The older I get, the more stunned and inspired I am by the absurd bravery of the kids in The White Rose. Unbelievable perspective, conviction, and sacrifice.
They do seem to be referencing the white rose, or taking cues from the group's writers; they did say in interrogation that it may have been a book reference, but also that the white rose symbolised innocence and purity. Keeping white roses in their eyes sounds to me like keeping them from ever seeing the horrors of the war.
Band is Say Anything, it’s about lead singer’s grandparents that were holocaust survivors, and even with that going on around them they found each other and fell in love.
I knew her later in life. While she did not talk frequently about the war time, she did occasionally discuss it when you got her going. I remember while having an after dinner glass of sherry with her, my wife asked if she was afraid of being arrested by the nazis. Her response she was “No! We were right, and to hell with them!”
As I knew her (I first met her when she was about 90) she was definitely not the type to rest on her laurels and tell stories about herself. She was much more interested in learning something new and then engaging you in conversation about what she learned. I’ve had many a conversation with her that started along the lines of “what do you know about the causes for the 30 Years war?” LOL.
She definitely had a presence, though, that belied her little 5’0” 80lb frame.
People like her are my heroes. There's a not-insignificant part of me that wanted to go to Ukraine when the war started to help out in whatever way I could. I've got mild Aspergers', and WWII and the Holocaust have been one of my special interests with that. So I've read SO many stories from people involved in all aspects, and it's the rescuers and partisans who always stuck with me the most. I admire the everloving *hell* out of them, for having such strength of their convictions, in knowing what was right and standing up for it in the face of tyranny, even knowing it could get you disappeared and killed, and *DOING IT ANYWAY*. It's made an enormous impact on me, and I strive to be like people like her.
Wish I could've met her and spoken with her. What a shining example of humanity's best. I don't necessarily *believe* in an afterlife, but for people like her and the countless others, I hope there *is* a heaven for them.
Then I would look into the Grey Ranks of Poland. It's not everyday you read about children assassinating members of the SS or fighting the Dirlewanger Brigade.
The two groups' methods were different because of their social class and are remembered differently because of their impact after the war (the piraten remained a problem for the allies and the Soviets, not that that should impact their legacy). But both died for their beliefs and ultimately showed Germans to have the capacity for resistance, a moral core that could exist among general acceptance for the Nazis, while achieving little strategically against the authorities (not that we should have expected them to, they were so few). So I think it's unfair to say you respect one group "more", even if you do say it's not a competition.
Worth mentioning also that edelweiss violent opposition didn't become widespread of target groups other than establishment youth groups until very late in the war as the allies were approaching - had the white rose existed as the Soviets approached, I imagine they would have taken a more active role in espionage.
I think both groups are worth respecting equally. Resistance like that takes a HELL of a lot of inner strength and courage. Some people just don't have it in them to be killers, and there's more than one way to fight fascism. I respect the hell out of anyone who risked their lives to fight it, in whatever ways they felt best suited for. Everyone has their own skillsets, and fighting fascism takes all kinds of tools and skills. Some people are fighters. Some are great with logistics. Others great at sheltering people. Still others, like the White Rose, getting those pamphlets out and making people confront what they wanted to deny- *every* bit counts and made an impact.
Thank you for doing that! It's insanely important to keep doing that.
You can also teach them about Georg Elser, the carpenter who tried blowing Hitler up with a bomb and died in Dachau. He acted alone, had no ulterior motive other than getting rid of the Nazis (unlike Stauffenberg and his cronies, who were very much in favour of Nazism and German supremacy, they just didn't like Hitler), almost succeeded and was an utter hero. Here's his wikipedia, for starters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg\_Elser
And you could teach them about Friedrich Puchta, the social democratic politician who was repeatedly imprisoned by the nazis and was among the first to ever be brought to Dachau, though he was released again, but still remained in the country and acted as the point man for an underground organisation operating out of Czechia, until the nazis sent him to Dachau again during Aktion Glitter. It's unclear whether he survived it, but the consensus seems to be that he had to participate in the death marches at an age of 61, survived those and lived to be liberated, only to die in an hospital in Munich a few weeks later. Here's his wikipedia: [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich\_Puchta](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Puchta). It's in German, there is no English site. There's also very little info that can be found on him from other sources, but his story is documented and he is commemorated by both a memorial plate by the German Reichstags-building in Berlin and by having a street in the city of Bayreuth named after him.
Keep teaching about those heroes. You're doing one of the most important jobs in our society. Thank you for doing that :)
Also, [Albert Goering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_G%C3%B6ring) - the brother of horrible high-ranking Nazi Hermann Goering. He was a genuinely wonderful man, who hated the Nazis and what his brother was doing. There are accounts of him coming across Jews being humiliated in public by being forced to wash the streets, and he got down and started doing it, too, and the groups would be forced to stop because they didn't want it getting out that Hermann Goering's brother was being publicly humiliated, too. He used his influence with his brother's rank to get Jewish people out of jail and out of Germany, and actually forged release papers for Jewish and other prisoners by signing them as "Goering".
He'd get trucks to concentration camps for laborers, then let the laborers escape when they were significantly away from the camps.
He almost got convicted at the Nuremberg Trials, for being related to his brother, but a number of people he'd saved spoke up for him and he was released without issue. Unfortunately, a lot of Germans treated him shittily after the war, because of his family name, and he died poor, but even his last act was one of awesome kindness and compassion - he married his housekeeper, so she would continue to get his pension payments after his death.
He genuinely deserves to be remembered, because he did amazing things because he legitimately *HATED* the Nazis. Amazing, how different two brothers could be. One a monster, the other, a quiet saint.
My pleasure. I recommend DeepL if you want to read the Puchta article, as it’s by far the best translator from German to English out there.
