinformers.”

Reflection

So now I continue to face the same problem, namely how the memory of my father can be protected from political and personal control, but simultaneously from corruption and deformation. In so doing, I absolutely do not misunderstand the meaning and relevance of the historical argument, when it is capably and responsibly utilized. But I emphatically oppose misuse of historical personages for documentation and assertion of personal-political agendas and beliefs.

That is why I consider it improper to use White Rose resistance to achieve current political goals. Family members and survivors of the White Rose should responsibly articulate their own political viewpoints, but they should not claim the moral authority of resistance in the era of National Socialism. The height of historical demagoguery was reached when a book compared Hans and Sophie Scholl to RAF terrorists. The same applies when a group of young people calls themselves the White Rose and—using this symbol—believes they have the right to cut down high voltage towers.

The concept of “resistance” to totalitarianism can only be defined in the context of a dictatorial, unconstitutional government. That kind of resistance is carried out at the peril of one’s own life or the basis for one’s existence. That kind of resistance cannot and may not be compared with “resistance” in a democratic country in which there is no risk of losing one’s life. The latter has been called “the resistance of small change” (Arthur Kaufmann).

It shall not come to pass that resistance during the Third Reich falls victim to historical forgetfulness. As “processed memory” (Peter Steinbach), it is rather much more a message for the future from a dark time. It served and continues to serve the foundation of a democratic, constitutional state in Germany, above all political parties and party lines. This places opportunities at our disposal for confronting misuse of power while it is still in the bud.

In consideration of all the distortions and degenerations that have befallen “resistance” and its conception after World War II, it is particularly dear to my heart to call attention to the spiritual and intellectual dimensions of the White Rose in general, and that of my father in particular. Therefore I have decided to compile and publish my father’s remaining letters, along with the beautiful photographs he took as well as the ones that include him. My father shall finally emerge from among the forgotten ones and speak for himself.

Sources:

Bernhard Knoop and Micha Probst’s remembrances—Volkmann, Robert, and Gernot Eschrich, Peter Schubert (Ed.). “…damit Deutschland weiterlebt”: Christoph Probst 1919 – 1943. Gilching: Germany: Christoph-Probst-Gymnasium, 2000. Translation © 2002 Denise Elaine Heap. Original German document used by permission.

NSDAP platform: Questions on German History. English edition of Fragen an die deutsche Geschichte. Bonn: German Bundestag Press and Information Centre, 1984.

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You can find more about these powerful words 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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