Alphen, Netherlands. 22 February.
Seventy years ago today three young German students were led to a
guillotine by the Gestapo in Stadelheim Prison and brutally executed. Siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl and Christoph
Probst faced death with immense courage, something even the Gestapo
acknowledged. As the blade began its death
fall Hans Scholl shouted out “Let Freedom Live!” With that single act of defiance Hans Scholl
created modern, democratic Germany.
The White Rose movement offered peaceful
resistance against the Nazis at the height of World War Two. Centred on the students of Munich University
the group’s members understood full well that if caught they would face certain torture
and death at the bloody hands of the Gestapo. And yet between June 1942 and February 1943 they
bravely distributed six leaflets and scrawled defiant graffiti denouncing the
Nazis. One of my heroes Helmuth James Graf
von Moltke managed to smuggle the sixth and final leaflet out of Germany and in
July 1943 the Royal Air Force dropped thousands of them over Germany retitled, “The
Manifesto of the Students of Munich”.
One of the
leaflets was sadly prophetic, “Isn't it true that every honest German is
ashamed of his government these days? Who among us has any conception of the
dimensions of shame that will befall us and our children when one day the veil
has fallen from our eyes and the most horrible of crimes– crimes that
infinitely outdistance every human measure– reach the light of day?” The White Rose movement clearly knew of the
Holocaust and the crimes being committed in the name of Germany at Dachau on
Munich’s outskirts.
Germany and its people bear a heavy burden of
history. Clearly the crimes of Nazism
must never be forgotten. Last year I
visited Auschwitz and Auschwitz II Birkenau and its evil mark will be with me
for the rest of my days. However, there
is also much said and written about modern Germany that not only misses the
point but is plainly wrong. Sadly, that
is often the case in Britain my own country which still counts the cost of its
heroic defiance of the Nazis in the name of Europe’s freedom (something too
often other Europeans seem to forget).
Modern Germany is not the heir of Nazi criminals
but the heir of Liselotte Bendl, Harold Dohrn, Manfred Eickemeyer, Wilhelm
Geyer, Willi Graf, Eugen Grimminger, Falk Harnack, Kurt Huber, Marie-Luis Jahn, Trante
Lafranz, Christoph Probst, Alexander Schmorell, Katharina Schueddekopf, Helmut and Sophie Scholl, Josef Soehngen, and
Jurgen Wittenstein. They are heroes of
Europe one and all.
It is their Germany from which Chancellor Angela
Merkel takes her inspiration. It is an
inspiration that the rest of Europe would do well to understand and respect as
she grapples with the Eurozone crisis.
Yes, Germany can be heavy-handed from time to time. That is partly a function of a modern Germany
that is simply powerful, although that is not something most modern Germans
feel. It is also a function of Abraham
Lincoln’s famous dictum that one can please some of the people all of the time,
all of the people some of the time, but one can never please all of the people
all of the time. This is especially so in a place as diverse and complex as modern Europe.
Germany’s war history will always be told and
rightly so. One only has to zap
television channels to find some documentary or film telling the story of Nazi
atrocities and the eventual victory of the Allies over Nazism. Indeed, I am intensely proud of my own country’s
role in that victory. However, it is now
time to tell the story of Germany’s heroes for they are also OUR heroes and one
is far more likely to understand and appreciate modern Germany if one
understands their struggle and sacrifice.
As Scholl uttered his famous cry not only modern
Germany was born, but modern Europe.
The American, British and Canadian armies in the vanguard of democracy
came to liberate the ideas they stood for.
White Rose Freedom called for “…freedom of speech, freedom
of religion and protection of the individual citizen from the arbitrary actions
of criminal-dictator states”. They are the very principles of modern Europe.
In all seven members of the White Rose group were executed by January 1945 and as a Briton, European and a democrat I honour
them all.
“Let Freedom
Live!”
Julian
Lindley-French
