Willi Graf, Werner Scholl, Otl Aicher, Sophie Scholl, Lisa Grote... and fascism

Willi Graf, the Concordat, and New Germany.

The first time we see someone associated with White Rose resistance struggling with fascism and what it meant for him personally? Willi Graf, September 1933. Since Willi’s earliest correspondence and diary entries are not fully available to the public, I cannot say for certain whether he were was aware of Cardinal Pacelli’s Lateran Treaty of 1929. Pursuant to that treaty between the Vatican (acting as a nation-state) and Italy, Italy’s Catholic Center Party was disbanded and its leader exiled.

In exchange for Mussolini’s recognition of the Roman Catholic Church as the sole religion of Italy, Cardinal Pacelli and Pope Pius XI decreed that all Catholics should vote for the Fascist Party (Mussolini). In their eyes, Mussolini was a man sent from God. Back in 1929, long before the National Socialists knew any kind of power in Germany, Hitler had written to Cardinal Pacelli, praising this Lateran Treaty.

In 1933, Cardinal Pacelli granted Adolf Hitler his personal version of that treaty, becoming the first nation to “do business” with the new National Socialist government. The full text of the Pacelli-Hitler Reichskonkordat or Concordat was printed in all aligned German newspapers in late July 1933.

Prior to the Concordat, Cardinal Pacelli had agreed to disband Catholic Centrists, ridding Hitler of a political party that had usually voted with his enemies, the Social Democrats. Now the two leaders divvied up the spoils, clearly delineating each man’s realm of authority. Hitler would agree not to bother the Catholic Church and would cede control of German Catholics to Rome, if German Catholics would be loyal to Hitler.

Additionally, Catholic youth groups were supposed to be protected under the terms of the Concordat, as long as they engaged solely in religious pursuits. But no Catholics or Catholic organizations were to mix themselves in political affairs as Catholics.

Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber, Archbishop of Munich and Freising, the cleric in Munich who also participated in the negotiations surrounding the Concordat, wrote Hitler a personal letter after its signing. He said, What the old Reichstag and parties did not accomplish in sixty years, your statesmanlike foresight has done in six months. For Germany’s prestige in East and West … this handshake with the papacy, the greatest moral power in the world, is a feat of immeasurable blessing.

German bishops ratified the Concordat in August of 1933. They celebrated the event with Nazi flags and songs in St. Hedwig’s Church in Berlin.

Less than a month later, news about the Concordat made its way to Saarbrücken. Willi Graf and his New Germany friends learned that because of their Church’s decision, New Germany was no longer an option. No Catholic youth groups. Hitler Youth only. Their Church had sold them out.

And then they heard — miracle! — that it did not mean they had to join Hitler Youth after all! By November 1933, the national director of New Germany said it was all right to continue hiking, singing, praying as New Germany. What a relief!

And then a month after that, their hopes were dashed when they heard that if they wished to hike, they would have to join Hitler Youth. Where they could not pray.

Towards the end of 1933, as teenagers in Saarbrücken experienced the early push-pull of German fascism, someone made them aware of the writings of Johannes Maaβen (alt. Maassen). As the holidays approached, Willi Graf considered Maaβen’s challenge: Were they as Catholics prepared to suffer for their faith? Could Hitler be the antichrist? Was the Third Reich the precursor of the Great Tribulation?

Willi and his friends read Maaβen’s words carefully.

By December 1934, Germany had become less and less free. Clergy, eager to gain Hitler’s favor, seemingly tried to one-up one another to anticipate Hitler’s every wish. Catholic, Lutheran, Methodists — it made no difference. They did not wish to lose power. Retaining their power meant doing whatever Adolf Hitler wanted. And doing so more fervently, more radically, more openly than other clergy. The happier Adolf was, the better the odds they stayed in power. (Remember, even to this day there is no separation of church and state in Germany.)

Willi Graf and his New Germany friends therefore were aware that continuing to meet as Not-Hitler Youth imperiled their personal safety. But courageous words, once again from Johannes Maaβen, gave them strength, even as their anger and disillusionment grew.

The Church has suffered equally under terrors birthed from within: False doctrines that Christians themselves have propagated. False doctrines that threaten to destroy the true center of Christian philosophy and which will counterfeit Christian history in a fable of smoke and blood and the souls of the races. (Johannes Maaβen, December 1934)

Maaβen did something that few in his era would: He refused to blame Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini for the injustices perpetrated in the name of fascism. No. The responsibility lay squarely with each individual, with Catholics who condoned injustice in the name and under the banner of their faith.

