Today I stumbled across a Web site with attached forum that initially made me angry. I know the person behind it. Met her at the Orenburg conference in September 2007.
She's insecure, the kind of insecure that feels the need to elbow her way into the middle of every picture. The kind of insecure that babbles incessantly, so that people tend to run the other direction when they see her coming. The kind of insecure that isn't above rearranging the name tags on the tables so she can sit on the dais.
We were stuck on a train with her for twenty-two hours. Oy. No fun. All of the above, plus she wouldn't stop trying to prove her superiority. Finally had to ignore her, which was hard. She was in our "reserved" compartment, after all. Have I already said "Oy"?
Showing posts with label Erich Schmorell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Erich Schmorell. Show all posts
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
History: January through December 2005
November 7, 2005
One of my "guilty pleasures" is the Thursday night show on CBS, Without a Trace. It's got some of the best writing on TV. If they would just make Sam Spade less of a doormat, it could start winning Emmys.
But I had forgotten how gripping I found last season's cliffhanger until the new season got underway in September. In case you missed it: A young woman ~ very, very reminiscent of Sophie Scholl ~ shot and killed a known genocidal general outside his consulate. She had always been a "good girl," good grades, good reputation, good works.
Yet after she found out about the millions this man had slaughtered, and after she realized that the American government would do nothing to stop him ~ he was an ally, after all ~ she took matters into her own hands and shot him.
In May as in September, the script made me wonder what the difference was between that young woman, who was arrested for obviously breaking the law, and Sophie, Traute, Kaethe, and the other young women of the White Rose. Sophie famously told Susanne Hirzel that if she had a gun and saw Hitler walking down the street, she would not hesitate to kill him.
We deem Sophie a heroine. If you believe the hype surrounding the new Sophie Scholl mythos in Germany, German parents want their daughters to grow up to be Sophie.
But do we really? Do we really want our daughters to take on tyrants with a pistol, to sacrifice their lives for a just cause? Or is it merely hype? Hype that makes us feel better about "those" days without doing a damn thing about our days?
What IS the "ethics of resistance," the ethics of treason? When is it right to break the law in the name of rightness and justice, and when is it not? Who gets to decide? Is history the final arbiter? Or can we know right here, right now that our actions ~ our illegal actions ~ answer to a higher law?
These musings only intensified upon the death of Rosa Parks, another "Sophie" ~ and interestingly, about Sophie's age in real time ~ who risked death by sitting in a bus. Before she acted, others who had acted had been murdered by policemen for doing the exact same thing. Ethics of treason, ethics of "criminal" acts to right wrongs...
I don't have the answer to my own questions. But if we are to "get" the White Rose story and understand Sophie's resistance, Willi's backbone, Traute's defiance, Schurik's passion, Kaethe's small courage, then we need to think about why we deem them heroes. Whom do we wish today's youth to emulate, and why?
On a different note: Thanks to Armin Ziegler, I have a copy of the new book of letters written by and between Sophie Scholl and Fritz Hartnagel. Look for my review of the book on our White Rose Web site.
It's a vast improvement over prior Scholl-centric documents, but there are still a few disappointing gaps that remain unaddressed. However, if it's a turning point in the Scholl/Hartnagel relationship to White Rose research, I greet it (and them) with open arms.
September 12, 2005
Making some progress, slow and steady, on Volume III of the White Rose History. However, that research has opened a completely unexpected line of work.
Part of Volume III includes tracing what happened to surviving White Rose members or their families after the war. I may not be a Scholl fan, but the Oct. 1943-May 1945 timeline does include Elisabeth, Fritz, Werner, yes, and even Inge. The appendix to Volume III is a "Hall of Fame and Shame," what became of each person.
While chasing rabbits regarding Scholls, I fell into a Wonderland hole that will either generate a Volume IV, or a completely separate work altogether. For once you start looking at anything in Germany postwar, you have to deal with Americans and Brits who shaped and molded contemporary German society.
Suddenly, Inge's ability to create a White Rose legend that enjoyed widespread official support ~ not merely from German authority figures, but also legitimized by the occupying Powers That Be ~ began to make sense. The Allies seemed to have been less interested in genuine de-Nazification, and more intent on re-education. It was more important to have good stories told by compliant story-tellers than it was to underwrite scholarship and reward those who had actually resisted Hitler.
Compliance, not conviction, was the postwar watchword.
It's been more than a bit disillusioning. I guess any time we delve past the carefully constructed facade and examine "politics" for its true goals and aims, we are bound and determined to become a little cynical. Volume IV (with a working title of "American News and World Report") is no exception.
Oh well. Sometimes we have to be sure we really want to ask our questions. Because we may not particularly care for the answers when they come.
