Alexander Schmorell

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Alexander Schmorell, edited photograph of Angelika Knoop-Probst (1918–1976), sister of Christoph Probst , Easter 1939 near Marienau

Alexander Schmorell (born September 3 jul. / 16 September  1917 greg. In Orenburg , Russia ; †  13. July 1943 in Munich - Stadelheim ) co-founded the resistance group White Rose . In the Russian Orthodox Church he has been glorified as a new martyr since February 2012 and is therefore also called Alexander von Munich .

Life

Alexander Schmorell came from the family of the East Prussian fur trader Karl-August Schmorell (1832–1902), who had lived in the city ​​of Orenburg on the Urals since 1855 , where they held offices in the city administration and owned industrial operations such as breweries and factories for surgical materials. His Russian mother Natalia Vvedenskaja was the daughter of an Orthodox priest and had Alexander baptized Russian Orthodox. When he was two years old, she died during the civil war of typhoid . With his father, the German doctor Hugo Schmorell, and his second wife Elisabeth, née Hoffmann (1892–1982), Alexander emigrated to Munich in 1921 at the age of four. The Russian nanny moved to Germany. She took the place of the late mother in his development. Since she hardly spoke any German, Alexander Schmorell grew up bilingual.

In 1935 he attended the New Realgymnasium in Munich with Christoph Probst . After graduating from high school in 1936, he was drafted into the Reich Labor Service in the Allgäu and since November 1937 has been serving in the armed forces artillery , where he is said to have already come into conflict with National Socialism. In 1938 he took part as a soldier in the Anschluss of Austria and then in the invasion of the Wehrmacht into Czechoslovakia . After his military service, Schmorell, who was also artistically talented, began studying medicine in Hamburg in the summer semester of 1939 at the suggestion of his father , where he met Traute Lafrenz . In the summer of 1940 he had to take part in the French campaign as a medical sergeant .

Grave of the Schmorell family in Munich

In September 1940 Schmorell came back to Munich to continue his studies . He was assigned to the 2nd student company of medical students ( Bergmannstrasse ), where he met Hans Scholl at the end of June 1941 and, from the summer semester 1942, also Willi Graf . In autumn 1941 he met Lilo Ramdohr at private drawing courses in Hein König's studio in Schwabing and became a private student of Lilo Ramdohr's neighbor, the sculptor Karl Baur , in Prinzenstrasse in Neuhausen .

From May to July 1942 he wrote the first four White Rose leaflets together with Hans Scholl. From the end of July 1942 he took part in the field traineeship as a medical sergeant in the student company, together with Hans Scholl, Willi Graf, Hubert Furtwängler and Jürgen Wittenstein in the war against the Soviet Union . Schmorell gave them a better understanding of his native country. Back from Russia, he continued his studies in Munich in the winter semester of 1942/43.

Towards the end of November 1942 Schmorell, through the mediation of his friend Lilo Ramdohr, traveled to Falk Harnack in Chemnitz with Hans Scholl in order to establish contact with resistance groups in Berlin. In December 1942 he and Hans Scholl sought contact with Kurt Huber . Together they wrote the fifth leaflet “Call to all Germans!” In January 1943, which Schmorell then distributed in Austrian cities. Together with Hans Scholl and Willi Graf, he also wrote slogans such as “Down with Hitler ” and “Freedom” on house walls in Munich.

After Christoph Probst and the Scholl siblings were arrested, Schmorell tried to flee to Switzerland via Schloss Elmau with the help of various acquaintances and with a forged passport , but this did not succeed. So he returned to Munich and was recognized, denounced and arrested on February 24, 1943, the day of his friends' funeral, in an air raid shelter on Habsburgerplatz in Munich. Schmorell was sentenced to death by the People's Court on April 19, 1943 in the second trial against the White Rose . On July 13, 1943, at the age of 25, he was guillotined together with Kurt Huber in the Munich-Stadelheim prison. Schmorell's body was buried in the Perlacher Forst cemetery in grave number 76-1-26.

Adoration

In November 1981, the Russian Church Abroad canonized the new martyrs of Russia during the Nazi period . A glorification of Alexander Schmorell was not carried out, but he is venerated as a martyr along with the new martyrs of Russia. In 2007 the Russian Orthodox Church abroad decided to canonize Alexander Schmorell; the canonization ceremony took place on February 4, 2012 in the Munich Cathedral Church. The feast day of St. Alexander of Munich in the liturgy is July 13th.

Schmorellplatz in Munich-Harlaching, 2010
Partial view of the ground monument in front of the LMU Munich

Commemorations and honors

Schools in Rostock and Kassel are named after Schmorell. In Grünwald , Halle (Westphalia) , Bad Oeynhausen , Westerstede , the community of Schlangen , in Unterhaching , Neuss and in Dormagen there are Alexander-Schmorell-Strasse, in Munich-Harlaching and Raunheim (Hesse) a Schmorellplatz. In Orenburg , Russia , the White Rose Foundation annually awards Alexander Schmorell scholarships to four students, and since December 24, 2013, a centrally located park has been named after Alexander Schmorell.

Exhibitions

  • Munich Memorial White Rose (permanent exhibition in the main building of the LMU, Munich, traveling exhibition can be borrowed in several languages)
  • The White Rose - Faces of a Friendship; the Kulturinitiative Freiburg eV (touring exhibition in German can be borrowed)
  • Orenburg Memorial Center White Rose, Russia (bilingual German-Russian permanent exhibition in the Orenburg State Pedagogical University)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b About the life and work of the martyr Alexander of Munich. In: Sobor.de , September 30, 2011.
  2. ↑ Jakob Wetzel: White Rose co-founder canonized: Alexander von Munich. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , February 5, 2012.
  3. ↑ Ulli Stang (Ed.): Sophie and Hans Scholl: 22 February 1942 murdered by Nazis. Edited by DKP Marburg, district group North Am Grün 9, Marburg 1983, p. 3.
  4. ↑ Dietmar Müller-Elmau (author and ed.): Schloss Elmau - A German story. Kösel, Munich 2015, p. 30.
  5. ↑ New Russian Martyrs (Sunday near Jan 25/7)
  6. ↑ Angels were amazed at your patience in the FAZ of February 7, 2012, p. 27.
  7. ↑ 14 results when searching for Schmorell. In: Time Online , How Often Is Your Street There?
personal data
SURNAME Schmorell, Alexander
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German co-founder of the White Rose resistance group
DATE OF BIRTH September 16, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Orenburg
DATE OF DEATH July 13, 1943
Place of death Munich