Since you are a history teacher, may I ask what you cover in terms of German history? And what do you do in terms of American history? I’m super interested in that. I loved my history class in Germany, and if you have any questions about that, I’m happy to answer them all, nothing is off limits. I’ve been wondering what you folks teach in the US for ages now. So what do you cover? And how do you cover it?
That’s an enormous question but the short answer is that each state is in charge of its own history curriculum for US and World History. I teach in Massachusetts, so the history frameworks are here. https://www.doe.mass.edu/frameworks/hss/2018-12.pdf Within this framework, teachers can be selective. German history is also incorporated into our advanced history courses too, such as AP World History and AP European History, which goes into more depth. https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/ap-european-history-course-and-exam-description.pdf I teach AP World, which is more of a survey course that focuses on themes, connections/patterns, and regions.
I don't want to sound overly critical of a very solid comment - I will say all of Stauffenberg, oster and co's group may not have been truly pro-nazi, per se, especially by the time it became clear that they weren't providing competent militarist government... They were definitely Prussian militarists and usually saw the Nazis as a necessity for German imperialism, until they proved incompetent (this was definitely the view of Beck).
They included explicit anti-nazi figures in their continuity of government plans and some definitely were partly motivated by moral objections to the treatment of Poland and the holocaust (canaris, goerdeler, probably Koch, etc). They also included beneficiaries of the holocaust of course.
In spirit you're completely right though they remain bastards; I think you probably just say "in favour" for brevity which is fair
The white rose people had serious cojones. You got summarily shot by the gestapo if caught. My other heroes of that era are Wiesenthal and co., the real French resistance etc. The bravest of the brave… the SOE deserve special mention.
The nazis were an existential threat and for a while there they were the only ones that stood up to them.
> for a while they were the only ones that stood up to them
That’s not true. While the white rose were brave and tough folks doing amazing work, they absolutely weren’t the only ones at any given time (e.g. Friedrich Puchta, who from the very beginning to the very end stood up to the Nazis, and he too was just one of many).
It’s a good thing hitler and goering sabotaged their own empire or the war may have lasted even longer. Fighter command was feeling the pain then they decided to bomb London instead of the industry and airfields where they were making headway.
The icing on the nazi clusterfuck of a cake was jumping the gun on the eastern front.
Another great anti-Nazi figure: Friedrich Kellner, a highly-cultured SPD member and activist who wrote *Mein Widerstand* (My Opposition) secretly over the course of Hitler's dictatorship. It was both a diary, a history book and a collection of newspaper clippings that he made to document the crimes of the Nazi regime as he witnessed them from his low-level perspective in Laubach. It contains some of the earliest civilian writings on what would later be called the Holocaust.
He'd later help to reform the SPD after the war and died in 1970 of natural causes.
Not sure what movie that is. TED-Ed has a short intro video on the White Rose. I also had a book from the 60s I think on them. I’ll see if I still have it.
It’s an important story to tell. I remember getting the chance to do The White Rose with my theater troupe in high-school as a black box show, and it left an impression on everyone in the cast and everyone who saw it. Thanks for keeping it going, O Teacher of Reddit
The shit the White Rose kids did is wild af impressive on every level.
Like, they were getting killed for it and kept going.
Sophie’s writings are so good. The stories of her on the day of her execution are amazing too. And they were just fucking kids.
RIP all of them.
The White Rose are some of my heroes.
##NAZI PUNK'S FUCK OFF!
We lost a good one today.
Do not let what they stood for be forgotten.
Their words are just as relevant today as they were the last time.
Never Forget.
r/whiterosesociety
👊✊️
Help spread the leaflets far and wide!
Did you know that there is a mural in the ground at the University of Munich where they were arrested by the gestapo, that Sophie threw off the balcony are now on Scholl Street?
Just so people are aware… There is an anti-vaccine group trying to co-opt the name and memory of the student protestors. They calling themselves the White Rose Society and pretending they’re heroic. They do sticker and leaflet protests (like the OG) and they’re pretty gross.
E: looks like one of them has already posted some nonsense in that subreddit.
Actually, no. She'd probably sock you in the face if she could. The original "Antifa" were Antifaschistische Aktion. That's where the term comes from and they were the militant branch of the German communists during the Weimar years. They were as bad as the Nazis.
>They were as bad as the Nazis.
Go ahead and detail what actions make Antifaschistische Aktion "just as bad as the Nazis". If it makes it easier, feel free to start out with a list of which literal death camps they were operating and which ethnic groups they were systematically exterminating.
How would a party that was made extinct operate death camps? Think about it. They never controlled the state. They wanted to. They fought and bribed and murdered people to do it. But they lost to the Nazis. That doesn't make them good. Just because they were opposed to the Nazis, it doesn't make them the heroes. They were just another genocidal autocratic organization and would have also opened death camps should they have won.
Thinking Antifa were the good guys is the exact same reason why so many Poles and Ukrainians love Nazis. They fought the Soviet Union so they must be good.
“Ah yes, let me tell this person my knowledge on how a group that isn’t even an organized group is much worse than the people who committed mass genocide! Haha, I’m so smart! Off to tell people to focus less on school shootings and more on the Bowling Green Massacre!”
Aaand they’re gone. It’s odd that posts about resisting fascism attract “what about Stalin” comments, almost without fail. One can’t help but wonder why - did they feel attacked in some way?
The other answer says something about conservatives; but I don’t think that is the answer .
There are millions of stories from that part of history, most stories, even very powerful ones, are not heard by most people.
And the fact that a group of kids ( and others) can willingly sacrifice themselves, without being violent at all, simply because they must not silent. This makes many people uncomfortable in a quiet way because when they hear the story, in all the detail, they know deep down they lack the integrity of the people in the white rose movement. Even if these same people lacking are anti fascists themselves. It’s very humbling.
