White Rose Hamburg

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White Rose monument by the artist Franz Reckert from 1978 in Hamburg-Volksdorf

White Rose Hamburg is the name used by research after 1945 for a resistance group against National Socialism in Hamburg . Those involved did not call themselves that, and for the most part they did not see themselves as resistance fighters . The term encompasses several groups of friends and families, some of which had been in opposition to National Socialism since 1936 and, from 1942, based on the actions of the White Rose in Munich and their continuation against the Nazi regime and the Second World Waracted. Even if many of the members belonged to the parents' generation, the group is classified as a youth and student opposition. There were a few personal contacts with other Hamburg resistance groups, but no cooperation came about. Between 1943 and 1944, the Gestapo arrested more than 30 people from this area and transferred them to prisons and concentration camps . Eight members of this resistance group were murdered by the end of the war or died after being mistreated.

overview

The White Rose Hamburg consisted for the most part of students and intellectuals who rejected the National Socialist regime out of a humanistically educated basic attitude. In particular in 1943, after the execution of Hans and Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst , members of the White Rose Hamburg took over the leaflets of the Munich group, copied them and distributed them clandestinely. Central personalities were the medical students Margaretha Rothe and Albert Suhr , the philosophy students Heinz Kucharski , Reinhold Meyer and Karl Ludwig Schneider and the bookseller Hannelore Willbrandt . The medical student Traute Lafrenz and the chemistry student Hans Leipelt played special roles. They first studied at the University of Hamburg and later at the University of Munich , and from there brought information about student resistance to the Hamburg groups. In total there were about 50 people involved, between whom there was a web of personal and family relationships of different generations. However, not everyone involved knew each other. From the summer of 1943 to January 1944, over thirty members belonging to the group were arrested. In addition to the active resistance members, the parents and friends of the young people were affected, especially in the older generation. The allegations were, among other things, preparation for high treason , favoring the enemy and degrading military strength .

Eight of them were murdered or died of ill-treatment while in prison or concentration camps. In December 1943 the chemist Katharina Leipelt and in January 1944 the housewife Elisabeth Lange died under unexplained circumstances in the Fuhlsbüttel police prison ; the philology student and bookseller Reinhold Meyer also died in Fuhlsbüttel in November 1944, officially of the consequences of untreated diphtheria . The chemistry student Hans Leipelt was sentenced to death in Munich on October 13, 1944 and executed in Munich-Stadelheim on January 29, 1945 . The medical student Margaretha Rothe died on April 15, 1945 of complications from TB . The assistant doctor Frederick Geussenhainer (sometimes also called Friedrich Geussenhainer) died of starvation in April or May 1945 in Mauthausen concentration camp . The district judge Kurt Ledien and the housewife Margarete Mrosek were hanged without a court judgment in April 1945 for a so-called crime of the final phase in the Neuengamme concentration camp .

A preliminary investigation against the group led in January 1945 to the indictment of 24 members by the senior Reich attorney at the People's Court . The trials took between 17 and 20 April 1945, the meeting in Hamburg People's Court held, but only six of the defendants were brought before the others were already out of the country court prison Stendal or the penitentiary St. Georgen in Bayreuth from Allied been freed troops .

term

The members of the Hamburg resistance circles did not call themselves White Rose or White Rose Hamburg , the name was first used in 1948 in a report by the Association of Persecuted Persons of the Nazi Regime (VVN) on the resistance against National Socialism in Hamburg. The historian Ursel Hochmuth took over in the 1969 published standard work Streiflichter from the Hamburg resistance 1933–1945 the name White Rose Hamburg . In connection with the Munich group, the Hamburgers were sometimes referred to as the Hamburg branch of the White Rose ( White Rose Foundation ), the Hamburg branch of the White Rose ( Günther Weisenborn ) or the last branch of the White Rose (Heinrich Hamm). Ursel Hochmuth explains that the image of the offshoot is partially correct “if one assumes that the Scholl Group [...] radiated strong impulses into the North German group; on the other hand, it does not take into account the fact that the Hamburg district was of older origin and also had its very own face. "

Friends and families

The turn of the year 1942/1943 is considered to be the date of the active union of some people to the later so-called resistance group of the White Rose in Hamburg , in order to become active after the model of the Munich students and to send information and leaflets against the Nazi regime and the war in Northern Germany spread. It was not a homogeneous group: Rather, there were connections between different (resistance) circles, which consisted of personal and family ties, some had been opposing National Socialist rule independently for a long time, and in some cases had overlapping personnel whose participants often did not know each other.