July 28, 2005
It is with genuine sadness that I must report the death of Dr. Erich Schmorell. Received an email from the Russian "Schmorell biographer," Dr. Igor Chramow. He said that our friend ~ whose memory is truly for a blessing ~ died on July 15.
For many years, Dr. Schmorell and the Probst family were the only ones with backbone enough to stand up to Inge Scholl. They paid dearly for their courage, being shunned by official White Rose people, all but ignored by German scholarship. They resigned from the White Rose Foundation (Weisse-Rose-Stiftung) in protest, and no one paid them any heed.
But like their more famous relatives Alex Schmorell and Christoph Probst, they did what was right, regardless of consequences. For that, I honor them, and on this day especially a man and his wife whom we cherished deeply. I can never eat asparagus without thinking of their tremendous hospitality and openness.
July 13, 2005
Has it really been almost three months since I added to this journal? So much for resolutions...
When I wrote on April 27, I had just returned from speaking out at Sonoma State University, a very pleasant experience indeed. Their students were attentive and asked excellent questions. I knew they'd actually listened when one young woman raised her hand and wondered aloud how they had kept track of all the money that Eugen Grimminger raised on their behalf. Hmm, a business/history major, perhaps?
Especially gratifying when Dr. Goodman's call for Darfur Relief after the lecture was met with significant positive response from those same students. That is the effect that the telling of the White Rose story should have.
A month later, I got to speak at the annual dinner of the Delaware Valley Chapter of the Fulbright Association. I feel "connected" to this group, having Fulbrighted in 1977. Great fun to meet a recent graduate who was heading out on her Fulbright experience to Venezuela in a couple of months, along with a young German student about to return home.
During the Q&A, I talked about the topics the students and the adults who learned from them debated and discussed. The "White Rose" was not homogeneous, neither religiously nor politically. Their debates were fiery, impassioned. As most good debates are. But with tremendous respect for the 'opponent.'
Among the topics I described was one that truly consumed the students in Munich, namely the separation of church and state. In general, they believed that Germany needed separation of church and state, that lack of same was part of the reason Hitler had come to power and stayed in power, once there. What "separation of church and state" looked like was a different matter.
Initially, the subject matter stirred up a very interesting conversation among the Fulbrighters assembled. Which was not surprising, considering the presence of a German Fulbrighter and several who ~ like me ~ had studied in Germany. We know how Germany continues to struggle with this question, how it remains divisive among the populace who chafe under church tax, and clerics who like guaranteed state funding (instead of depending on voluntary individual contributions) and the power that comes with it.
[I did not mention this at the dinner, but in the late 1970s, one of my good friends in Augsburg along with eleven of his fellow students were kicked out of the University of Augsburg's school of theology for questioning ~ not opposing, merely questioning ~ the validity of church tax, infant baptism, and celibacy of the priesthood. They pointed out that not one of those three "doctrines" was part of Catholic theology for the first 300 years of the existence of the Catholic church. No matter. The Bishop of Augsburg unceremoniously kicked them out of the school of theology anyway.]
The wonderful spirited discussion was completely and totally ruined by a Viennese woman who had lived in Vienna during WW2. That is, under the Nazis. She claimed ~ in the whiny voice that characterizes so many people like her ~ that there indeed had been separation of church and state during the Third Reich, because the entire Roman Catholic Church had courageously stood against the Nazis.
After recovering from the shock of hearing what is essentially Holocaust denial of a different sort ~ not denying that the Shoah happened, but rewriting its history nonetheless ~ I told her that I must respectfully disagree with her, because history itself did not support her claim. She would not stop. She kept interrupting people who had additional questions or comments. Not once or twice, but three or four times. Always that whiny voice, always saying that the entire Catholic church had resisted Hitler.
At one point, I commented that indeed, there had been courageous priests and clerics, both Catholic and Lutheran, who had resisted Hitler, and that they had paid dearly. But that they were the exception and not the norm. She would not stop, so finally I said, "Bitte schweigen Sie!" (please be quiet) in the most authoritative German I could muster. She stopped, finally, but the damage had been done.
Her type of whiny outburst seems to occur wherever people gather to consider the horrors of the Holocaust. Elderly Germans show up at synagogues and Jewish organizations, disrupting the Q&A of Holocaust lecture series every single time with a "weeeee didn't knoooow" or something similar. Like this woman ~ whose outburst was more ridiculous because she is a Fulbrighter, for crying out loud, a supposedly educated woman ~ they generally add a "you were not there and I was so I know and you don't" when the speaker was born after 1945. As if that entitles them to rewrite history.
I frankly don't know how to handle this sort of verbal revisionism. I'm trying to learn how to deal with it, because its very frequency of occurrence demands that I do. Anyone reading this who has suggestions, post a comment here, please!