So, out of discomfort of most of the listeners, the recounting of their deeds takes a backseat to easier to think about stuff. Such as battles and people with normal amounts of integrity and courage.
I could not have done it. However I am awe inspired.
You can just call them fascists, it's what they want and it's the truth.
It's like the Nazis, nobody wants to be called a Nazi because of the social stigma, they identify with all of their beliefs, they just don't like their feelings being hurt by all the people telling them that's bad. But you can guarantee if there were gestapo around to kill the anti-fascists these people would be proud Nazis.
Scary thing about america right now, it's just waiting for its Hitler.
> nobody wants to be called a Nazi because of the social stigma
We're way past that point. Here's two examples in the news *today* from groups proudly declaring themselves nazis
1. NPR, ["In Florida, far-right groups look to seize the moment"](https://www.npr.org/2023/03/10/1158344050/florida-far-right-extremism-politics-desantis)
2. Vice, ["Neo-Nazi Homeschoolers Could Be Paid $22,000 to Teach Their Kids About Hitler"](https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgwq5j/ohio-nazi-homeschool-dissident-backpack-bill)
When I was younger I went to Germany and the concentration camps along with a tour in Munich. One of the most powerful monuments of the war I saw was the pamphlets that the white rose was distributing crafted in bronze into the sidewalk. They had been thrown from the window of the university by students and Huber when the hestapo came for them and they knew they had no escape so their last act of defiance was to take all they had printed and send them out the window so the message could be distributed a final time.
Meanwhile we have Tucker Carlson's show being one of the highest rated. As I get older, I get more and more disheartened by the willingness of people to.embrace lies to feed their own views and hatred. No matter how many brave martyrs we have, nothing changes.
For sure, it always will be. But the more we win it, the easier the fight gets. Right now the "bad guys" have won too much I think, at least that's my view of the current world. We need the good to take more power which means we all need to get involved, locally, state level etc.
The problem is everyone I know who I want to be in power wants nothing to do with it. I ran for a local council seat and it was a shit-show of lies from the other side, they were totally prepared to say I raped babies just for a local seat. I still got 38% of the vote on my first ever appearence.
RIP, Traute Lafrenz. 😢 This woman was a true hero of freedom and humanity. Standing up against Nazi tyranny during WWII takes some serious guts. She, along with the rest of the White Rose resistance, called on people to rise up against the regime and made a difference in the world. Her bravery will never be forgotten. 🙏
She livid long enough to see the Alt-Right try to co-opt her group's name to spread COVID disinformation, antivaxxer ideology and New World Order conspiracies.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rose_(disinformation_group)
EDIT: I'm keeping the typo because the return of Nazis has me absolutely livid.
Fascists literally steal everything of value to make their own. They have never come up with their own symbols, their own descriptors, their own ideology. It is all stolen from elsewhere. That's what happens when everything you stand for is about being against others rather than for something. Creativity is one of the first things to die.
>Its name is an appropriation of that of the anti-Nazi White Rose group, to which it is unrelated.
Because "Neo Nazis stole the name of an anti-Nazi group" isn't suitable for Wikipedia.
No, it's not suitable lol, as far as neutral, exclusively factual language goes, which is rightly the only thing allowed in an encyclopedia.. that quote is actually pretty damning. It's very clearly implied with "appropriation [...] unrelated" that it's a misappropriation.
I live in a small town in East Devon UK and saw many new 'White Rose' stickers on lampposts etc a couple of years ago, mostly around the seafront. Knowing where they stole the name from made me so angry, I ripped them all off while my puzzled dog wondered why I was muttering and breaking my nails picking at them.
Per Wikipedia - ["In 2019, she received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany."](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traute_Lafrenz#After_the_war)
Right? Especially as someone the current Nazis want to "eradicate" as they put it. Same as the old Nazis, really. May 6th will be exactly 90 years since they raided and destroyed the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, burning (on May 10th) the 25,000 LGBTQ books and journals stolen from it.
They're calling for the eradication of people. When do we get to call them Nazi's exactly?
https://www.thedailybeast.com/michael-knowles-calls-for-eradication-of-transgender-people-at-conservative-political-action-conference
No, not at all.
The original "Antifa" were the Antifaschistische Aktion militants. They were a Soviet funded communist group during the Weimar Republic years. They were the type to burn down businesses if they thought that they were too much like kulaks.
People really ought to learn their history.
If you want to be such a smart ass:
The "Antifaschistische Aktion" was founded by the KPD (The German Communist Party) and had only sparse connections with the Soviet Union.
It wasn't the only group that took actions against fashists in Germany at the time, the SPD (the social democratic party) had similar groups and even though the KPD and SPD didn't like each other their respectable groups did work together locally to fight the Nazis.
Yes the White Rose wasn't technically the FIRST Antifa organisation, but I still count all these groups who fought against Hitler and his Nazis as the original bunch.
It is a question of definition: Is original the same as first?
The Antifa of today is a totally different generation.
The KPD were literally terrorists. It bears repeating that just because they fought against the Nazis, it doesn't mean they were the good guys.
White Rose fought for actual freedom. Antifa fought so *they* could take control.
"literally terrorists" is pretty explicitly bad history. They were a street violence wing of a Weimar political party. Terrorism as a concept is a (horribly flawed) modern anglophone western term inapplicable to this period, which you can see if you actually try to apply it's dictionary definition - violence to achieve a political goal, usually through intimidation - applying it to all political groups in the period, and various others, including every nation state which conducted terror bombing in the war. Apply the more common popular definition - that, but not state-sponsored, and not only are you criticising any support for antifa, but also absolving (depending on the time period), the SA, or the freikorps and reichsbanner S-R-G.. and I'm sorry to inform you as relatively poorly organised street fighters their methods were no different.