Werner Scholl, Otl Aicher, and revolution.

Werner Scholl had contemplated revolution and active resistance to the Nazi regime since at least September 1939. But it would be February or March 1942 before Sophie Scholl would fully grasp her younger brother’s viewpoint.

Werner’s mentor in his “revolutionary, antifascist” political evolution stemmed from his close friendship to a classmate named Hermann Heisch. Both Hermann and Werner had grown increasingly alienated from the boys in Hans Scholl’s gungho Hitler Youth A-Team. Hermann introduced Werner to his older brother-in-law, Richard Scheringer. In the earliest days of the NSDAP, Scheringer had been an outspoken Nazi.

But in 1931, Richard Scheringer disavowed his Nazi roots and transformed into a brash, vociferous Communist. A thorn in Adolf Hitler’s side, if ever there was one.

Scheringer worked the Dürrnhof farm near Ulm. Three of the Scholl siblings spent a fair amount of time on that farm, helping with harvest, conversing around a campfire. Werner was the first sibling to do so, quickly followed by Sophie. Sophie’s last week in Ulm before the arrests, she visited her sister Elisabeth, who served as nanny for the Scheringers’ large brood.

Because of their association with the Scheringers, Werner, Sophie, and Elisabeth (but not Hans and Inge) were painted with the Communist brush throughout the region — Werner from 1938 on, Sophie and Elisabeth somewhat later.

Since Werner Scholl has been all but written out of the Scholl family history, we know about his political viewpoint from his (and Sophie’s) good friend Otl Aicher. Summer of 1939, Werner stopped talking about how much he hated Nazis and started demonstrating his displeasure. Otl Aicher referred to his friend Werner’s actions as “cold-blooded daring.”

He earned Otl’s immense respect when he bound a swastika’d blindfold over the eyes of “Lady Justice” located in front of the courthouse in Ulm. “She stood there, great, magnificent, a bronze scale in her stone hand, and now she had a rag with the Party symbol over her eyes.”

Werner Scholl also disrupted a service honoring military heroes as it was underway at the Münsterplatz one summer night, while ceremonial taps were being played. He set off a foghorn, the kind used by the railroad, causing an earsplitting explosion that destroyed the solemnity of the occasion. It is amazing that he escaped unscathed.

These were not merely boyish pranks. Otl also remembered that in the classes where they knew they would be “safe,” he and Werner relished embroiling their fellow students in debates over Nietzsche’s philosophy or German history. When they could — which was not often — they found that regaining that little bit of control over their education made the day worthwhile. In other classes, where professors toed the Party line, they would get back essays and homework with notations to make their political leanings “disappear.”

But when Germany invaded Poland? Werner Scholl grew deadly serious. His siblings were still firmly in the ranks of Hitler Youth, perhaps a little disillusioned because they personally had been treated so “unfairly.” Neither Hans nor Sophie saw past a fake radio broadcast and illegal invasion to deeper, meatier matters. Sophie had just started along that path. It would take Hans a few more years.

Werner Scholl, on the other hand, was much grieved. Werner and Otl, along with a third friend, went for a walk on that September day in 1939 that changed the world.

Werner came straight to the point and asked Otl to help him form a resistance movement to sabotage the war effort. He believed that Hitler stood a good chance of winning an all-out war unless railroads were bombed and mines were laid from behind their own lines.

Otl tried to dissuade him from it, pointing out that resistance for the sake of resistance was not justifiable. He admitted as an adult that his words to Werner were driven by cowardice, by a strong desire to survive the war. He believed Werner’s proposed resistance would fail because of the effective network of neighborhood spies that had been put into place years before. How could Werner sabotage anything if the local block warden reported all suspicious activities?

When Sophie wrote Fritz Hartnagel on September 5, You and your men must have plenty to do now. I just cannot comprehend that people’s lives are under constant threat from others. I will never be able to understand it, and I think it is terrible. Do not tell me again that it is for the Fatherland — those were Werner’s words, as recorded for us by his good friend Otl. Sophie listened to her little brother.

According to Otl, Werner went further: Whoever saw what the Fatherland was capable of doing was unable to call it that any longer. He who called it ‘Fatherland’ was already so twisted that he was too blind to see what it was doing. He no longer saw those deeds.

What Germany was doing, what Germany was capable of doing, was fascist through and through. To rid their homeland of fascism required a revolution.