Sadly, people like this Viennese Fulbrighter often obscure the real progress that is being made ~ slowly, but it's there ~ in public German discourse about the Shoah. Most of the real work is being done by the younger generation, by young adults not unlike the White Rose students. They are not afraid to open locked trunks in attics or dust off documents buried in closed archives. They shame their forebears, a shame that is healthy and will in the end be Germany's redemption.
That experience prompted me to write a short essay entitled Papal Fallibility, included in this blog as a separate entry. Comments are welcome. Death threats? Not so much.
April 27, 2005
It feels good to come up for air now that Volume II of my White Rose History is shipping. Knew that "the" database had lots of information in it, but never dreamed just how much until I started writing.
Fact-checking was a bear this time around. Volume II is even more controversial than Volume I (and you thought that stirred up a hornet's nest ~ ha!, it's child's play compared to Volume II!). But controversial in a good way.
Because these students and the adults who learned from them really shine. Yes, they do dumb things. They wouldn't be human if they didn't. And yes, they make some hurtful mistakes that cost many others their freedom, such as Hans Scholl's inclusion of Gisela Schertling in group activities despite knowing her Nazi attitudes, and her subsequent betrayal of nearly everyone.
And I had to write about the rift after February 9. That's easier to put in a timeline than it was to narrate in this book, especially since the consequences of that rift were much greater than I had understood before. It was such a painful parting of the ways. And it leaves us with the question of how we do and should react when a "movement" we align ourselves with takes on a direction we don't like. How they handled it (badly) opens the door for discussion about what we should do in the same case. Not quite sure there are easy answers for this question.
I'm sure there will be a number of people who really, really won't like this book, because there are no sacred cows, no taboos. If we are to honor these people, we must honor them as they were, not as we wish them to be. Sometimes it's hard to let go of the halo and pedestal ~ harder for us than for the people perched atop that pedestal, wearing that halo, you know?
We continue to call for an end to German censorship, for an end to closed archives and blocked (and missing) transcripts. Our ongoing work in that area moves at a snail's pace. Watch this Web site ~ along with the Center for White Rose Studies site ~ for more information about that.
Please keep talking to us, especially as you read the histories. What moves you? Did anything in their lives speak directly to you? It's a powerful story when the legend is removed. We want to hear how it affected you.
Back to work. Miles to go before I sleep!
One of my "guilty pleasures" is the Thursday night show on CBS, Without a Trace. It's got some of the best writing on TV. If they would just make Sam Spade less of a doormat, it could start winning Emmys.
But I had forgotten how gripping I found last season's cliffhanger until the new season got underway in September. In case you missed it: A young woman ~ very, very reminiscent of Sophie Scholl ~ shot and killed a known genocidal general outside his consulate. She had always been a "good girl," good grades, good reputation, good works.
Yet after she found out about the millions this man had slaughtered, and after she realized that the American government would do nothing to stop him ~ he was an ally, after all ~ she took matters into her own hands and shot him.
In May as in September, the script made me wonder what the difference was between that young woman, who was arrested for obviously breaking the law, and Sophie, Traute, Kaethe, and the other young women of the White Rose. Sophie famously told Susanne Hirzel that if she had a gun and saw Hitler walking down the street, she would not hesitate to kill him.
We deem Sophie a heroine. If you believe the hype surrounding the new Sophie Scholl mythos in Germany, German parents want their daughters to grow up to be Sophie.
But do we really? Do we really want our daughters to take on tyrants with a pistol, to sacrifice their lives for a just cause? Or is it merely hype? Hype that makes us feel better about "those" days without doing a damn thing about our days?
What IS the "ethics of resistance," the ethics of treason? When is it right to break the law in the name of rightness and justice, and when is it not? Who gets to decide? Is history the final arbiter? Or can we know right here, right now that our actions ~ our illegal actions ~ answer to a higher law?
These musings only intensified upon the death of Rosa Parks, another "Sophie" ~ and interestingly, about Sophie's age in real time ~ who risked death by sitting in a bus. Before she acted, others who had acted had been murdered by policemen for doing the exact same thing. Ethics of treason, ethics of "criminal" acts to right wrongs...
I don't have the answer to my own questions. But if we are to "get" the White Rose story and understand Sophie's resistance, Willi's backbone, Traute's defiance, Schurik's passion, Kaethe's small courage, then we need to think about why we deem them heroes. Whom do we wish today's youth to emulate, and why?
On a different note: Thanks to Armin Ziegler, I have a copy of the new book of letters written by and between Sophie Scholl and Fritz Hartnagel. Look for my review of the book on our White Rose Web site.