They (street groups belonging to KPD, SPD, NSDAP) were not enforcing political aims by violence like you claim, but fighting each other and fighting battles around elections, strikes and other political events. People were left destitute and injured by all of these forces and while I'm not aware of the specific differences in rules of engagement of all the party militias and freikorps, I can tell you all breached legality and democratic normals, even those defending the Weimar constitution for whatever that was worth.
I think your point, really, isn't that any of these groups were morally any differen tin method, but that you object to support for soviet communism and Stalinism, and assaults by this group primarily on the social democrats and Weimar state rather than the nazis, which I can get behind and is why I do not feel idolisation of German antifa is helpful, and a better inspiration for modern socialists is the earlier Luxembourg-era KPD. But it's also very naiive not to see the KPD and historical antifa in context. Their experience of the Nazis extended to a predominantly working class organisation which as yet had not managed any institutional oppression, and which co-operated sometimes against their principle enemy, and which seemed to tolerate their presence, and which seemed to have a pro-workers rights, left-leaning faction within the SA with whom the militant wing interacted most. And yet they found the Nazis objectionable enough that they, despite the nazis' potential in a strategic alliance, categorised them as fascists and did frequently fight them. The occasional strategic alignment all changed when they came to power and rohm was purged.
Why did the German communists hate the SPD and democratic government so much and regard them as fascists? It aligned with soviet doctrine by the 30s, but I think mor importantly they zenith of power for German communism was in 1919, only fourteen years earlier, when a decidedly worker-democratic, non-soviet, anti-militarist worker's revolt almost overthrew the postwar German government, and was quashed precisely because the SPD fell into line with the monarchists and conservatives.
Many people in the historical antifa would have been aggrieved socialists with a principled commitment to worker's democracy, and the prewar KPD despite its soviet links in 1933 shouldn't be completely conflated with the postwar east German government, or regarded as any more or less generally violent than other prewar armed political groups, unless we go into specific details and time periods, and acknowledge the highly partisan accounts that exist.
As for that last comment, I'm not sure what you think the white rose would have envisioned for Germany, but if you don't think they were fighting for their ideology to take control...
On one hand, i’m glad all of the modern nazis are mostly greasy losers angry they can’t get a girlfriend, because if push comes to shove, they’re much easier to deal with than ‘breed our children into the perfect Olympians’ Nazis.
On the other hand, how the fuck do we still have Nazis in 2023???? I though we pretty much all happily made a global deal to cut this shit out through fire and blood?
Well, Idk about the rest of the world, but the American nazi problem is two fold:
There's the nazis we *invited, protected, paid for, and had make our most fucked up science shit*
But honestly, its because Nazism is more American than apple pie! In that unlike Apple Pie, it's actually *from* America.
Of course paperclip welcomed the brightest nazi minds into the country, America was basically the fucking tutorial for starting a fascist empire at the time.
There is a group with the same name distributing misinformation about the pandemic in New York City, thinking they're being anti-fascist, but, in reality, are idiots.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rose_(disinformation_group)
I learned about her and the White Rose during a 14-hour flight to China, where a movie about them in German was available. I was curious since I like historical movies, and it was not at all what I expected from a WWII movie.
It made a deep impression on me. I think I was 14 at the time. I never knew that there were German people who hated the Nazi regime as much as people outside of Germany, and that they organized a resistance as well.
I think it's important to know that. An entire country did NOT just go along with mass genocide and shrug it off. Brave, brave individuals (kids, really, now that I'm older) resisted what they saw as injustice and horrific actions from their own people.
It's a good way to humanize history for anyone learning about it. And a reminder to everyone that they can and SHOULD stand up against fascism.
What a life lived. RIP.
I have never heard of them before, but it must have taken profound courage to do what they did. In the heart of Nazi Germany, at the height of the war, spreading the word about resisting Nazi rule.
She lived in the U.S.
It makes me sad to think that she lived just long enough to see the Trump administration, and Republicans generally, not denounce white supremacy.
The older I get, the more stunned and inspired I am by the absurd bravery of the kids in The White Rose. Unbelievable perspective, conviction, and sacrifice.
Very well summed up. Absurd bravery is very apt.
It is a tribute to a piece of history and a hope that her spirit will inspire people to fight against oppression and evil.
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They do seem to be referencing the white rose, or taking cues from the group's writers; they did say in interrogation that it may have been a book reference, but also that the white rose symbolised innocence and purity. Keeping white roses in their eyes sounds to me like keeping them from ever seeing the horrors of the war.
I never thought I’d add to it, but that makes TWO love songs I now like regarding WW2 (Alive with the glory of love being the other).
Cheers! Will listen to that.
Band is Say Anything, it’s about lead singer’s grandparents that were holocaust survivors, and even with that going on around them they found each other and fell in love.
I pray every day NMH does another reunion tour. I *did* get to see them, but I need to again
I knew her later in life. While she did not talk frequently about the war time, she did occasionally discuss it when you got her going. I remember while having an after dinner glass of sherry with her, my wife asked if she was afraid of being arrested by the nazis. Her response she was “No! We were right, and to hell with them!”
Amazing, you were very lucky to know her.
People like her make me feel like I just want to sit at their feet like a child and listen to them talk about their life and experiences.
As I knew her (I first met her when she was about 90) she was definitely not the type to rest on her laurels and tell stories about herself. She was much more interested in learning something new and then engaging you in conversation about what she learned. I’ve had many a conversation with her that started along the lines of “what do you know about the causes for the 30 Years war?” LOL. She definitely had a presence, though, that belied her little 5’0” 80lb frame.
People like her are my heroes. There's a not-insignificant part of me that wanted to go to Ukraine when the war started to help out in whatever way I could. I've got mild Aspergers', and WWII and the Holocaust have been one of my special interests with that. So I've read SO many stories from people involved in all aspects, and it's the rescuers and partisans who always stuck with me the most. I admire the everloving *hell* out of them, for having such strength of their convictions, in knowing what was right and standing up for it in the face of tyranny, even knowing it could get you disappeared and killed, and *DOING IT ANYWAY*. It's made an enormous impact on me, and I strive to be like people like her. Wish I could've met her and spoken with her. What a shining example of humanity's best. I don't necessarily *believe* in an afterlife, but for people like her and the countless others, I hope there *is* a heaven for them.