Leaflets and the notion of revolution.

As spring 1942 turned to summer, this idea of revolution repeatedly showed up in the thoughts of the students who wrote and distributed the Leaflets of the White Rose. Willi Graf was reunited with two student-soldier friends from those hard days in the Black Forest, before they headed to the Western Front. Willi, Hubert Furtwängler, Adalbert Grundel — Bertl, aka “The Revolutionary” because of his obsession with the topic Immunity Against the Nazis — these three comrades drew close as they contemplated current events.

The leaflets voiced the students’ desire for a revolution that would overthrow Hitler’s regime. In the first leaflet, Hans Scholl called out fascism directly. If everyone waits till someone else makes a start, the messengers of the avenging Nemesis will draw incessantly closer. And then the last sacrifice will have been thrown senselessly into the jaws of the insatiable demon. Therefore in this last hour every individual must arm himself as best he can, aware of his responsibility as a member of the Christian and western civilization. He must work against the hostage of humanity, against fascism and all similar systems of an absolute State.

In Leaflet II, Alexander Schmorell angered prominent Nazis by calling them “fascist criminals.” In his expert opinion, psychologically profiling the author of the second leaflet for the Gestapo, Prof. Richard Harder inferred that the writer must be a Communist.

Alexander Schmorell’s section of the third leaflet gave fellow citizens concrete examples of ways they could sabotage the Nazi war machine. Philosophy wouldn’t cut it. They needed action. This was necessary so “fascist Germany” would not win the war. If fascist Germany were to win this war, the consequences would be unfathomable and frightful. The first concern of every German should not be a military victory over Bolshevism, but rather the defeat of the National Socialists.

Werner Scholl’s legacy lived on as his siblings together with Alexander Schmorell, Willi Graf, and their friends consciously fought against fascism.

Sophie Scholl, Otl Aicher, and a gutsy discussion of the church and fascism.

Late December 1942, Sophie Scholl met up with Otl Aicher. He had gone AWOL, deserted, pretending to be ill, then simply left the military. Nuns, nurses in Bad Hall had taken him in. Apparently without telling her parents, Sophie departed Ulm on December 22 to visit her soulmate.

Otl had endeared himself to the Sisters by volunteering in the kitchen. Once Sophie arrived, the Sisters turned a blind eye to their comings and goings. Otl set up mattresses on a balcony so the twosome could bask in the warm sun, undisturbed. The good Sisters told him simply that he should use the kitchen entrance, so they would “see nothing.”

Sophie told Otl about Christoph Probst and Willi Graf, two friends she said he had to meet. He promised to come to Munich for that purpose. (Otl already knew Traute and Alex.)

Otl then told her about the Russian front. It’s unclear if he were aware that Fritz Hartnagel was still in Stalingrad as they spoke. Otl spared no punches and recounted Nazi atrocities towards the Russians and anyone they encountered. “Anything I touch on behalf of this State supports a crime,” Otl mused. “Everyone who fights the Nazis helps to shorten the war and mitigate the disaster that awaits us.”

That night in Sophie’s hotel room, the two friends talked late into the night. Stalingrad. War. Friends. Death. Sophie told Otl that they wanted to “send a political signal that Hitler could be defeated.”

In 1985, Otl recalled this conversation as if it had taken place yesterday.

The value of a person can be seen in the dignity of his death. How and for what a person will die defines that person. Every individual has the right to an honorable death that belongs to himself alone. That the Nazis stole this dignity from millions of people turned them into cynics of a naked insanity.

We tried to determine what dignity or honor the death of one of these friends could possibly have, a friend who had perhaps already fallen in Stalingrad.

He and Sophie decided that they would be willing to sacrifice even their closest friends to death, if it meant that Germany could be saved. They did not like what that meant in real terms. It was something they intuited more than believed.

Over dinner the next day, the discussion took an even more serious turn. Otl observed that it was ironic they were sitting in the heart of fascism, the middle of the original fascist country, Austria. “Linz is close by. Braunau is a little further west, halfway between here and Munich. ‘He’ was born in Braunau. He went to school in the upper grades in Linz. He got his start in Munich.”

Sophie floored Otl with her response. “How could it be that it’s precisely the Catholic countries and states that seem to have such a strong affinity to fascism? Bavaria, Austria, Italy, Spain, Portugal.” They talked long and hard, establishing a definition for fascism before discussing.