It's a vast improvement over prior Scholl-centric documents, but there are still a few disappointing gaps that remain unaddressed. However, if it's a turning point in the Scholl/Hartnagel relationship to White Rose research, I greet it (and them) with open arms.
September 12, 2005
Making some progress, slow and steady, on Volume III of the White Rose History. However, that research has opened a completely unexpected line of work.
Part of Volume III includes tracing what happened to surviving White Rose members or their families after the war. I may not be a Scholl fan, but the Oct. 1943-May 1945 timeline does include Elisabeth, Fritz, Werner, yes, and even Inge. The appendix to Volume III is a "Hall of Fame and Shame," what became of each person.
While chasing rabbits regarding Scholls, I fell into a Wonderland hole that will either generate a Volume IV, or a completely separate work altogether. For once you start looking at anything in Germany postwar, you have to deal with Americans and Brits who shaped and molded contemporary German society.
Suddenly, Inge's ability to create a White Rose legend that enjoyed widespread official support ~ not merely from German authority figures, but also legitimized by the occupying Powers That Be ~ began to make sense. The Allies seemed to have been less interested in genuine de-Nazification, and more intent on re-education. It was more important to have good stories told by compliant story-tellers than it was to underwrite scholarship and reward those who had actually resisted Hitler.
Compliance, not conviction, was the postwar watchword.
It's been more than a bit disillusioning. I guess any time we delve past the carefully constructed facade and examine "politics" for its true goals and aims, we are bound and determined to become a little cynical. Volume IV (with a working title of "American News and World Report") is no exception.
Oh well. Sometimes we have to be sure we really want to ask our questions. Because we may not particularly care for the answers when they come.
July 28, 2005
It is with genuine sadness that I must report the death of Dr. Erich Schmorell. Received an email from the Russian "Schmorell biographer," Dr. Igor Chramow. He said that our friend ~ whose memory is truly for a blessing ~ died on July 15.
For many years, Dr. Schmorell and the Probst family were the only ones with backbone enough to stand up to Inge Scholl. They paid dearly for their courage, being shunned by official White Rose people, all but ignored by German scholarship. They resigned from the White Rose Foundation (Weisse-Rose-Stiftung) in protest, and no one paid them any heed.
But like their more famous relatives Alex Schmorell and Christoph Probst, they did what was right, regardless of consequences. For that, I honor them, and on this day especially a man and his wife whom we cherished deeply. I can never eat asparagus without thinking of their tremendous hospitality and openness.
July 13, 2005
Has it really been almost three months since I added to this journal? So much for resolutions...
When I wrote on April 27, I had just returned from speaking out at Sonoma State University, a very pleasant experience indeed. Their students were attentive and asked excellent questions. I knew they'd actually listened when one young woman raised her hand and wondered aloud how they had kept track of all the money that Eugen Grimminger raised on their behalf. Hmm, a business/history major, perhaps?
Especially gratifying when Dr. Goodman's call for Darfur Relief after the lecture was met with significant positive response from those same students. That is the effect that the telling of the White Rose story should have.
A month later, I got to speak at the annual dinner of the Delaware Valley Chapter of the Fulbright Association. I feel "connected" to this group, having Fulbrighted in 1977. Great fun to meet a recent graduate who was heading out on her Fulbright experience to Venezuela in a couple of months, along with a young German student about to return home.
During the Q&A, I talked about the topics the students and the adults who learned from them debated and discussed. The "White Rose" was not homogeneous, neither religiously nor politically. Their debates were fiery, impassioned. As most good debates are. But with tremendous respect for the 'opponent.'
Among the topics I described was one that truly consumed the students in Munich, namely the separation of church and state. In general, they believed that Germany needed separation of church and state, that lack of same was part of the reason Hitler had come to power and stayed in power, once there. What "separation of church and state" looked like was a different matter.
Initially, the subject matter stirred up a very interesting conversation among the Fulbrighters assembled. Which was not surprising, considering the presence of a German Fulbrighter and several who ~ like me ~ had studied in Germany. We know how Germany continues to struggle with this question, how it remains divisive among the populace who chafe under church tax, and clerics who like guaranteed state funding (instead of depending on voluntary individual contributions) and the power that comes with it.
[I did not mention this at the dinner, but in the late 1970s, one of my good friends in Augsburg along with eleven of his fellow students were kicked out of the University of Augsburg's school of theology for questioning ~ not opposing, merely questioning ~ the validity of church tax, infant baptism, and celibacy of the priesthood. They pointed out that not one of those three "doctrines" was part of Catholic theology for the first 300 years of the existence of the Catholic church. No matter. The Bishop of Augsburg unceremoniously kicked them out of the school of theology anyway.]