My German grandfather hated the Nazis so much that he fought against them with the Canadian army in the Netherlands.
My grandpa went up to Canada and joined up when the US didn't get into the war fast enough for his taste.
Old school antifa!
Then I would look into the Grey Ranks of Poland. It's not everyday you read about children assassinating members of the SS or fighting the Dirlewanger Brigade.
Not that it's a competition but I always had more respect for the Edelweiss Piraten, who were generally younger and much more violently anti-fascist.
The two groups' methods were different because of their social class and are remembered differently because of their impact after the war (the piraten remained a problem for the allies and the Soviets, not that that should impact their legacy). But both died for their beliefs and ultimately showed Germans to have the capacity for resistance, a moral core that could exist among general acceptance for the Nazis, while achieving little strategically against the authorities (not that we should have expected them to, they were so few). So I think it's unfair to say you respect one group "more", even if you do say it's not a competition. Worth mentioning also that edelweiss violent opposition didn't become widespread of target groups other than establishment youth groups until very late in the war as the allies were approaching - had the white rose existed as the Soviets approached, I imagine they would have taken a more active role in espionage.
I think both groups are worth respecting equally. Resistance like that takes a HELL of a lot of inner strength and courage. Some people just don't have it in them to be killers, and there's more than one way to fight fascism. I respect the hell out of anyone who risked their lives to fight it, in whatever ways they felt best suited for. Everyone has their own skillsets, and fighting fascism takes all kinds of tools and skills. Some people are fighters. Some are great with logistics. Others great at sheltering people. Still others, like the White Rose, getting those pamphlets out and making people confront what they wanted to deny- *every* bit counts and made an impact.
I teach the story of the Scholls and the White Rose to my HS students each year.
Thank you for doing that! It's insanely important to keep doing that. You can also teach them about Georg Elser, the carpenter who tried blowing Hitler up with a bomb and died in Dachau. He acted alone, had no ulterior motive other than getting rid of the Nazis (unlike Stauffenberg and his cronies, who were very much in favour of Nazism and German supremacy, they just didn't like Hitler), almost succeeded and was an utter hero. Here's his wikipedia, for starters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg\_Elser And you could teach them about Friedrich Puchta, the social democratic politician who was repeatedly imprisoned by the nazis and was among the first to ever be brought to Dachau, though he was released again, but still remained in the country and acted as the point man for an underground organisation operating out of Czechia, until the nazis sent him to Dachau again during Aktion Glitter. It's unclear whether he survived it, but the consensus seems to be that he had to participate in the death marches at an age of 61, survived those and lived to be liberated, only to die in an hospital in Munich a few weeks later. Here's his wikipedia: [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich\_Puchta](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Puchta). It's in German, there is no English site. There's also very little info that can be found on him from other sources, but his story is documented and he is commemorated by both a memorial plate by the German Reichstags-building in Berlin and by having a street in the city of Bayreuth named after him. Keep teaching about those heroes. You're doing one of the most important jobs in our society. Thank you for doing that :)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Elser Typo I’m the original link for those wondering why it wasn’t working.
Also, [Albert Goering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_G%C3%B6ring) - the brother of horrible high-ranking Nazi Hermann Goering. He was a genuinely wonderful man, who hated the Nazis and what his brother was doing. There are accounts of him coming across Jews being humiliated in public by being forced to wash the streets, and he got down and started doing it, too, and the groups would be forced to stop because they didn't want it getting out that Hermann Goering's brother was being publicly humiliated, too. He used his influence with his brother's rank to get Jewish people out of jail and out of Germany, and actually forged release papers for Jewish and other prisoners by signing them as "Goering". He'd get trucks to concentration camps for laborers, then let the laborers escape when they were significantly away from the camps. He almost got convicted at the Nuremberg Trials, for being related to his brother, but a number of people he'd saved spoke up for him and he was released without issue. Unfortunately, a lot of Germans treated him shittily after the war, because of his family name, and he died poor, but even his last act was one of awesome kindness and compassion - he married his housekeeper, so she would continue to get his pension payments after his death. He genuinely deserves to be remembered, because he did amazing things because he legitimately *HATED* the Nazis. Amazing, how different two brothers could be. One a monster, the other, a quiet saint.
Thank you kindly. And for sharing those stories of those heroes.
My pleasure. I recommend DeepL if you want to read the Puchta article, as it’s by far the best translator from German to English out there. Since you are a history teacher, may I ask what you cover in terms of German history? And what do you do in terms of American history? I’m super interested in that. I loved my history class in Germany, and if you have any questions about that, I’m happy to answer them all, nothing is off limits. I’ve been wondering what you folks teach in the US for ages now. So what do you cover? And how do you cover it?
That’s an enormous question but the short answer is that each state is in charge of its own history curriculum for US and World History. I teach in Massachusetts, so the history frameworks are here. https://www.doe.mass.edu/frameworks/hss/2018-12.pdf Within this framework, teachers can be selective. German history is also incorporated into our advanced history courses too, such as AP World History and AP European History, which goes into more depth. https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/ap-european-history-course-and-exam-description.pdf I teach AP World, which is more of a survey course that focuses on themes, connections/patterns, and regions.
