Ulm Memorial White Rose

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Permanent exhibition in the EinsteinHaus

The White Rose Memorial in Ulm does memory work through educational offers, projects and guided tours through its permanent exhibition entitled “We wanted the other” - young people in Ulm 1933 to 1945 in the foyer of the EinsteinHaus of the Ulm Adult Education Center .

history

Permanent exhibition in the EinsteinHaus

The permanent exhibition, which can also be borrowed as a traveling exhibition, was created on the initiative of Franz J. Müller (honorary chairman of the White Rose Foundation ). It is a project of the White Rose Foundation, Ulm Adult Education Center and the German Adult Education Association and was funded by the Robert Bosch Foundation . The city of Ulm supports the educational site at the Ulm Memorial White Rose with an annual grant.

The starting point for the White Rose Memorial in Ulm was Anita Binder's master's thesis (1994) on the “Ulm High School Graduates Group”, which supported the “ White Rose ” resistance group in distributing and sending out leaflets. 1994-1999 she researched on behalf of the White Rose Foundation successfully for more Ulm, and that during the Nazi era resistance rendered or the grasp of the Nazis revoked.

Franz J. Müller then looked for a place for the permanent exhibition with Ulm's Lord Mayor Ivo Gönner . Patrons had the idea to open the Ulm Adult Education Center, which opened in 1946 a. a. was founded by Inge Aicher-Scholl in the spirit of the " White Rose ". Its head Dagmar Engels supported the project. At the beginning of 1999 Anita Binder began working on the exhibition concept. The exhibition texts were finally written by Anita Binder, Dagmar Engels, Britta Müller-Baltschun and Franz J. Müller.

From 1999 to 2000, the design and realization of the permanent and traveling exhibition by the designers Pancho Ballweg and Uli Häussler followed. The White Rose Memorial in Ulm was opened on April 19, 2000. On March 1, 2009, Dr. Andreas Lörcher is in charge.

Memorial education

Its story is told in guided tours, eyewitness talks, lectures, theater workshops, democracy and tolerance training on the subject of resistance to National Socialism and civil courage. In doing so, the reference to exclusion , discrimination and the necessity of tolerance and moral courage in today's society should be established. Student work, homework and specialist work on the subject of Ulm's NS youth opposition are also supervised and supported.

Contents of the exhibition

In addition to the Ulm members of the White Rose, Hans and Sophie Scholl , Franz J. Müller, Hans and Susanne Hirzel and Heiner Guter , the permanent exhibition at the White Rose Memorial in Ulm also portrays 22 people from Ulm who did not belong to the “White Rose”, but also as young people Resistance to National Socialism .

Diverse forms of Nazi youth opposition show how young people tried to evade the Nazi regime in different ways or acted against it. The consequences for youth opposition were different. They were unable to take a high school diploma , were politically monitored, beaten, temporarily arrested, sentenced to prison, or executed. The vast majority were not punished with the death penalty, which contradicts the prevailing opinion that resistance under National Socialism would be equated with certain death. People who did not conform, or who acted against the regime and were not killed for it, are rarely mentioned in historiography. This is why the Weisse Rose Memorial in Ulm also wants to introduce the people who opposed the National Socialists as young people and survived it, in order to question justification strategies for Nazi followers and to call for moral courage .

Portrayed people

Portrait of Hans Scholl in the permanent exhibition

Resistance within the Protestant youth in Ulm

Portrait of Sophie Scholl in the permanent exhibition

After the NSDAP took over the government, life in the groups and associations of Protestant youth initially continued as usual. They saw themselves as part of a national German youth. After it became clear that the Hitler Youth saw itself as the only legitimate youth organization in the German Reich, members of the Protestant groups refused to accept this. When the Württemberg Hitler Youth met for a demonstration in Ulm in May 1933, the diocesan meeting of the Catholic youth and the Protestant District Youth Day with several hundred participants took place a week later. Ernst Röder, a youth from Ulm and leader of the Christian scouts, sang the song A strong castle is our God at the festival service in the Martin Luther Church in Ulm . In June 1933, at the YMCA meeting in Gerhausen on the Ulmer Alb, tangible disputes between the YMCA and the Hitler Youth took place. The Nazi state continued to bring Protestant youth into line. From August 1933, the uniform ban was enforced against her. Only Hitler Youth uniforms and badges were allowed to be worn in schools. About a hundred Ulm YMCA members circumvented the uniform ban. In September 1933 they drove to the federal festival in Stuttgart in uniform dark trousers and white shirts and were therefore not to be overlooked as an independent group.

In December 1933, Reich Bishop Müller of the German Christians signed the agreement to integrate the Protestant youth associations into the Hitler Youth. On March 4, 1934, the treaty was implemented in Ulm and the Protestant youth were solemnly incorporated into the Hitler Youth. A small group of objectors met further as a circle of friends. Some parish priests also tried to rebuild church youth work. This is where the 13- and 14-year-old Karl Schneider and Richard Wolf met in 1938. Richard Wolf was baptized as a Protestant, but had a Jewish father and was therefore a “ first degree Jewish half-race ”. The youth group accepted him. After the war, Richard Wolf and Karl Schneider got involved in building up Protestant youth work in Ulm. Ernst Röder and his wife Helene supervised recreation on the outskirts for Ulm children in the Ruhetal. Gerhard Staib came back from Soviet captivity in 1955. Wilhelm Burkert met again with his friends from the YMCA in 1946.