The wonderful spirited discussion was completely and totally ruined by a Viennese woman who had lived in Vienna during WW2. That is, under the Nazis. She claimed ~ in the whiny voice that characterizes so many people like her ~ that there indeed had been separation of church and state during the Third Reich, because the entire Roman Catholic Church had courageously stood against the Nazis.
After recovering from the shock of hearing what is essentially Holocaust denial of a different sort ~ not denying that the Shoah happened, but rewriting its history nonetheless ~ I told her that I must respectfully disagree with her, because history itself did not support her claim. She would not stop. She kept interrupting people who had additional questions or comments. Not once or twice, but three or four times. Always that whiny voice, always saying that the entire Catholic church had resisted Hitler.
At one point, I commented that indeed, there had been courageous priests and clerics, both Catholic and Lutheran, who had resisted Hitler, and that they had paid dearly. But that they were the exception and not the norm. She would not stop, so finally I said, "Bitte schweigen Sie!" (please be quiet) in the most authoritative German I could muster. She stopped, finally, but the damage had been done.
Her type of whiny outburst seems to occur wherever people gather to consider the horrors of the Holocaust. Elderly Germans show up at synagogues and Jewish organizations, disrupting the Q&A of Holocaust lecture series every single time with a "weeeee didn't knoooow" or something similar. Like this woman ~ whose outburst was more ridiculous because she is a Fulbrighter, for crying out loud, a supposedly educated woman ~ they generally add a "you were not there and I was so I know and you don't" when the speaker was born after 1945. As if that entitles them to rewrite history.
I frankly don't know how to handle this sort of verbal revisionism. I'm trying to learn how to deal with it, because its very frequency of occurrence demands that I do. Anyone reading this who has suggestions, post a comment here, please!
Sadly, people like this Viennese Fulbrighter often obscure the real progress that is being made ~ slowly, but it's there ~ in public German discourse about the Shoah. Most of the real work is being done by the younger generation, by young adults not unlike the White Rose students. They are not afraid to open locked trunks in attics or dust off documents buried in closed archives. They shame their forebears, a shame that is healthy and will in the end be Germany's redemption.
That experience prompted me to write a short essay entitled Papal Fallibility, included in this blog as a separate entry. Comments are welcome. Death threats? Not so much.
April 27, 2005
It feels good to come up for air now that Volume II of my White Rose History is shipping. Knew that "the" database had lots of information in it, but never dreamed just how much until I started writing.
Fact-checking was a bear this time around. Volume II is even more controversial than Volume I (and you thought that stirred up a hornet's nest ~ ha!, it's child's play compared to Volume II!). But controversial in a good way.
Because these students and the adults who learned from them really shine. Yes, they do dumb things. They wouldn't be human if they didn't. And yes, they make some hurtful mistakes that cost many others their freedom, such as Hans Scholl's inclusion of Gisela Schertling in group activities despite knowing her Nazi attitudes, and her subsequent betrayal of nearly everyone.
And I had to write about the rift after February 9. That's easier to put in a timeline than it was to narrate in this book, especially since the consequences of that rift were much greater than I had understood before. It was such a painful parting of the ways. And it leaves us with the question of how we do and should react when a "movement" we align ourselves with takes on a direction we don't like. How they handled it (badly) opens the door for discussion about what we should do in the same case. Not quite sure there are easy answers for this question.
I'm sure there will be a number of people who really, really won't like this book, because there are no sacred cows, no taboos. If we are to honor these people, we must honor them as they were, not as we wish them to be. Sometimes it's hard to let go of the halo and pedestal ~ harder for us than for the people perched atop that pedestal, wearing that halo, you know?
We continue to call for an end to German censorship, for an end to closed archives and blocked (and missing) transcripts. Our ongoing work in that area moves at a snail's pace. Watch this Web site ~ along with the Center for White Rose Studies site ~ for more information about that.
Please keep talking to us, especially as you read the histories. What moves you? Did anything in their lives speak directly to you? It's a powerful story when the legend is removed. We want to hear how it affected you.
Back to work. Miles to go before I sleep!
History: January through December 2004
September 30, 2004
I had hoped to be able to update this on a weekly basis after June 30. Obviously, that has not happened. Oh sigh.
Glad to report that my energy levels are at a twenty-year high. I've heard from others who have gone through a similar surgery that I should expect to feel even better in another six months. I can hardly wait! It's been such great fun, getting back to a more normal life without constantly worrying about my health.
We shipped the 2003 update on September 1. What a relief. I have to say, while I'm excited about it, I'm also a little nervous about people's reactions. I think I pretty much slaughtered every sacred cow that exists in White Rose legend in this update. What I wrote is the truth, and I've got the database to back it up.
But I'm aware that many folks don't enjoy seeing haloes removed. They prefer the fiction, because they can comfortably pretend they are not responsible for the same level of justice-doing that our White Rose friends undertook, because they are not as "good" as our heroes.