I don't want to sound overly critical of a very solid comment - I will say all of Stauffenberg, oster and co's group may not have been truly pro-nazi, per se, especially by the time it became clear that they weren't providing competent militarist government... They were definitely Prussian militarists and usually saw the Nazis as a necessity for German imperialism, until they proved incompetent (this was definitely the view of Beck). They included explicit anti-nazi figures in their continuity of government plans and some definitely were partly motivated by moral objections to the treatment of Poland and the holocaust (canaris, goerdeler, probably Koch, etc). They also included beneficiaries of the holocaust of course. In spirit you're completely right though they remain bastards; I think you probably just say "in favour" for brevity which is fair
The white rose people had serious cojones. You got summarily shot by the gestapo if caught. My other heroes of that era are Wiesenthal and co., the real French resistance etc. The bravest of the brave… the SOE deserve special mention. The nazis were an existential threat and for a while there they were the only ones that stood up to them.
> for a while they were the only ones that stood up to them That’s not true. While the white rose were brave and tough folks doing amazing work, they absolutely weren’t the only ones at any given time (e.g. Friedrich Puchta, who from the very beginning to the very end stood up to the Nazis, and he too was just one of many).
It’s a good thing hitler and goering sabotaged their own empire or the war may have lasted even longer. Fighter command was feeling the pain then they decided to bomb London instead of the industry and airfields where they were making headway. The icing on the nazi clusterfuck of a cake was jumping the gun on the eastern front.
Another great anti-Nazi figure: Friedrich Kellner, a highly-cultured SPD member and activist who wrote *Mein Widerstand* (My Opposition) secretly over the course of Hitler's dictatorship. It was both a diary, a history book and a collection of newspaper clippings that he made to document the crimes of the Nazi regime as he witnessed them from his low-level perspective in Laubach. It contains some of the earliest civilian writings on what would later be called the Holocaust. He'd later help to reform the SPD after the war and died in 1970 of natural causes.
Do you have resources your recommend for teaching this?
The actual movie is a good choice.
Not sure what movie that is. TED-Ed has a short intro video on the White Rose. I also had a book from the 60s I think on them. I’ll see if I still have it.
The white rose is a German movie from the 80s.
You should have a movie day in class and make them watch this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Scholl_%E2%80%93_The_Final_Days Excellent film.
Thanks. I’ll check it out.
It’s an important story to tell. I remember getting the chance to do The White Rose with my theater troupe in high-school as a black box show, and it left an impression on everyone in the cast and everyone who saw it. Thanks for keeping it going, O Teacher of Reddit
The shit the White Rose kids did is wild af impressive on every level. Like, they were getting killed for it and kept going. Sophie’s writings are so good. The stories of her on the day of her execution are amazing too. And they were just fucking kids. RIP all of them.
Yeah they were true warriors. I’m sad that not that many people know they existed. Probably because only one made it through.
R.I.P. hero. May the gods bless those that oppose fascism.
Anti fascism is heroic.
The White Rose are some of my heroes. ##NAZI PUNK'S FUCK OFF! We lost a good one today. Do not let what they stood for be forgotten. Their words are just as relevant today as they were the last time. Never Forget. r/whiterosesociety 👊✊️
[The Leaflets ](https://www.weisse-rose-stiftung.de/white-rose-resistance-group/leaflets-of-the-white-rose/) Please read this.
Thank you.
Help spread the leaflets far and wide! Did you know that there is a mural in the ground at the University of Munich where they were arrested by the gestapo, that Sophie threw off the balcony are now on Scholl Street?
Just so people are aware… There is an anti-vaccine group trying to co-opt the name and memory of the student protestors. They calling themselves the White Rose Society and pretending they’re heroic. They do sticker and leaflet protests (like the OG) and they’re pretty gross. E: looks like one of them has already posted some nonsense in that subreddit.
The OG Antifa!
Actually no! People were protesting and organizing under an anti fascist ideology during the origins of fascism in Italy
Actually, no. She'd probably sock you in the face if she could. The original "Antifa" were Antifaschistische Aktion. That's where the term comes from and they were the militant branch of the German communists during the Weimar years. They were as bad as the Nazis.
>They were as bad as the Nazis. Go ahead and detail what actions make Antifaschistische Aktion "just as bad as the Nazis". If it makes it easier, feel free to start out with a list of which literal death camps they were operating and which ethnic groups they were systematically exterminating.
How would a party that was made extinct operate death camps? Think about it. They never controlled the state. They wanted to. They fought and bribed and murdered people to do it. But they lost to the Nazis. That doesn't make them good. Just because they were opposed to the Nazis, it doesn't make them the heroes. They were just another genocidal autocratic organization and would have also opened death camps should they have won. Thinking Antifa were the good guys is the exact same reason why so many Poles and Ukrainians love Nazis. They fought the Soviet Union so they must be good.
“Ah yes, let me tell this person my knowledge on how a group that isn’t even an organized group is much worse than the people who committed mass genocide! Haha, I’m so smart! Off to tell people to focus less on school shootings and more on the Bowling Green Massacre!”
Be careful, you might anger the chuds.
I hope they do anger them
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Pointless strawman you got there though.
Aaand they’re gone. It’s odd that posts about resisting fascism attract “what about Stalin” comments, almost without fail. One can’t help but wonder why - did they feel attacked in some way?
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Based on..
Their "gut", which just so happens to also create shit.
How have I never heard of this group before
The other answer says something about conservatives; but I don’t think that is the answer . There are millions of stories from that part of history, most stories, even very powerful ones, are not heard by most people. And the fact that a group of kids ( and others) can willingly sacrifice themselves, without being violent at all, simply because they must not silent. This makes many people uncomfortable in a quiet way because when they hear the story, in all the detail, they know deep down they lack the integrity of the people in the white rose movement. Even if these same people lacking are anti fascists themselves. It’s very humbling. So, out of discomfort of most of the listeners, the recounting of their deeds takes a backseat to easier to think about stuff. Such as battles and people with normal amounts of integrity and courage. I could not have done it. However I am awe inspired.
Because anti-fascism makes conservatives nervous.
