Genealogy as historical research tool

When writing White Rose History, Volume II, I was curious about Katharina Schüddekopf’s family. Her descriptions of a divided household – father an ardent Nazi, mother ardent anti-Nazi – followed by reporting from the Gestapo in Magdeburg, caused the Munich Gestapo to consider Käthe a dangerous suspect. And rightly so.

If you haven’t read White Rose History, Volume II, here’s a snapshot of Traute Lafrenz’s cherished friend Käthe.

Fresh faces from the student body also graced the circle that was becoming the White Rose. Was it spring? Was it Christl’s return home? Was it Sophie’s breezy personality that made Hans and Schurik more amenable to including “outsiders” among those who talked treason?

Traute Lafrenz introduced one of these strangers to the group. She had met Katharina Schüddekopf in a language seminar given by Professor Huber. Neither Katharina nor Traute could later say exactly what got them to talking. But Katharina – Käthe to her friends – admired Traute’s wide range of interests and thought she was very gifted.

The two women had much in common. Like Traute, Käthe had grown up in a home where her father had been a gung-ho Nazi. But while Traute’s father was a highly respected civil servant and accountant, Käthe’s father worked for Krupp Grusonwerke in Magdeburg. That Krupp division manufactured Germany’s mid-size tank, the SdKfz 161. Since research, development, and design were farmed out to other companies (along with the manufacture of individual tank components), Käthe’s father would have been part of the team charged with maximizing production. And indeed, for the production year ending with the time of his death in February 1942, Krupp Grusonwerke had increased assembly of the SdKfz 161 by about 25%.

Käthe’s life had been anything but easy. Born with diplegia (a form of cerebral palsy where muscle growth is delayed and leg muscles are short), she had always had difficulty walking. Doctors called it a dislocated hip. It had prevented her from participating in the “normal” activities of the League of German Girls and Reich Labor Service.

Her parents’ home had been badly split by Hitler’s rise to power. Käthe’s father became a member of the National Socialist Party on May 1, 1937, the same day that Traute Lafrenz’s father’s membership was finalized. Both men had applied early on and were accepted in the first batch of new members after January 31, 1933.

That did not sit at all well with Käthe’s mother (also named Katharina Schüddekopf, nee Ohlmeier). Traute’s mother had gladly joined the National Socialist Women’s League, but Käthe’s mother adamantly refused. Not only was Mrs. Katharina Schüddekopf relentlessly stubborn in her insistence that she would have nothing to do with any National Socialist organization, she also made a big deal out of refusing to participate in collections for money, furs, and clothes sponsored by the NSDAP. Further, Mrs. Katharina Schüddekopf persisted in regularly attending Mass and living as a strict Catholic. These things increased her visibility as someone opposed to Nazism, and the Gestapo in Magdeburg had kept her in their sights.

Initially, Käthe had tried to please her mother by going to church with her, and her father by contributing to National Socialist causes. She dutifully joined the NS League of Students when she enrolled at the University of Berlin (coincidentally, she just missed meeting Traute during Traute’s sole semester in Berlin, as Käthe left for Vienna the same semester that Traute arrived). She even volunteered her services to the Reich propaganda department while she was in Berlin, translating documents from the French and quotations from philosophical writings of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer.

Somehow, Käthe put an end to her inner conflict. Perhaps the resolution came after the year she spent at the University of Vienna, where her older sister Anna lived with her husband Dr. Allinger-Csollich, who was a prosecutor for the Reich district attorney’s office. The only mention Käthe ever made of the Allinger-Csollich family came during the Gestapo interrogation a year later when they specifically questioned her about siblings. Otherwise, it was as though Anna did not exist.

Before Traute met Käthe in May 1942 – and probably well before the death of Käthe’s father in February 1942 of a middle ear infection – Käthe likewise had piqued the attention of the Gestapo in Magdeburg. Their files noted that when she was at home, she too attended church regularly and made a big deal out of not joining the NSDAP collection efforts. An agent sarcastically noted that “the student Katharina Schüddekopf takes after her mother, while her sister takes after her father.”

Like Traute, Käthe registered for a heavy dose of Professor Huber’s classes. (It is, in fact, surprising that the two women had not met the previous year.) For Käthe, his courses represented an almost perfect match for her triple major of musicology, philosophy, and French. Although she never stated so in any document or interview, it is possible that Käthe transferred to the University of Munich solely on the basis of his reputation.

Whatever the similarities or differences between the two students, Traute met Käthe at a time when she needed a friend. Badly.

The rabbit hole that was Käthe’s home life? I found its entrance on Ancestry, where Marcel Ohlmeier added anecdotes about Mrs. Katharina Schüddekopf nee Ohlmeier. The information provided by Käthe’s relative gave me footholds that enabled me to explore further. Small details, but they opened the door to so much more.

[For more information about Käthe’s central role in White Rose resistance, check this out.]

In August 2000, I wrote an article entitled “In Gramma’s Attic, on Family Trees” for Children’s Writer Newsletter, then a monthly publication of Institute of Children’s Literature. The concluding paragraphs, targeting writers of kid lit and YA books, hold true for nonfiction as well.

The beauty of genealogical information is its accessibility. Whether you are writing about France, Texas settlers struggling with a hostile land, or Jewish families during the Holocaust, you can find foundational materials to jumpstart your creativity.

It’s all there, in that gramma’s attic where we record our family histories and briefly tell the story that eventually links us all together: In our genealogies.

Just as you must exercise caution when using Ancestry for your own genealogical work, be careful when using it for historical research too. Around the same time that I found this excellent and accurate information about Katharina Schüddekopf’s mother’s family, I stumbled across a family tree that someone generated “on behalf of” Hans and Sophie Scholl.

The would-be genealogist “proved” that the Scholls had American relatives through their father’s side of the family. And made a big stinking deal out of the alleged find.

Only problem: It was the wrong Robert Scholl. Similar birthdate, but not the same. The actual Scholl father was not born in northern Germany as that wannabe genealogist stated, but rather in Baden-Württemberg. Place name was the same, but wrong region.

If you choose to use genealogy in your research, keep in mind that you must apply historical methodology to your results, same as with any other text. Double-check your information, and if it feels earth-shattering – the Scholls have American cousins! – triple-check.

You might just luck into that rabbit hole that opens up a person’s life and puts their story in an entirely new light.

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Excerpt about Katharina Schüddekopf from White Rose History, Volume II, (c) 2003 Denise Elaine Heap. If you are interested in learning more about White Rose resistance, check out the Web site of Center for White Rose Studies here.

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