Lichtwark students' reading group

Former Lichtwarkschule in Winterhude, today Heinrich-Hertz-Schule

Many members of the White Rose Hamburg were former students of the Lichtwark School in Winterhude , founded in 1914 according to the principles of reform pedagogy , which saw itself as a culture school and placed great emphasis on educating the students to participate in social life in a self-determined and responsible manner. From 1933, these Nazi ideas contrary opposed institution was " brought into line " the headmaster dismissed and the school in 1937 definitively resolved. In the last few years of its existence, the Lichtwark School also provided its students with a basic humanistic education, including:

  • Margaretha Rothe , who attended the Lichtwark School from November 1936 until it closed in March 1937. She studied medicine from 1939 and became a central figure in the resistance group.
  • Traute Lafrenz was also a student at this school until 1937, she began studying medicine together with Margaretha Rothe, in 1941 she moved to Munich and became the link between the Hamburg and Munich circles.
  • Heinz Kucharski belonged to the same class, he studied ethnology and oriental studies from 1939 . A love affair developed between him and Margaretha Rothe, and he also took on a central role in the group of the White Rose Hamburg.
  • Lotte Canepa was a classmate of Rothe, Lafrenz and Kucharski and was involved in the meetings and discussions of the resistance group.
  • Karl Ludwig Schneider attended the Lichtwark School from 1935, from the summer of 1940 he studied philosophy and became an important link between the various resistance groups.
  • Howard Beinhoff was another Lichtwark student who later joined the resistance group.

The school teacher Erna steel was from 1930 teacher of German and history at the Lichtwark. She got her students enthusiastic about literature and art history, conveyed free thinking, especially on cultural issues, and set up reading and music circles outside of school hours. In the spring of 1935, Stahl was transferred to a sentence, but continued to talk to her former students and their interested friends after she left school. After the war, those involved reported the formative impression and the "gift for life" that Erna Stahl had given them with this training:

“When Erna Stahl was transferred to a sentence, she invited us to reading evenings. We got to know history and many authors and artists who were of course no longer allowed back then in a very special way. Once she even went on a trip with us to see a performance of Faust in Berlin . But the best thing was when she went to the art gallery with us, Emil Nolde , Wassilij Kandinsky and Franz Marc . She explained Expressionism to us at Marc . "

- Traute Lafrenz : in an interview in 2000

“It was more of a literary-philosophical atmosphere with a strong religious influence and an unorthodox anthroposophical background. For months, the focus was on texts from the Bible, the Grail saga , Dante's ' Divine Comedy ', poems by the Romantics, Rilkes and Albrecht Schaeffers . [...] But the reading evenings certainly contributed to an awareness of the threat to all humanistic cultural values ​​by the Nazis and promoted openness to all those currents that were suppressed and persecuted by the Hitler regime. "

- Heinz Kucharski : in a report after 1945

Some of the pupils around 17 years old in 1936, in particular Heinz Kucharski, Margaretha Rothe and Traute Lafrenz, met outside the reading group, discussed theoretical and political issues and tried to get information that was not censored by the National Socialists. For example, they listened to Radio Moscow or the German freedom broadcaster . After graduating from high school and completing the Reich Labor Service , they began their studies at the University of Hamburg in 1938/1939 . There they met other students who were also opposed to the Nazi regime, with whom they became friends and later continued their discussion groups. Traute Lafrenz got to know the Munich student Alexander Schmorell during the Reich Labor Service with the harvest service in East Pomerania . She first met Schmorell again at Hamburg University, where he was enrolled in medicine in the summer semester of 1939, and later in Munich. She got to know Hans Scholl through him .