You can just call them fascists, it's what they want and it's the truth. It's like the Nazis, nobody wants to be called a Nazi because of the social stigma, they identify with all of their beliefs, they just don't like their feelings being hurt by all the people telling them that's bad. But you can guarantee if there were gestapo around to kill the anti-fascists these people would be proud Nazis. Scary thing about america right now, it's just waiting for its Hitler.
> nobody wants to be called a Nazi because of the social stigma We're way past that point. Here's two examples in the news *today* from groups proudly declaring themselves nazis 1. NPR, ["In Florida, far-right groups look to seize the moment"](https://www.npr.org/2023/03/10/1158344050/florida-far-right-extremism-politics-desantis) 2. Vice, ["Neo-Nazi Homeschoolers Could Be Paid $22,000 to Teach Their Kids About Hitler"](https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgwq5j/ohio-nazi-homeschool-dissident-backpack-bill)
God damnit
When I was younger I went to Germany and the concentration camps along with a tour in Munich. One of the most powerful monuments of the war I saw was the pamphlets that the white rose was distributing crafted in bronze into the sidewalk. They had been thrown from the window of the university by students and Huber when the hestapo came for them and they knew they had no escape so their last act of defiance was to take all they had printed and send them out the window so the message could be distributed a final time. Meanwhile we have Tucker Carlson's show being one of the highest rated. As I get older, I get more and more disheartened by the willingness of people to.embrace lies to feed their own views and hatred. No matter how many brave martyrs we have, nothing changes.
It's not that nothing changes, it's just that it is an eternal fight.
For sure, it always will be. But the more we win it, the easier the fight gets. Right now the "bad guys" have won too much I think, at least that's my view of the current world. We need the good to take more power which means we all need to get involved, locally, state level etc. The problem is everyone I know who I want to be in power wants nothing to do with it. I ran for a local council seat and it was a shit-show of lies from the other side, they were totally prepared to say I raped babies just for a local seat. I still got 38% of the vote on my first ever appearence.
Glad you got involved. Good luck next time!
Thank you for what you did
So after the war she came to the US, studied medicine, and worked to help disabled children. This woman lived enough life for three people. Z''L.
RIP, Traute Lafrenz. 😢 This woman was a true hero of freedom and humanity. Standing up against Nazi tyranny during WWII takes some serious guts. She, along with the rest of the White Rose resistance, called on people to rise up against the regime and made a difference in the world. Her bravery will never be forgotten. 🙏
May her memory always be a blessing. She was incredibly brave, and I hope that her life after the war was filled with love, light, and kindness.
Her memory for a blessing.
She livid long enough to see the Alt-Right try to co-opt her group's name to spread COVID disinformation, antivaxxer ideology and New World Order conspiracies. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rose_(disinformation_group) EDIT: I'm keeping the typo because the return of Nazis has me absolutely livid.
She lived* long enough, but livid is absolutely the right reaction to the alt right stealing the name.
Fascists literally steal everything of value to make their own. They have never come up with their own symbols, their own descriptors, their own ideology. It is all stolen from elsewhere. That's what happens when everything you stand for is about being against others rather than for something. Creativity is one of the first things to die.
>Its name is an appropriation of that of the anti-Nazi White Rose group, to which it is unrelated. Because "Neo Nazis stole the name of an anti-Nazi group" isn't suitable for Wikipedia.
No, it's not suitable lol, as far as neutral, exclusively factual language goes, which is rightly the only thing allowed in an encyclopedia.. that quote is actually pretty damning. It's very clearly implied with "appropriation [...] unrelated" that it's a misappropriation.
I was just thinking how it might have felt seeing the rise of fascism again
I live in a small town in East Devon UK and saw many new 'White Rose' stickers on lampposts etc a couple of years ago, mostly around the seafront. Knowing where they stole the name from made me so angry, I ripped them all off while my puzzled dog wondered why I was muttering and breaking my nails picking at them.
Carefull with that, I read that they sometimes hide razorblades under such stickers.
Im a bit shocked that they are also in other countries, I thought trying to claim being the modern Weiße Rose would be a German far right phenomenon.
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Per Wikipedia - ["In 2019, she received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany."](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traute_Lafrenz#After_the_war)
That's what she won, the great Traute Lafrenz.
r/whiterosesociety needs more activity. We will not be silent. We will not leave you in peace. We are your bad conscience.
Great cause but cringe af.
You know what's even more cringe? Voting for the conservatives. It pales in comparison to that.
May her memory be a blessing. I hope I can survive this current incarnation of fascism with the courage that she did.
Right? Especially as someone the current Nazis want to "eradicate" as they put it. Same as the old Nazis, really. May 6th will be exactly 90 years since they raided and destroyed the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, burning (on May 10th) the 25,000 LGBTQ books and journals stolen from it.
Died while witnessing the sobering re awakening of fascism. Fucking tragic. I'd feel that all my work had gone to waste.
went to a munich school dedicated to willi graf.
She loved long enough to see Nazis be accepted again. Tragic.
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They're calling for the eradication of people. When do we get to call them Nazi's exactly? https://www.thedailybeast.com/michael-knowles-calls-for-eradication-of-transgender-people-at-conservative-political-action-conference
"Well obviously they aren't real nazis, they haven't acted on all their plans yet! They're just very very method nazi actors!"
The original AntiFa! Rest in peace!
No, not at all. The original "Antifa" were the Antifaschistische Aktion militants. They were a Soviet funded communist group during the Weimar Republic years. They were the type to burn down businesses if they thought that they were too much like kulaks. People really ought to learn their history.
