interview
Interviewer: Emily Best
Interviewee: Jud Newborn, author of "Shattering the German Night"
Interview Date: February 5, 2013
References: http://judnewborn.posterous.com/ and http://www.Judnewborn.com
Interviewee: Jud Newborn, author of "Shattering the German Night"
Interview Date: February 5, 2013
References: http://judnewborn.posterous.com/ and http://www.Judnewborn.com
_1. What first made you interested in the White Rose?
When I was just a small boy I learned that some of my grandmother’s family were murdered by the Nazis. When I decided to do my doctoral work at the University of Chicago on the Holocaust – focusing the Germans who perpetrated it, not simply the victims – it raised my spirits to know there were some Germans, however few, who risked everything (including the wrath of all those supporting Hitler) to wake up Germans to the evils of Nazism. The White Rose first made an impact on me when I saw a white rose carved in marble, and their names, in the atrium of the University of Munich, when I arrived there for research in 1980.
2. Can you explain who they were?
Hans and Sophie, siblings, were former Hitler Youth leaders who transformed to become the greatest heroes of the German anti-Nazi resistance – joining a handful of like-minded students, and one professor, at the University of Munich between 1942 and 1943.
3. You have said that they had networks of communication. How many do you suppose were really involved in the resisting? How were these networks important?
Perhaps 50 people in total were involved, more or less. There was an active ‘cell’ or branch in Hamburg, some of whom were arrested and executed – 11 executed in total between Munich and Hamburg. There were some in Saarbrucken as well, via Willi Graf. The networks helped feed them money to purchase paper, stamps; get a mimeograph machine to them for cranking out leaflets; finding a secure place to do that work; etc.
4. What do you think made them resist?
For Hans and Sophie: They were members simultaneously of the Hitler Youth and an alternative youth group that was far more open to other cultures and ideas. When the Nazis decided after 1936 to eliminated other youth groups, they arrested Hans Scholl for having had a teen-same sex relationship at age 16. (By then Hans was almost 19 and in the Cavalry.) 20 teens were rounded up. Hans was only one of two convicted. This jolted Hans and Sophie, because Hans was interrogated for 6 months by the Gestapo and his innocent love made public in a trial. He and Sophie learned what it mean, not to be suporters of evil, but victims – and that led them to identify with the oppressed, and fight for freedom and love for all.
5. If they hadn't been in Hitler Youth, do you suppose they would have resisted?
Remember that the OTHER core White Rose members in Munich – Alexander Schmorell, Christoph Probst and Willi Graf among them – were NOT Hitler Youth ever. Willi Graff was the most consistently anti-Nazi of them all from the start – joining a Catholic anti-Nazi youth group called the “Gray Order” and crossing off his address book the name of every friend who joined the Hitler Youth starting in 1933.
As of Hans and Sophie, they DID return to their parents’ values – Christian humanism, hatred of racism and dictatorship, and the personal strength to be a non-conformist even when almost everyone was againsts their position. (Look up Robert Scholl in the index.)
The other special ingredient is that fact that, once at the University of Munich – these people of ‘like spirit’ and values found each other. Perhaps if they hadn’t come together as a group, nothing would have happened. But this special mix of personalities – including the special transformation that occurred to Hans and Sophie – helped the group “gell”.
6. Was them resisting important?
Of course! They had to resist under conditions where most of the population was pro-Hitler – eager to turn in anyone suspect – or simply compliant or apathetic. They are great heroes in Germany today – perhaps the greatest – because they dared speak out to their own people and risk their lives when others remained silent or hostile.
7. Sophie said that she hoped others would resist due to the White Rose. Did anyone?
The White Rose leaflets may have inspired them, even if they didn’t go as far as the White Rose did. It is unlikely they inspired actual active resistance by anyone, but there was a group in Munich in 1945 that banded together to help fight the Nazis just prior the Allies marching in – perhaps they knew about the White Rose – they surely heard of them – and were waiting for their chance to act. (They were called the “Freiheitsaktion Bayern.”) The Freedom Activists of Bavaria.
8. Also on the last page, the very last paragraph you wrote talks about how if people have the courage the White Rose did, then we have "the right to survive" and that the White Rose was deeper then "regimes overthrown." This passage really struck out to me. Would you care to elaborate on it?