Friends of the Leipelt family

The graduate engineer Konrad Leipelt who received his doctorate in chemistry Katharina Leipelt and their children Hans and Maria Leipelt settled mid-1920s from Vienna to Harburg-Rönneburg over after Konrad Leipelt the position of cabin director of Zinnwerke Wilhelmsburg had assumed. Due to the Jewish origin of Katharina Leipelt, the family was subject to the repression of the Nuremberg race laws from 1935 . She left the rural area and in 1936 moved to the Wilhelmsburg Reiherstieg district . With the “ Anschluss of Austria ” to the German Reich in March 1938, the Jewish part of the family living in Vienna fell victim to Nazi persecution. Katharina Leipelt's brother committed suicide on March 12, 1938, and her parents fled to Brno , where their father also died. Konrad Leipelt traveled to Austria and brought his mother-in-law Hermine Baron to the family home in Wilhelmsburg.

Hans Leipelt graduated from high school in the spring of 1938. After his participation in the Reich Labor Service, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and was initially posted to the front in Poland and in 1940 in France . Despite multiple awards, Hans Leipelt was dismissed from the Wehrmacht in August 1940 as a “ half-Jew ”. Through his father's mediation, he was initially able to matriculate at the University of Hamburg in the chemistry department , although admission for so-called “ Jewish half-breeds ” was also prohibited here since January 5, 1940. Maria Leipelt attended the Elise Averdieck University until 1940 , when she was expelled from school as a “half-Jew”. She was then placed at the commercial college.

In the Leipelt house in the Kirchenallee in Wilhelmsburg, today Mannesallee, a circle of friends across generations and religions frequented, in particular, people who were in opposition to the Nazi regime out of personal concern. They met for socializing as well as for political talks or to exchange information. The circle included:

  • Rosa Harter, a long-time friend of Katharina Leipelt from Rönneburg times, her two brothers were imprisoned as resistance fighters in concentration camps.
  • The couple Elisabeth Lange and Alexander Lange, this acquaintance too, had existed since the 1920s.
  • Hanna Marquardt was another friend of the house. Her husband, Otto Marquardt, belonged to the KPD and organized himself in the Bästlein-Jacob-Abshagen group . In 1944 he was arrested and executed in the Brandenburg prison.
  • Heinz Marquardt was the son of Hanna and Otto Marquardt, he was close friends with Hans Leipelt and was drafted with him in 1939 for service at the front. He fell in Poland in September 1939.
  • Dorothea (Dorle) Zill was a music student and also friends with Hans Leipelt. It was through this friendship that the contact between the parents Emmy and Johannes Zill and the parents Leipelt came about.
  • Margarete Mrosek, in turn, was a friend of the Zill family and, like Katharina Leipelt, was of Jewish descent. The common problems led to a closer relationship between the two women.
  • Ilse Ledien was a friend of Maria Leipelt, they met at the commercial college and shared their fate as so-called “half-Jews”.
  • Kurt Ledien , Ilse Ledien's father, also made friends with the Leipelt family through the contact between the children; he too lived in what is known as a privileged mixed marriage .
  • Adolf Wriggers , painter and arrested several times as a member of the KPD, was another friend of the Leipelt family.

On July 19, 1942, Hans Leipelt's grandmother, Hermine Baron, was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto in one of the first transports from Hamburg . She died there on January 22nd, 1943. Konrad Leipelt suffered a surprisingly fatal heart attack in September 1942 . The Jewish family was thus deprived of its ultimate protection.

“Hans felt the consequences of the Nuremberg Laws for his family as personal injury and degradation. That's why he hated the National Socialists, and that drove him into resistance. "

- Marie Luise Jahn : in a 1991 report

Candidates of humanity

Even before the Second World War, a group formed around the family of Rudolf Degkwitz , professor of paediatrics at the University of Hamburg and chief physician at the children's clinic at Eppendorf University Hospital (UKE), which was in increasing opposition to the Nazi regime. Degkwitz publicly rejected the regulation of science and the culture hostility of the Nazi rulers, campaigned against anti-Semitism and the persecution of Jews and turned against child euthanasia . His sons Hermann , Richard and Rudolf jun. he confirmed in their rejection of National Socialism, all three were in contact with the White Rose by 1943 at the latest . At the university, Rudolf Degkwitz supported the attitude of the resistant students. In the UKE he protected oppositional doctors, such as the group of young assistant doctors and medical students from various departments who came together as candidates of humanity from 1941 . They gave themselves the name as an expression of protest and in deliberate demarcation from German foolishness. English was spoken, among other things to protect oneself from informers. They included:

  • Ursula de Boor , assistant doctor and employee of Rudolf Degkwitz sen. at the children's clinic in the UKE;
  • Rudolf Degkwitz (junior) , medical student and founder of the Musenkabinett;
  • Eva von Dumreicher-Heiligtag, assistant doctor;
  • John Gluck , resident in surgery;
  • Heinz Lord , also an assistant doctor in surgery, he was also close to the Hamburg Swing Youth;
  • Frederick Geussenhainer , medical student, staunch Catholic and supporter of the Bishop of Galen , joined the circle in 1942;
  • Albert Suhr , medical student and a central figure in the various circles that formed the White Rose Hamburg.

Rudolf Degkwitz senior was arrested on September 22, 1943 and sentenced to seven years in prison on February 24, 1944 by the People's Court in Berlin for undermining military strength . His proceedings were not related to the activities of the various resistance groups of the White Rose in Hamburg. The notorious criminal judge Roland Freisler justified the relatively mild verdict with Degkwitz's merits in research: "Just because he saved the lives of 40,000 German children through his measles prophylaxis alone, [...] he will not be punished with death."

Cabinet of the Muses

In June 1940, the art students Hermann Degkwitz and Willi Renner founded the so-called Musenkabinett , a cross-generational discussion group that offered the participants a refuge from the amusical reality of the “ Third Reich ”. The discussion group consisted of intellectuals, actors, writers, artists and students who exchanged views on modern painting, music and literature in particular. The mentors were the university professor Albrecht Renner, the building director Jackstein, the reform pedagogue Wilhelm Flitner and the writer Egon Vietta . The younger generation's regular participants included the drama students Harald Benesch, Isot Kilian , Günther Mackenthum, Angelika Krogmann and Wolfgang Borchert as well as the students Regine Renner, Jürgen Bierich and Andreas Flitner.

The circle was a publicly known discussion group, even though at some meetings prohibited art, music or literature were debated. He gave himself an official appearance by organizing events in Streits Hotel on Jungfernstieg in Hamburg. The founders initially planned to have the district registered as an association, but this project was rejected because one would then have had to join the Hitler Youth (HJ). Most of the meetings took place in private homes; preferred locations were the Degkwitz or Flitner houses, but also the house of the Reemtsma family, who were close to the NSDAP . A literary meeting with a reading of texts by Thomas Wolfe even took place with the National Socialist Hamburg Mayor Vincent Krogmann on Harvestehuder Weg .

A wing developed within the cabinet of the Muses, which aimed at a concrete resistance against the Nazi regime and which was later assigned to the group of the White Rose Hamburg . These included:

  • Hermann Degkwitz , art student, son of Rudolf Degkwitz senior and founder of the Musenkabinett;
  • Willi Renner, also an art student and founder of the Musenkabintett;
  • Rudolf Degkwitz junior , medical student who was also involved in the candidate of humanity group, also the son of Rudolf Degkwitz senior;
  • Richard Degkwitz, another son of Rudolf Degkwitz, also a medical student and member of the candidates of humanity ;
  • Apelles Sobeczko, painter;
  • Reinhold Meyer , philosophy student and bookseller, who became junior boss of the Rauhen Haus agency in 1942 and played a central role within the resistance group;
  • Albert Suhr was a friend of Reinhold Meyer's, with whom he had attended school and graduated from high school. As a medical student, Suhr was also involved with the candidates of humanity ;
  • Hannelore Willbrandt , bookseller in the Kloss bookstore, she brought together the groups around Heinz Kucharski and Albert Suhr ;
  • Felix Jud , owner of the Hamburg bookstore Felix Jud & Co. at the Colonnaden and a declared opponent of the Nazi state; his bookstore was a popular meeting place for various resistance groups; in addition to the White Rose , members of the Bästlein-Jacob-Abshagen group also met there .