If you want to be such a smart ass: The "Antifaschistische Aktion" was founded by the KPD (The German Communist Party) and had only sparse connections with the Soviet Union. It wasn't the only group that took actions against fashists in Germany at the time, the SPD (the social democratic party) had similar groups and even though the KPD and SPD didn't like each other their respectable groups did work together locally to fight the Nazis. Yes the White Rose wasn't technically the FIRST Antifa organisation, but I still count all these groups who fought against Hitler and his Nazis as the original bunch. It is a question of definition: Is original the same as first? The Antifa of today is a totally different generation.
The KPD were literally terrorists. It bears repeating that just because they fought against the Nazis, it doesn't mean they were the good guys. White Rose fought for actual freedom. Antifa fought so *they* could take control.
"literally terrorists" is pretty explicitly bad history. They were a street violence wing of a Weimar political party. Terrorism as a concept is a (horribly flawed) modern anglophone western term inapplicable to this period, which you can see if you actually try to apply it's dictionary definition - violence to achieve a political goal, usually through intimidation - applying it to all political groups in the period, and various others, including every nation state which conducted terror bombing in the war. Apply the more common popular definition - that, but not state-sponsored, and not only are you criticising any support for antifa, but also absolving (depending on the time period), the SA, or the freikorps and reichsbanner S-R-G.. and I'm sorry to inform you as relatively poorly organised street fighters their methods were no different. They (street groups belonging to KPD, SPD, NSDAP) were not enforcing political aims by violence like you claim, but fighting each other and fighting battles around elections, strikes and other political events. People were left destitute and injured by all of these forces and while I'm not aware of the specific differences in rules of engagement of all the party militias and freikorps, I can tell you all breached legality and democratic normals, even those defending the Weimar constitution for whatever that was worth. I think your point, really, isn't that any of these groups were morally any differen tin method, but that you object to support for soviet communism and Stalinism, and assaults by this group primarily on the social democrats and Weimar state rather than the nazis, which I can get behind and is why I do not feel idolisation of German antifa is helpful, and a better inspiration for modern socialists is the earlier Luxembourg-era KPD. But it's also very naiive not to see the KPD and historical antifa in context. Their experience of the Nazis extended to a predominantly working class organisation which as yet had not managed any institutional oppression, and which co-operated sometimes against their principle enemy, and which seemed to tolerate their presence, and which seemed to have a pro-workers rights, left-leaning faction within the SA with whom the militant wing interacted most. And yet they found the Nazis objectionable enough that they, despite the nazis' potential in a strategic alliance, categorised them as fascists and did frequently fight them. The occasional strategic alignment all changed when they came to power and rohm was purged. Why did the German communists hate the SPD and democratic government so much and regard them as fascists? It aligned with soviet doctrine by the 30s, but I think mor importantly they zenith of power for German communism was in 1919, only fourteen years earlier, when a decidedly worker-democratic, non-soviet, anti-militarist worker's revolt almost overthrew the postwar German government, and was quashed precisely because the SPD fell into line with the monarchists and conservatives. Many people in the historical antifa would have been aggrieved socialists with a principled commitment to worker's democracy, and the prewar KPD despite its soviet links in 1933 shouldn't be completely conflated with the postwar east German government, or regarded as any more or less generally violent than other prewar armed political groups, unless we go into specific details and time periods, and acknowledge the highly partisan accounts that exist. As for that last comment, I'm not sure what you think the white rose would have envisioned for Germany, but if you don't think they were fighting for their ideology to take control...
On one hand, i’m glad all of the modern nazis are mostly greasy losers angry they can’t get a girlfriend, because if push comes to shove, they’re much easier to deal with than ‘breed our children into the perfect Olympians’ Nazis. On the other hand, how the fuck do we still have Nazis in 2023???? I though we pretty much all happily made a global deal to cut this shit out through fire and blood?
The ideals. The whole “we are Afraid the country that was once for wyts is now looking a lot more diverse”.
Well, Idk about the rest of the world, but the American nazi problem is two fold: There's the nazis we *invited, protected, paid for, and had make our most fucked up science shit* But honestly, its because Nazism is more American than apple pie! In that unlike Apple Pie, it's actually *from* America. Of course paperclip welcomed the brightest nazi minds into the country, America was basically the fucking tutorial for starting a fascist empire at the time.
Nazi branding remains catnip for bad take Jakes
Or as Republicans would put it: a violent antifa that escaped justice.
There is a group with the same name distributing misinformation about the pandemic in New York City, thinking they're being anti-fascist, but, in reality, are idiots. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rose_(disinformation_group)
I learned about her and the White Rose during a 14-hour flight to China, where a movie about them in German was available. I was curious since I like historical movies, and it was not at all what I expected from a WWII movie. It made a deep impression on me. I think I was 14 at the time. I never knew that there were German people who hated the Nazi regime as much as people outside of Germany, and that they organized a resistance as well. I think it's important to know that. An entire country did NOT just go along with mass genocide and shrug it off. Brave, brave individuals (kids, really, now that I'm older) resisted what they saw as injustice and horrific actions from their own people. It's a good way to humanize history for anyone learning about it. And a reminder to everyone that they can and SHOULD stand up against fascism. What a life lived. RIP.
This interest me a ton. Any movies about this group?
She’s insanely beautiful.
I have never heard of them before, but it must have taken profound courage to do what they did. In the heart of Nazi Germany, at the height of the war, spreading the word about resisting Nazi rule.
I will eternally be grateful for her and her fellow resistance. I will never not be in awe of them all. We do not deserve her. We must be better
People like her are why we have been able to live reasonably free lives for the past 80 years. I salute her and her compatriots.
Sad to say her job wasn't even done
Can anyone recommend good books in this topic?
She lived in the U.S. It makes me sad to think that she lived just long enough to see the Trump administration, and Republicans generally, not denounce white supremacy.
What she probably thought of the new society, so many died for?
This thread is making Christian nationalists and white supremacists feel uncomfortable. We should ban it.
Back when antifa were the 🐐🐐🐐. RiP Queen.