When all along, the reality is that Hans Scholl and Sophie Scholl, Willi Graf and Traute Lafrenz, Alex Schmorell and Kaethe Schueddekopf, Prof. Huber and Dr. Muth, Wilhelm Geyer and Harald Dohrn, Christl Probst and Gerhard Feuerle ~ and all the rest ~ were every bit as flawed as you and I. They accomplished their great and noble deeds despite their gut-wrenching flaws.
And as we face that truth, we understand all over again that we cannot wait until we are "good" before we face injustice head-on and right the wrongs that are in our faces every day. That is a decidedly uncomfortable place to be (I speak from experience). Life's easier when our idols stay on stage with makeup intact.
End soapbox.
I also just got a partial timeline posted to the Center for White Rose Studies Web site. So you can have a tiny taste of how rich the full story is, check out that site. So far I've only been able to create a complete timeline for February 18 and 22, 1943, and even these days are not fully fleshed out. Nevertheless, prepare to have your socks knocked off.
Our 9/30/04 newsletter went out this week. If you did not get a copy and would like to receive one, please email me and I'll make sure it goes out to you. It's chock full of good stuff, including excerpts from my recent research and a new set of White Rose cheers & jeers.
Finally, I'd like to put in an unabashed plug for our affiliate and benefactor, DEHeap Enterprises, Inc. They keep your Center for White Rose Studies going, and at great personal cost.
Please please please support their "for-profit" work. It underwrites everything we do here. If you need someone to write procedures to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 regulations, they can do that for you and save you money on your auditors' invoices. If you need trouble-shooting for your accounting procedures or employee handbook, they are the ones to call. Get the scoop on the Business Services section of their Web site ~ the same Web site that hosts your source for CWRS information.
June 30, 2004
It's about time I catch up on the first half of this year, and then start weekly updates to the journal. Wish me luck!
On March 19, I had surgery to clear up health issues that have been plaguing me for the last twenty years, and that had rendered me all but incapacitated since April 2002. Within 48 hours of the surgery, two of the four medical issues had cleared up completely, and despite the pain of major surgery, I felt better than I had in a long while.
Despite the almost miraculous results of surgery, recovery has been slow and difficult. It's now primarily a matter of regaining strength. My body can no longer tolerate sugar, caffeine, fatty foods, or carbonated beverages (nooo beeeer), and the usual crutches we use as pick-me-ups through the day generally contain one or more of those ingredients. By 3:30 or 4 pm, I tend to have petered out. Nevertheless, the work I get done before that time is far more concentrated and of better quality than it was pre-surgery, simply because I feel better.
I've also had to take a temporary job to pay some of the bills incurred since April 2002. This has slowed my White Rose work to a crawl, since I do not have the energy to work evenings as planned. So any writing gets done on weekends.
But my old optimism has returned, which is more than half the battle. All four medical issues are now resolved, and as my body gets stronger, my mind follows suit. If nothing else, this experience has taught me how important it is for us in this terribly wealthy American society to ensure that children born to poverty get nutritious meals and regular medical treatment. If we don't do that, we are guaranteeing that the cycle of poverty continues. Health affects ability to think and learn far more than we understand at present.
White Rose news to report from the past six months: The new group in Munich has not yet demonstrated that they are genuinely willing to be as open and committed to truth as they initially said. They've invited Detlef Bald to participate in some of their "scholarly" events, although Bald has been completely discredited by real scholars. In my opinion, anyone who is interested in pursuing the truth about German resistance and the White Rose will steer clear of Bald, at least until he breaks his ties with Dr. Wittenstein (Nazi Party member #7667868).
Despite the delays, my work on the "2003 Update" is progressing nicely. I think it's going to be worth the wait, because the information from new sources is just too fascinating. In the update, Willi Graf comes off better than anyone else, because it's now perfectly clear that his father was not a German who flew under the radar and tried to get along to make a living for his family. Instead, Willi Graf's father was a serious, committed Nazi who helped found the Nazi Party in the Saarland and hobnobbed with people who were close, personal friends of Adolf Hitler. That Willi Graf came out of that environment as perhaps the White Rose person most committed to resistance, is nothing short of mindboggling.
In contrast, the 2003 update will shatter even more illusions about Hans Scholl. Not only is there more information about his sexual orientation in general and his sexual abuse of boys in his Hitler Youth/d.j.1.11 squad specifically, but new (and reliable) material paints him as a weak, malleable person, instead of the leader most people envision him to be.
