“…damit Deutschland weiterlebt!”: Christoph Probst (1919-1943). Ed. Robert Volkmann, Gernot Eschrich, and Peter Schubert. Gilching, Germany: Christoph-Probst-Gymnasium Gilching, 2000.

A collection of essays and photographs about Christoph Probst, this brilliantly executed volume provides keen insights into the group of friends we call the White Rose. Yes, it focuses almost solely on “Christl”, but the memories are recited by people who were actually there, who actually knew the major players, who actually laughed with and cried over and fought with and fought for the better-known friends.

Because of this, the intimacy and immediacy of their words grabs you by the throat and will not let go.

As in Lilo Fürst-Ramdohr’s Freundschaften in der Weissen Rose, the Probst book presents the students and their mentors as human beings first and foremost. By the time you turn the last page, you “get it”: These were not politician-wannabes; not one of them had a well-crafted political or military solution to the Holocaust. The friends of the White Rose were just that: Friends. They knew their country was in trouble, they knew that Germans were murdering Jews and Poles and Roma and Sinti. They knew they were being asked to support policies that were flat-out wrong. And they couldn’t keep silent. “So Germany may survive!”

The anthology contains three essays that are must-reads. The first, a 1946 document penned by Christl’s sister Angelika. The beloved brother shines through in every word. We also learn how it felt when the Probst family heard of Christl’s unexpected beheading. This is a highly personal article, made more poignant by the 1946 date of its writing.

The second is a transcription of a 1983 speech delivered by Bernhard Knoop, Angelika’s ex-husband, Anneliese Graf’s (now-deceased) spouse, and former teacher and confidant of Christoph Probst. He initiates us into Christl’s way of thinking, into the intellectual bases for what would become informed dissent. Interestingly, he began the closing segment of his discourse with the warning that Christl’s virtues should not be overemphasized, lest his memory become frozen in time like a statue, giving off as it were a blinding glare that obscures the truth.

He was a genuine, endearing, and lovable person, and that also means that he more or less had his small and great weaknesses, imperfections, shortcomings, and inadequacies, as we all do to one extent or another. The ancient Greeks aptly noted … that we mere mortals stand in stark contrast to the gods. In the eyes of Bernhard Knoop, that is a good thing indeed.

Third, Michael Probst’s 1993 essay should be read aloud in every history, German, political science, and Holocaust seminar on the planet. As with his aunt Angelika’s treatise, Michael Probst bares his soul in speaking of a father he never knew (he was three years old when Christl was executed). The emotional side of (family) history is inescapable. Inconceivable consequences for his mother and siblings, unbearable heartache for years, tears shed and withheld, it’s all there in his writing.

For us as scholars and historians, Michael Probst goes one step further. He addresses the problematic historiography of the White Rose, how and when the Scholl-centric legend began alienating every family but the Scholls. He minces no words in describing how the Probst family and others were systematically excluded from official commemorations, how everyone but Hans and Sophie Scholl was marginalized. And why.

Anyone who reads Michael Probst’s paper remains without excuse if they continue to support the legend to the detriment of truth.

Finally, Peter Schubert’s collection of reminisces sparkles with the joy of the White Rose friendships, and with the sweet laughter that remembering Christl brought his friends. Tidbits from Dieter Sasse, his half-brother, from his classmates and teachers, and of course from his darling wife Herta – the only complaint? Too short.

Although you know his tragic end, reading their ‘love notes’ has the same effect as turning the pages of a favorite childhood photo album. Christl emerges as a silly, serious, happy, depressed, thoughtful, distressed loving father and playground pal. Their memories remind us that the best (and the worst) of human history has been shaped by… mere mortals. Mortals who have infinite capacity to love. Even when that love means saying No! to injustice so loudly that the laughter is extinguished, except in memory.

What a legacy Christoph Probst left his family!