Note: The Council on Foreign Relations defines fascism thusly – [F]ascism is a mass political movement that emphasizes extreme nationalism, militarism, and the supremacy of both the nation and the single, powerful leader over the individual citizen. This model of government stands in contrast to liberal democracies, which support individual rights, competitive elections, and political dissent.

In many ways, fascist regimes are revolutionary because they advocate the overthrow of existing systems of government and the persecution of political enemies. However, when it advances their interests, such regimes can also be highly conservative in their championing of traditional values related to the role of women, social hierarchy, and obedience to authority. And although fascist leaders typically claim to support the everyman, in reality their regimes often align with powerful business interests.

Apparently Otl did most of the talking initially. He boiled fascism down to its essence — authoritarianism. They did not have time for niceties. Otl, a devout Catholic, tried to find examples to counter Sophie’s claim about Catholic states and fascism. He struggled. Otl: Lamennais, Félicité Lamennais! He had been a republican, little r. — Sophie: Yes, but Lamennais had been excommunicated. — Otl: But his “disciple” Carl Muth, he too advocated for a republican form of government, even to the point of writing in favor of separation of church and state. — Sophie: Oh yes, he had been threatened with excommunication too.

Sophie continued her argument. She believed that the true test of a ‘Christian society’ “was not how a government treated its leadership, but how it related to the lowly and disenfranchised, to minorities.”

As usual when these two friends debated religious topics, Otl defended his Catholic faith, with Sophie unflinchingly going on the offensive. The more Otl floundered, trying to find excuses for fascism in Catholic nations, the stronger Sophie spoke. “There has never been a government based on Christian principles, since the powerless have always been trampled underfoot and the powerful have been honored.” She was adamant.

Otl would not give up just yet. History, history. Surely he could find a historical example. What about German enlightenment, which tried to bring ‘Christian’ principles into the political arena? Oh right. The unions and political parties had embraced the enlightenment, while the churches — both Catholic and Lutheran — “anointed despots.” Otl had to acknowledge that “they [clerics] were incapable of recognizing Christian values if they developed outside the walls of the Church.”

Otl recalled that Sophie brought the debate back to reality, pointing out that he continued to argue theory, but theory did not change the world. If something does not exist in concrete form, it is not real. “Reality stands in judgment on theory.”

Still he would not stop his apologia. Until he had his own “aha” moment. Following is an excerpt from White Rose History, Volume II.

[R]egimes needed theory to mask what they were really doing. A ruler can say he wants peace while waging war. He can throw around the word “liberty” while doing everything possible “to put a ring in the nose of its citizens.” Propaganda, school curricula, newspaper editorials, Otl threw these out as illustrations of political theories that were used to further illegitimate goals and aims of corrupt governments.

“Public welfare before private good, public service, not self.” Otl said those words exemplified how Hitler’s government employed theoretical words that sounded nice to enslave the German nation to his fraudulent regime and criminal deeds.

No sooner had he uttered that phrase than he and Sophie looked at one another. “Our conversation began to be painful, opening rippling wounds.” Because it dawned on them that Hitler’s mantra was nothing more than a direct quote from Aristotle, a quote that Augustine had repeated in his theological treatises. And they – especially Sophie – thought Augustine all but walked on water.

Aristotle, and after him Augustine and Hitler, had elevated Government to the level of a “Higher Something, a Superior Matter, a Higher Category of Existence.” There was nothing more dangerous, nothing more insidious than the Aristotelian theories of form and substance embodied in a government, any government.

For Aristotle – and Augustine, and Hitler – had it backwards. If the good of the private citizen did not far, far exceed the good of the nation, the nation could not be whole.

No amount of public welfare is greater than the securing of the liberty of the individual, the securing of private welfare, the securing of the dignity, the honor, of the least citizen.

It is at this point that a Christian state (if one is even possible) must begin, they said, by turning upside down the Aristotelian principles in order to favor the individual, the individual person, even the individual person who represents a minority, regardless whether it is the minority of race, of culture, of religion, or of ideology. Those minorities outrank the State. Even those individuals whom society forgets will stand before the throne of God, but no government will do so. (Sophie especially argued this point.) The State is not the Higher Form of Existence, but rather that miserable human being.

Sophie told Otl about a passage Hans had found in Schiller’s Solon that echoed that sentiment, a passage written “when Schiller was still a republican.” It said that the State existed to fulfill the destiny of mankind, namely the development of all the forces that are inherent within mankind.