I am also grateful to Philippe Willocx for his extraordinary digging into White Rose minutiae even I had not thought to question (Philippe, that is a huge compliment!). He has found so much new stuff that it cannot go into the 2003 update, but will have to wait for 2004 (although a great deal of what he sent me will affect White Rose History Volume II, May 1942 - October 1943). Philippe's darling daughter Sophie was confirmed on May 9, 2004 ~ the date was unplanned, but the significance of the date was not lost on either Philippe or Sophie!
And finally, an essay worth posting. Rabbi Michael Singer begins his short essay with the following question: "'Where there are no worthy persons, strive to be a worthy person.' (Hillel, Pirke Avot 1:6). Lately I have been struggling with a difficult question: if I was not Jewish and was living in Germany during the time of the Shoah, would I have risked my life by hiding Jews or actively resisting the Nazis?" The entire essay is posted on this blog, with Rabbi Singer's permission.
Reading his powerful but simple words made me realize that if more people in my German community were willing to say "We did not do enough", and if more people in my Jewish community were willing to ask Rabbi Singer's question, there could finally be healing and reconciliation. But as long as people in my German community say, "We didn't know" (pffft), and as long as people in my Jewish community refuse to quit throwing stones long enough to understand what resistance cost, we will continue to hurt one another.
And most importantly, those of us in the German-Jewish-American community ~ and indeed, the global community at large ~ will have missed the whole point, which is what Rabbi Singer is trying to say. Wherever there is injustice, it is up to us, not someone else, to right those wrongs. If we focus on the past without learning its lessons, all of us will be condemned to repeat it.
January 8, 2004
On a very positive note, received a letter from Dr. Erich Schmorell today. He had not commented on White Rose History Volume I when we sent it to him in the summer of 2002. He apologized for his tardiness and noted that he had had to work through the text with a German-English dictionary at hand, which had required a great deal of time.
But he was determined to read every word, because of the vilification my work has received from people like the Scholls and Wittenstein, who have their own agenda in the "version" of the White Rose legend they perpetuate. He wanted to see for himself why everyone was so angry.
And he loved the book. Said it was very well researched and presented the White Rose friends accurately. Yea!
I had hoped to be able to update this on a weekly basis after June 30. Obviously, that has not happened. Oh sigh.
Glad to report that my energy levels are at a twenty-year high. I've heard from others who have gone through a similar surgery that I should expect to feel even better in another six months. I can hardly wait! It's been such great fun, getting back to a more normal life without constantly worrying about my health.
We shipped the 2003 update on September 1. What a relief. I have to say, while I'm excited about it, I'm also a little nervous about people's reactions. I think I pretty much slaughtered every sacred cow that exists in White Rose legend in this update. What I wrote is the truth, and I've got the database to back it up.
But I'm aware that many folks don't enjoy seeing haloes removed. They prefer the fiction, because they can comfortably pretend they are not responsible for the same level of justice-doing that our White Rose friends undertook, because they are not as "good" as our heroes.
When all along, the reality is that Hans Scholl and Sophie Scholl, Willi Graf and Traute Lafrenz, Alex Schmorell and Kaethe Schueddekopf, Prof. Huber and Dr. Muth, Wilhelm Geyer and Harald Dohrn, Christl Probst and Gerhard Feuerle ~ and all the rest ~ were every bit as flawed as you and I. They accomplished their great and noble deeds despite their gut-wrenching flaws.
And as we face that truth, we understand all over again that we cannot wait until we are "good" before we face injustice head-on and right the wrongs that are in our faces every day. That is a decidedly uncomfortable place to be (I speak from experience). Life's easier when our idols stay on stage with makeup intact.
End soapbox.
I also just got a partial timeline posted to the Center for White Rose Studies Web site. So you can have a tiny taste of how rich the full story is, check out that site. So far I've only been able to create a complete timeline for February 18 and 22, 1943, and even these days are not fully fleshed out. Nevertheless, prepare to have your socks knocked off.
Our 9/30/04 newsletter went out this week. If you did not get a copy and would like to receive one, please email me and I'll make sure it goes out to you. It's chock full of good stuff, including excerpts from my recent research and a new set of White Rose cheers & jeers.
Finally, I'd like to put in an unabashed plug for our affiliate and benefactor, DEHeap Enterprises, Inc. They keep your Center for White Rose Studies going, and at great personal cost.
Please please please support their "for-profit" work. It underwrites everything we do here. If you need someone to write procedures to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 regulations, they can do that for you and save you money on your auditors' invoices. If you need trouble-shooting for your accounting procedures or employee handbook, they are the ones to call. Get the scoop on the Business Services section of their Web site ~ the same Web site that hosts your source for CWRS information.
June 30, 2004
It's about time I catch up on the first half of this year, and then start weekly updates to the journal. Wish me luck!
