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    A friend of Alex Schmorell's, Lilo grasped the essence of the White Rose, something the majority of historians overlook... Namely, that the origins of the movement were not rooted in a great desire to make a political statement. Rather, these were friends who, late at night over cheap bottles of Chianti, decided to put their political notions into direct action. Without those enduring personal connections, there would have been no White Rose.

    Ramdohr misses a few dates here and there. Her memoirs were penned from memory, years after the war ended. Her book may therefore not be used as a source for exact dates.

    But the stories she weaves are filled with unmistakable love for the people she knew, people who were not an abstract, but who made her days whole with laughter and the struggles of living in a "brown" society. Those of us who would know them now should look to her for an unadorned glimpse of faces we have learned to honor.

Note added 5/30/02: People who fear the truth about the White Rose have had Fürst-Ramdohr's book "banned" from the library of the White Rose Foundation in Munich. But this does not deter the rest of us from continuing to recommend it as one of the most important contributions to White Rose literature. Says Herta Probst (wife of Christoph): "Whenever anyone asks me about the White Rose, I always give them a copy of Lilo Ramdohr's book. She captures the group better than anyone else."

    Added 1/2/2007: Exclamation! Publishers has committed to publication of this book in English translation. Scheduled release date: October 11, 2007, Lilo's 94th birthday. (Should start shipping close to year end, 2007.)

    I was utterly skeptical when I first heard about this new volume a couple of months ago. After all, the Scholl family has a poor track record when it comes to openness and transparency about the famous Scholl siblings, Hans and Sophie. I therefore picked it up, expecting to find infinite ellipses censoring critical passages. And was pleasantly surprised... (continue reading)

    Hirzel takes you inside the Muenster while the congregation sings "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" in a service dedicated to Hitler. She recites the poetry that was part of the un-initiation ceremony when she and Sophie and Elisabeth Scholl were removed from their posts as BDM leaders. In short, she puts you in her shoes and makes you walk more than a mile or two. By the end as you follow her to prison for her illegal and treasonous activities, and as you stand with her on the burning streets of Ulm, you have a much clearer picture of life in the Third Reich.

    If only every historian were as painfully honest as Susanne Hirzel...

    Jens's reputation was firmly established long before her White Rose phase, when she edited the letters of Thomas Mann. This edition of the letters of Hans and Sophie Scholl was her initial contribution to White Rose research, and thankfully, not her last.

    Inge Jens was perhaps the first writer to apply true standards of scholarship to White Rose research. She refused to repeat old legends verbatim, insisting on checking out sources and verifying "facts." This collection of Hans and Sophie's letter and diary entries provided an unusual look at these two persons as human beings, not minor deities.

    The book's only limitation was not a result of any failing of scholarship on the part of Inge Jens, but rather by restricted access to Scholl Archives on the part of Inge Aicher-Scholl. You will understand just how severely Aicher-Scholl has censored the story through the years if you pay close attention to the ellipses in Jens's book. Jens did not willingly edit out those gaps; they were caused by Aicher-Scholl's refusal to supply complete documents.

    Despite the obvious sanitization effort on the part of Inge Aicher-Scholl and Scholl Archives, this book ranks high on the list of must-reads for anyone interested in the White Rose. Personally, I can hardly wait for a "second" edition of this same work, with the gaps filled in. A person can dream, can't she?

    P.S.: The translation by J. Maxwell Brownjohn is pretty... awful. When you read the book in English, remember that Sophie and Hans wrote "naturally", not in the stilted words that Brownjohn used. (I cannot imagine Sophie having used the German equivalent of "torpid" when she simply meant "tired".)

    If you have already read Jens' edition of the letters and diary entries of Hans and Sophie Scholl, you will    be in for a surprise when you pick up this book. Willi Graf's life is put out on the table, complete with flaws and doubts.

    Anneliese Knoop-Graf made no effort to hide anything about her brother. According to Jens, Knoop-Graf told her that if she uncovered anything that Willi had done wrong, she was supposed to publish it. This results in a more complete picture of Willi's life than of anyone else's. When you finish this book, you feel like you know Willi, weaknesses and all. You cannot help but love him for his transparent goodness.

    The only thing I would change about Jens' book? I would like to see her thoroughly researched footnotes appear as sidebars or footnotes. It can be disconcerting to continually flip back and forth to the endnotes to figure out who or what is referenced in a specific statement.

If you’ve followed our work for very long, you know that most “scholarly” works on the White Rose tend to disappoint. Too many researchers still toe the Scholl-centric line and avoid commentary on continuing censorship of Nazi-era documents. Even the alleged documentation that accompanied the recent Sophie Scholl movie was at best highly edited to present her in only the most favorable light, and at worst consciously censored to circumvent critical controversy.

So we opened the package from the scholars in Orenburg, Russia with trepidation, fearing that Igor Khramov (the Schmorell biographer) would have similarly short-changed Alex in his presentation of “Schurik’s” interrogations. Because we already knew that the Gestapo had played Willi Graf against Alex, Alex against Willi, and both against everyone else. Leaving out any of the painful cross-examination would have limited our view of Alex and limited our view of truth.

To Dr. Khramov’s credit, this volume exceeds even our high standards for accuracy with its faithful portrayal of the young freedom fighter with strawberry-blond hair. The Russian National Military Archives granted permission to publish actual facsimiles of the transcripts, accompanied by Russian translation of same. (It should be noted that the quality of those documents greatly surpasses the quality of Bundesarchiv documents, which at times can be all but illegible, especially those in the NJ1704 series.)

Dr. Khramov took his attention to detail one step further. Not only did he ensure that this hard-cover book contained everything in Alex’s files, he also bound in samples of the envelopes with leaflets as they mailed them. Complete with replication of the Hitler postage stamps, postmarks from Munich and Vienna, and the different type “styles” that arose from use of either the Remington or Erica typewriters as well as preferences for addressing an envelope.

This neat little feature – an unexpected bonus – affected us more than we would have believed possible. It makes their act more immediate, something tangible that bridges the gap of time.

To order, contact Dr. Khramov directly at vip_orenburg@inbox.ru. Tell him Ruth Sachs sent you!

    Lechner and a group of students collected marvelous materials that document the human face of the kids who participated in Hitler Youth activities in Ulm. They make no value judgments about who was good and who was evil.

    This factual portrayal of the backdrop for the White Rose kids who called Ulm "home" lends itself to a better understanding of their story. The small book would make an excellent addition to an upper level high school German class.

    Leisner appears to have attempted to cash in on the Sophie Scholl mania following Brigitte Magazine's poll naming Sophie the Woman of the Century. There is little new in Leisner's book. She does at least mention the real reason for Hans Scholl's initial incarceration (homosexual acts with a minor), which did buck extant trends in Scholl literature.

    However, Leisner's book is filled with pap. She misdates events that are easily dated and devotes little time to documenting or verifying her work. For example, she accepted Christian Petry and Richard Hanser's books as gospel, though both were written well before Gestapo archives were opened. While Petry and Hanser got many things right, they were hampered by lack of access to primary source documents.

    Leisner did not face this roadblock, yet she took the easy way out by relying on their outdated biographies without apparently thinking to question whether new information challenged their work. I do not fault Hanser and Petry for their writings, but I do fault Leisner for taking the easy way out and giving us a half-baked biography of a very fascinating young woman.

    Sophie Scholl deserved much better than this book.

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Date of last update: 18 March 2008