There are too many people who form repressive governments, help them stay in power, act with apathy, care only about themselves, or profess to have a social conscience but remain silent in the face of evil and injustice, whether small or large. We’re also as humans destroying our planet in so many ways for short-term gain and without any long-term vision. Knowing that a few people – and there are some in every society always, today also, around the world – had and have the courage to speak out and risk themselves for freedom and our shared humanity shows us that human beings can transcend even the darkest of conditions and providing a shining light. They are the best than humanity produces.
9. What made these students different from other students and what made their resisting different than other resistances?
Most students are conformists – even here, just by wanting to be a member of the ‘in-group.' It is less common for students to ignore peer pressure and the risk of seeming ‘uncool’ or worse than to become champions for justice, including doing something about bullying for example, or the cruelty done to gay students.
10. Would you say they were a turning point in history?
They had their own turning point with Hans Scholl’s arrest for a same-sex teen relationship. For Germany, their resistance culminated at a turning point for all Germany – with the Fall of the Germany army at Stalingrad. At that point it was clear to almost everyone that Germany could no longer win a war on two fronts – it was only a matter of time. In that sense their resistance coincided with a sinking of morale in Germany.
11. You might not know about other resistance movements but would you say that those who resisted were a turning point?
Don’t forget – the White Rose didn’t have internet resources and instant communication. IT was unbelievably hard for them to get their message out. Today, for example, the Egyptian woman and friends who roused people by Facebook etc. in January 2011 to rise up against the Mubarak dictatorship definitely represented a turning point there – generating a revolution. Where it goes, nobody knows.
12. In the authors note, you wrote that you and Ms. Dumbach had interviewed people who knew the White Rose and had looked through many primary sources. Do you remember anything concerning these people and is there any information you can give me about them, those sources, or the commemorative events?
Well, Prof. Huber’s daughter became a psychologist – and she had particularly intelligent insight into the White Rose resistance. And an archivist at Munich’s “Institute for Contemporary History” - see book – began gathering first-person accounts of the White Rose from many witnesses – even Inspector Mohr, the Gestapo official who interrogated them. This ‘treasure trove’ provided a wealth of information and insights gathered while the memory of the White Rose resistance and its participants were still fresh in their minds.
Good luck! Dr. JN
When I was just a small boy I learned that some of my grandmother’s family were murdered by the Nazis. When I decided to do my doctoral work at the University of Chicago on the Holocaust – focusing the Germans who perpetrated it, not simply the victims – it raised my spirits to know there were some Germans, however few, who risked everything (including the wrath of all those supporting Hitler) to wake up Germans to the evils of Nazism. The White Rose first made an impact on me when I saw a white rose carved in marble, and their names, in the atrium of the University of Munich, when I arrived there for research in 1980.
2. Can you explain who they were?
Hans and Sophie, siblings, were former Hitler Youth leaders who transformed to become the greatest heroes of the German anti-Nazi resistance – joining a handful of like-minded students, and one professor, at the University of Munich between 1942 and 1943.
3. You have said that they had networks of communication. How many do you suppose were really involved in the resisting? How were these networks important?
Perhaps 50 people in total were involved, more or less. There was an active ‘cell’ or branch in Hamburg, some of whom were arrested and executed – 11 executed in total between Munich and Hamburg. There were some in Saarbrucken as well, via Willi Graf. The networks helped feed them money to purchase paper, stamps; get a mimeograph machine to them for cranking out leaflets; finding a secure place to do that work; etc.
4. What do you think made them resist?
For Hans and Sophie: They were members simultaneously of the Hitler Youth and an alternative youth group that was far more open to other cultures and ideas. When the Nazis decided after 1936 to eliminated other youth groups, they arrested Hans Scholl for having had a teen-same sex relationship at age 16. (By then Hans was almost 19 and in the Cavalry.) 20 teens were rounded up. Hans was only one of two convicted. This jolted Hans and Sophie, because Hans was interrogated for 6 months by the Gestapo and his innocent love made public in a trial. He and Sophie learned what it mean, not to be suporters of evil, but victims – and that led them to identify with the oppressed, and fight for freedom and love for all.