On March 19, I had surgery to clear up health issues that have been plaguing me for the last twenty years, and that had rendered me all but incapacitated since April 2002. Within 48 hours of the surgery, two of the four medical issues had cleared up completely, and despite the pain of major surgery, I felt better than I had in a long while.
Despite the almost miraculous results of surgery, recovery has been slow and difficult. It's now primarily a matter of regaining strength. My body can no longer tolerate sugar, caffeine, fatty foods, or carbonated beverages (nooo beeeer), and the usual crutches we use as pick-me-ups through the day generally contain one or more of those ingredients. By 3:30 or 4 pm, I tend to have petered out. Nevertheless, the work I get done before that time is far more concentrated and of better quality than it was pre-surgery, simply because I feel better.
I've also had to take a temporary job to pay some of the bills incurred since April 2002. This has slowed my White Rose work to a crawl, since I do not have the energy to work evenings as planned. So any writing gets done on weekends.
But my old optimism has returned, which is more than half the battle. All four medical issues are now resolved, and as my body gets stronger, my mind follows suit. If nothing else, this experience has taught me how important it is for us in this terribly wealthy American society to ensure that children born to poverty get nutritious meals and regular medical treatment. If we don't do that, we are guaranteeing that the cycle of poverty continues. Health affects ability to think and learn far more than we understand at present.
White Rose news to report from the past six months: The new group in Munich has not yet demonstrated that they are genuinely willing to be as open and committed to truth as they initially said. They've invited Detlef Bald to participate in some of their "scholarly" events, although Bald has been completely discredited by real scholars. In my opinion, anyone who is interested in pursuing the truth about German resistance and the White Rose will steer clear of Bald, at least until he breaks his ties with Dr. Wittenstein (Nazi Party member #7667868).
Despite the delays, my work on the "2003 Update" is progressing nicely. I think it's going to be worth the wait, because the information from new sources is just too fascinating. In the update, Willi Graf comes off better than anyone else, because it's now perfectly clear that his father was not a German who flew under the radar and tried to get along to make a living for his family. Instead, Willi Graf's father was a serious, committed Nazi who helped found the Nazi Party in the Saarland and hobnobbed with people who were close, personal friends of Adolf Hitler. That Willi Graf came out of that environment as perhaps the White Rose person most committed to resistance, is nothing short of mindboggling.
In contrast, the 2003 update will shatter even more illusions about Hans Scholl. Not only is there more information about his sexual orientation in general and his sexual abuse of boys in his Hitler Youth/d.j.1.11 squad specifically, but new (and reliable) material paints him as a weak, malleable person, instead of the leader most people envision him to be.
I am also grateful to Philippe Willocx for his extraordinary digging into White Rose minutiae even I had not thought to question (Philippe, that is a huge compliment!). He has found so much new stuff that it cannot go into the 2003 update, but will have to wait for 2004 (although a great deal of what he sent me will affect White Rose History Volume II, May 1942 - October 1943). Philippe's darling daughter Sophie was confirmed on May 9, 2004 ~ the date was unplanned, but the significance of the date was not lost on either Philippe or Sophie!
And finally, an essay worth posting. Rabbi Michael Singer begins his short essay with the following question: "'Where there are no worthy persons, strive to be a worthy person.' (Hillel, Pirke Avot 1:6). Lately I have been struggling with a difficult question: if I was not Jewish and was living in Germany during the time of the Shoah, would I have risked my life by hiding Jews or actively resisting the Nazis?" The entire essay is posted on this blog, with Rabbi Singer's permission.
Reading his powerful but simple words made me realize that if more people in my German community were willing to say "We did not do enough", and if more people in my Jewish community were willing to ask Rabbi Singer's question, there could finally be healing and reconciliation. But as long as people in my German community say, "We didn't know" (pffft), and as long as people in my Jewish community refuse to quit throwing stones long enough to understand what resistance cost, we will continue to hurt one another.
And most importantly, those of us in the German-Jewish-American community ~ and indeed, the global community at large ~ will have missed the whole point, which is what Rabbi Singer is trying to say. Wherever there is injustice, it is up to us, not someone else, to right those wrongs. If we focus on the past without learning its lessons, all of us will be condemned to repeat it.
January 8, 2004
On a very positive note, received a letter from Dr. Erich Schmorell today. He had not commented on White Rose History Volume I when we sent it to him in the summer of 2002. He apologized for his tardiness and noted that he had had to work through the text with a German-English dictionary at hand, which had required a great deal of time.
But he was determined to read every word, because of the vilification my work has received from people like the Scholls and Wittenstein, who have their own agenda in the "version" of the White Rose legend they perpetuate. He wanted to see for himself why everyone was so angry.
And he loved the book. Said it was very well researched and presented the White Rose friends accurately. Yea!
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