Otl was familiar with the extract Sophie mentioned and pounced on Schiller’s deprecation of the military state in Sparta to return to his reflections on Aristotle. That slogan “Service Before Self” bothered him. How the hell, said Otl, had Hitler been able to so thoroughly pervert what should have been an innocuous catchphrase to convince an entire nation it was all right to exterminate someone simply because they were of an “other” race? “The common good proved itself to be the private interests of the ruling class.”

Which brought them right back to Sophie’s question: Why the Catholic countries? She said, “Freedom is always the affair of the single, living, thinking, active individual. The State is not free, only people can be free. Freedom is always the concrete freedom of the individual.”

Otl later said that Sophie remained quite adamant on this point. “She began trying to test it with facts. She did not trust words, pompous words. She did not trust philosophies, pompous philosophies. And she did not trust theories. She thought it was a particularly German affliction, perhaps ‘a particularly bourgeois affliction, or one peculiar to our time,’ that we had hopelessly separated action from thought, theory from reality. We satisfied ourselves with thoughts that we could observe, and we found delight in sentiments that required action.”

Wow, Otl thought. Sophie! She had come a long way from their conversations in Ulm half a year before when she had contemplated suicide. “I perceived Sophie as a moral authority. She insisted on consistency between thought and action. In the manner in which such consistency was achieved, she saw the degree of the development of an individual.”

They chatted some more about the topic, Otl finally coming around to respond to the Why Sophie had posed at the beginning. “Freedom is possible only when it can express itself. It was not only the Romans who borrowed this [Aristotelian] form of government, but the [Holy Roman Empire] of the Middle Ages too, based on the Augustinian definitions of a Divine State. And to this day, the popes defend that form of government.” The problem therefore rested with that insufferable mixture of religion and state, whereby the clergy had gotten a taste of power and refused to let it go. Change had to start at the top.

But Sophie was not content with only one question. Would there be a revolution? Would someone be able to overthrow Hitler’s regime and install a more honorable government? In Germany? After the war? …

Seriously, said Sophie, what should happen to the Nazis after the war? Sophie’s response to her own question stuck with Otl.

Sophie said she thought that everyone would be forced to wear their Party Number on their back and help rebuild a bullet-riddled Europe. Their sentence would correspond to the length of time they had been Party members. ‘We were laughing, yet we were dead serious.’

They easily agreed that if Germany were to be healthy and strong, a country that honored its individual citizens and preserved liberty and justice for all, it would have to be dismantled down to its bare bones and reformed from scratch. In other words, it would have to be totally dissolved before it could be reinvented. …

Will there be a revolution? Will there be a revolution? They could not escape this question as they ate dinner, sat together, walked, and talked in Bad-Hall-near-“his”-birthplace. Will there be a revolution?

And what would be its basis? ‘I thought we Germans had been raised to be such passive vassals that had eradicated the individual as a subject of history.’ Maybe a revolution would succeed, one that was simultaneous with the fall of the Third Reich.

Otl: Maybe our military opponents, maybe the Americans and the English who were about ready to declare victory, maybe they had enough power and political might. If they did, then instead of savoring a military victory, perhaps they would be willing to come into our house and unleash a wave of liberation, liberation that would wash over our house like a bucket full of water, not like a damp cloth. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

But who should start a revolution? Who?

Sophie and Otl’s discussion harkened back to a time less than a year earlier. Snuggled under the covers of a simple inn in Freiburg, Otl had talked Sophie down from her Augustinian-induced wormness, that wormness that fed her suicidal ideations. Sophie confided that she could no longer pray, that she believed herself unworthy of love.

Otl — who knew Augustine far better than Sophie did, including Augustine’s shortcomings and fallacies — pointed out that Augustine’s vision of government, of our place in it, is backwards. It assumes the pope at the top, with a rigid hierarchy beneath.

Otl tried to tell Sophie that Confession painted a false picture of God, that the real Jesus was a “small God” — not in an attempt to denigrate the person, only the organization. Carl Muth’s lessons about the separation of church and state had inoculated Otl against illusions of grandeur. He believed the Catholic Church had failed its members with its insatiable greed for power, and always more power.

The great God [Augustine’s God], the God of trumpets and armies, the God of nations and collectives, never appeared in Galilee. The God Jesus was a man with whom one can speak.

Women make the best antifascists... Lisa Grote.