Resistance within the Catholic girls' youth in Ulm

The permanent exhibition of the Ulm memorial in the EinsteinHaus

In 1932, the fourteen-year-old student Erika Schmid from the Catholic St. Hildegard Realschule in Ulm was recruited for the Heliand Association . This union for Catholic girls from secondary schools was about a “new way of life in Christ”. The girls went on a journey, went on night hikes, conquered a lifestyle that until then had been reserved for boys in the Bundische Jugend. They attached importance to naturalness, truthfulness, independence, but also willingness to help. The girls wore the Heliand badge as an outward sign; each group had a self-made pennant and each city had its own banner. In 1933 the Bund in Germany had 1,600 members, in 1939 there were 4,500.

After the " seizure of power " Hitler was Heliand Association the Nazis an eyesore because the Nazis as part of the " phasing " of the German youth uniform organizations, namely the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls created. Although the Heliand-Bund was not banned, unlike Catholic boys' associations, the girls were constantly exposed to various reprisals. Erika Schmid was not ready to accept the Nazi ideology. She became more involved in the Heliand-Bund, became “Burgfrau” in 1936 and was therefore responsible as a city guide for the coordination of all Ulm groups. She also led a Heliand group herself. She did everything out of religious conviction and because life in the Heliand-Bund fascinated her. In 1934 Erika Schmid was among the girls who drove through Ulm with their banners on an open truck on the way to the Heliand Gautag at Niederalfingen Castle, calling and singing with their banners. Erika Schmid steadfastly refused to join the BDM, and her mother was also strictly against membership. Therefore, after graduating from the St. Hildegard School, she was unable to go to the secondary girls' high school to do the Abitur, as membership in the BDM was made a prerequisite for this. Her school performance was rated lower, classmates insulted her, and at times she even had to leave school because she was supposedly an obstacle to the class community. Schmid, who died in September 2003, later became a member of various performance committees of the Heliand Association and was responsible for the Heliand women's group in Ulm. From 1946 to 1978 she worked as a manager at the Ulm Adult Education Center.

Resistance among the Catholic youth in Ulm

EinsteinHaus of the Ulm Adult Education Center

In 1933 the four boys from Ulm, Otl Aicher, Willi Habermann, Frido Klotz and Alois Schnorr, were between 11 and 17 years old. They remained members of the Quickborn Catholic Boys' Association when it was banned in Ulm in May 1935. They did not want to be followers of the National Socialists. Aicher strictly refused to enter the Hitler Youth, although he was therefore not admitted to the Abitur. Klotz accepted to be beaten up by the Hitler Youth because he was the only one in his class who was not in the Hitler Youth. Hitler boys lay in wait for him in Söflinger Klosterhof. Alois Schnorr led boys' groups in the Catholic student union New Germany, later, like Hans Scholl, in the alliance " dj.1.11 " Schnorr's aim was to make his boys strong, despite surveillance, spying and interrogation.

The boys received support from Pastor Weiß in Ulm-Söflingen, who opposed the National Socialists in sermons and lifestyle. They stood by him when the party organized a demonstration in front of the parsonage to create an excuse to put him in protective custody. Otl Aicher, his father and Fritz Kotz stood behind the windows of the parsonage and kept moving the curtains in order to pretend to the demonstrators that there were a lot of people in the house. Aicher drove with Pastor Weiss to a secret meeting in Paderborn, at which Catholic clergy wanted to organize a network of resistance against National Socialism. The boys lived on the verge of legality. Otl Aicher found out about this in Berlin in 1937. He attended a photo exhibition with Quickborn members. They were arrested because their clothes and hairstyle indicated "frivolous activities". The 15-year-old Otl Aicher was held in solitary confinement for days in the Prinz-Albert-Palais, the Gestapo headquarters.

In 1939, the Scholl family's apartment became a meeting point for young people who rejected National Socialism. In the “Windlicht”, copied and sent by Inge Scholl, there were also contributions by Theodor Haecker and Carl Muth , whose thoughts were intended to influence the texts of the White Rose leaflets. On February 18, 1943, Otl Aicher tried to deliver a warning to Hans and Sophie Scholl. In front of the house in Munich he met Gestapo officers. The Scholl siblings had been arrested at the university half an hour earlier. Aicher deserted in the last days of the war.

Immediately after the end of the war, Otl Aicher invited Romano Guardini , the spiritual father of Quickborn, to the religious lecture "Truth and Lies" in the Martin Luther Church in Ulm . In 1946 he founded the Ulm Adult Education Center with his future wife Inge Scholl and a group of like-minded people - in memory of Hans and Sophie Scholl.

Movie

  • Civil courage - traitors to the nation. Documentation about resistance in Ulm , members of the "Ulm high school graduate group" in the vicinity of the resistance group White Rose , D, 30 min.

Web links

Commons : Ulm Memorial White Rose  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Benedikt Pfister , “Defying the Nazis!” The Ulm high school graduates under National Socialism, 2008.
  2. ↑ Anita Binder: Traitors of the Nation , Tübingen, 1994