5. If they hadn't been in Hitler Youth, do you suppose they would have resisted?
Remember that the OTHER core White Rose members in Munich – Alexander Schmorell, Christoph Probst and Willi Graf among them – were NOT Hitler Youth ever. Willi Graff was the most consistently anti-Nazi of them all from the start – joining a Catholic anti-Nazi youth group called the “Gray Order” and crossing off his address book the name of every friend who joined the Hitler Youth starting in 1933.
As of Hans and Sophie, they DID return to their parents’ values – Christian humanism, hatred of racism and dictatorship, and the personal strength to be a non-conformist even when almost everyone was againsts their position. (Look up Robert Scholl in the index.)
The other special ingredient is that fact that, once at the University of Munich – these people of ‘like spirit’ and values found each other. Perhaps if they hadn’t come together as a group, nothing would have happened. But this special mix of personalities – including the special transformation that occurred to Hans and Sophie – helped the group “gell”.
6. Was them resisting important?
Of course! They had to resist under conditions where most of the population was pro-Hitler – eager to turn in anyone suspect – or simply compliant or apathetic. They are great heroes in Germany today – perhaps the greatest – because they dared speak out to their own people and risk their lives when others remained silent or hostile.
7. Sophie said that she hoped others would resist due to the White Rose. Did anyone?
The White Rose leaflets may have inspired them, even if they didn’t go as far as the White Rose did. It is unlikely they inspired actual active resistance by anyone, but there was a group in Munich in 1945 that banded together to help fight the Nazis just prior the Allies marching in – perhaps they knew about the White Rose – they surely heard of them – and were waiting for their chance to act. (They were called the “Freiheitsaktion Bayern.”) The Freedom Activists of Bavaria.
8. Also on the last page, the very last paragraph you wrote talks about how if people have the courage the White Rose did, then we have "the right to survive" and that the White Rose was deeper then "regimes overthrown." This passage really struck out to me. Would you care to elaborate on it?
There are too many people who form repressive governments, help them stay in power, act with apathy, care only about themselves, or profess to have a social conscience but remain silent in the face of evil and injustice, whether small or large. We’re also as humans destroying our planet in so many ways for short-term gain and without any long-term vision. Knowing that a few people – and there are some in every society always, today also, around the world – had and have the courage to speak out and risk themselves for freedom and our shared humanity shows us that human beings can transcend even the darkest of conditions and providing a shining light. They are the best than humanity produces.
9. What made these students different from other students and what made their resisting different than other resistances?
Most students are conformists – even here, just by wanting to be a member of the ‘in-group.' It is less common for students to ignore peer pressure and the risk of seeming ‘uncool’ or worse than to become champions for justice, including doing something about bullying for example, or the cruelty done to gay students.
10. Would you say they were a turning point in history?
They had their own turning point with Hans Scholl’s arrest for a same-sex teen relationship. For Germany, their resistance culminated at a turning point for all Germany – with the Fall of the Germany army at Stalingrad. At that point it was clear to almost everyone that Germany could no longer win a war on two fronts – it was only a matter of time. In that sense their resistance coincided with a sinking of morale in Germany.
11. You might not know about other resistance movements but would you say that those who resisted were a turning point?
Don’t forget – the White Rose didn’t have internet resources and instant communication. IT was unbelievably hard for them to get their message out. Today, for example, the Egyptian woman and friends who roused people by Facebook etc. in January 2011 to rise up against the Mubarak dictatorship definitely represented a turning point there – generating a revolution. Where it goes, nobody knows.
12. In the authors note, you wrote that you and Ms. Dumbach had interviewed people who knew the White Rose and had looked through many primary sources. Do you remember anything concerning these people and is there any information you can give me about them, those sources, or the commemorative events?
Well, Prof. Huber’s daughter became a psychologist – and she had particularly intelligent insight into the White Rose resistance. And an archivist at Munich’s “Institute for Contemporary History” - see book – began gathering first-person accounts of the White Rose from many witnesses – even Inspector Mohr, the Gestapo official who interrogated them. This ‘treasure trove’ provided a wealth of information and insights gathered while the memory of the White Rose resistance and its participants were still fresh in their minds.
Good luck! Dr. JN