After the arrests and executions of Christoph Probst, Hans Scholl, and Sophie Scholl, the small ragtag band of antifascists around Lisa Grote continued to copy out (by hand) and distribute White Rose leaflets in Munich. Like the White Rose friends, they had been emboldened by the January 13 student protest.

By March 16, their enthusiasm was flagging. University students openly supported the Nazi regime, mocking the Scholls and Christoph Probst. Lisa Grote’s friends disbanded, ceased their efforts. “Why did no one run screaming through the streets in those days? And I ask, why did not we do so?”

From a very safe distance, Thomas Mann praised the actions of the White Rose students. Good, wonderful people! You should not have died in vain, you should not be forgotten. In Germany, the Nazis have erected shrines to dirty rowdies, to mean-spirited killers. The German revolution, the real revolution, will tear those shrines down and immortalize your names in their stead. Because even as night still lay over Germany and Europe, you knew that it did and you proclaimed: “A new faith in freedom and honor is dawning.” So wrote Thomas Mann from the comfort of his beautiful mansion, located at 1550 San Remo Drive, Pacific Palisades, California.

I'm with Lisa.

So yes, there was a revolution against fascism brewing. Initially unsuccessful.

There were too few workers, too disjointed, too spread out over too much distance, too disconnected by political ideology to effectively rid their country of fascism. Those who were democrats would not work with those who were republicans would not work with those who were socialists would not work with those who were communists would not work with those who were federalists would not work with those who were monarchists would not work with those who were parliamentarians would not work with those who were theocratic would not work with those who were militaristic.

They all knew they wanted freedom, justice. Far too few were willing to do the hard work. It’s easy to gripe and groan about injustice. From a distance. I include myself with those who find it difficult to do the hard work.

I’m with Lisa. Why did no one run screaming through the streets in those days? Today? And I ask, why don’t we do so? Why don’t I do so when I witness injustice?

And why, oh why, are we not screaming at the top of our lungs about the damage to our beautiful wall, that “separation of church and state” that prevents theologians from gaining the sort of devastating power that weakened Germany, that destroyed it to its core?

To reiterate: They chatted some more about the topic, Otl finally coming around to respond to the Why Sophie had posed at the beginning. “Freedom is possible only when it can express itself. It was not only the Romans who borrowed this [Aristotelian] form of government, but the [Holy Roman Empire] of the Middle Ages too, based on the Augustinian definitions of a Divine State. And to this day, the popes defend that form of government.” The problem therefore rested with that insufferable mixture of religion and state, whereby the clergy had gotten a taste of power and refused to let it go. Change had to start at the top.

Postscript #1: If you are neither Lutheran nor Catholic and think that you are off the hook with this post, think again. It is not the identity of the religion that corrupts a faith once it gains power.

Think about the inordinate amount of authority the Orthodox Church exerts in modern-day Russia, and the authority it enjoyed under the Czars.

Think about the countries where Sharia law reigns supreme, and the crimes against humanity wherever radical Islam is the ruling entity.

Think about the horrific crimes against humanity in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka — different religions, but the same crushing of one’s religious rivals.

Think about warlords in Africa who wield religion — often evangelical Christianity — even as they rape and pillage and murder.

Think about the United States, think about Israel, think about Egypt, think about Lebanon, think about Turkey, where ongoing struggles consume the citizenry, where politicians seek to gain and hold power by promoting one religion or belief system over another. In the USA, Israel, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, things have not yet reached a point of no return. If THE PEOPLE will push back, we can yet salvage the homelands we love.

Sophie was right. Change must start at the top. But Otl was right as well. “The revolution” starts at the bottom. With us.

Postscript #2: The roles played by Cardinal Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) and Cardinal Faulhaber in the Concordat and the devastation that meant for justice in Germany make it hard for me to stomach the postwar revisionism those two men have enjoyed.

When I toured the DP-Lager in Wolfratshausen in March 2024 and saw that it faces onto Faulhaberstraβe, it was almost too much. A thoughtful, thought-provoking museum dedicated to the memories of Jewish survivors who lived there after the war. Brutalized. Trying to recover. Having lost everything.

With Archbishop Faulhaber’s name in its face. Poor optics.

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© 2025 Denise Elaine Heap. Please contact us for permission to quote. Image credits: Top photo, Basilica in Altenstadt, Germany. Photo © 2024 Denise Elaine Heap. Street sign near the DP-Lager, Photo © 2024 Denise Elaine Heap. Please contact us for permission to use.

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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