Swing youth

Some of the younger members, especially the candidates of humanity like Heinz Lord, came into contact with the Hamburg swing youth through their love for jazz . This did not see itself as resistant, the young people were neither organized nor were they in political opposition to National Socialism. However, due to their inappropriateness, which was particularly evident in their clothing and demeanor, the Gestapo classified them as politically dangerous and from 1941 they were increasingly exposed to persecution.

“The concept of contradiction seems to be more useful than resistance to understanding the internal situation. Certainly acts of resistance were carried out; but they only come to the end. […] I can say for many of my friends from that time […] that we simply followed our inclinations and interests and thought and did things that were the most natural thing in the world and […] which never, ever lead to political affairs would have developed, we were not by chance at the Elbe [...] and would not have studied at the University of Hamburg, but in Oxford or Cambridge. "

- Thorsten Müller : Report 1969

The inclusion in the resistance of the White Rose of a few of these young people came about through the personal connection between Hans Leipelt and his former tutor Bruno Himpkamp , who belonged to the swing boys, and his friends Thorsten Müller and Gerd Spitzbarth.

Development of resistance

The motivation to resist the Nazi regime arose for all those involved in the White Rose Hamburg largely from their cultural interests, which opposed the prevailing regulations, as well as a basic humanistic attitude. Some of those involved, such as Katharina Leipelt, Kurt Ledien and Margarethe Mrosek, were persecuted because of their Jewish origins. Frederick Geussenhainer, Reinhold Meyer and others were devout Christians. Margaretha Rothe, Heinz Kucharski and Hans Leipelt dealt with socialist theories. They met in different constellations and contexts to exchange information and discuss. The younger generation in particular was looking for ways to actively fight fascism .

Networking of the individual circles

Hans Leipelt and the former Lichtwark student Karl Ludwig Schneider met in June 1940 during the western campaign in France, when Schneider was slightly injured by a shrapnel and Leipelt came to his aid. A close friendship developed between the young men, during which both continued to develop their opposition to National Socialism. When they returned to Hamburg - Leipelt had been released from the Wehrmacht as a “half-Jew” in August 1940, Schneider was given leave of absence from military service - they started their studies, Leipelt in chemistry, Schneider in philosophy.

Hans Leipelt met his former classmates, Heinz Kucharski and Margaretha Rothe, at the university in 1940. A circle developed in which primarily Marxist writings were exchanged and discussed and news from abroad was passed on. In addition to their theoretical debates, for example about Thomas Mann's speech on the withdrawal of his doctorate, the text of which Erna Stahl had sent them, they also became practically active. For example, they produced scatter labels and stamp imprints with the details of transmission times and wavelengths of so-called enemy transmitters using the types of children's printing boxes . From 1940 there were regular contacts with the writers Louis Satow and Theo Hambroer, both supporters of the free religious movement . A popular meeting place at this time was the Hamburg bookstore Felix Jud & Co. at the Colonnaden , whose owner Felix Jud sold “forbidden books to trustworthy people at normal retail prices”.

From the summer of 1940 Karl Ludwig Schneider was also a welcome guest at the Leipelts, he got to know and appreciate his friend's family. He took part in the numerous problems and strokes of fate that the family was exposed to as a result of National Socialist persecution. These experiences increased his negative attitude towards the regime, so that he advocated increased resistance among friends. His school friend Howard Beinhoff also frequented the Leipelt house since 1940, and he also made the acquaintance of the music student Dorothea Zill, a friend of Hans Leipelt. At times the young people also met in Dorothea Zill's parents' apartment in the Eilbek district at Conventstrasse 6.

Since the study conditions for Hans Leipelt in Hamburg continued to deteriorate, he moved to the University of Munich at the beginning of the winter semester 1940/41 to the institute of Professor Heinrich Wieland , who made the study possible due to his position as "half-Jews". In Munich, too, Leipelt found friends who organized themselves in the resistance against the Nazi regime; so he got to know Marie Luise Jahn , with whom he soon had a love affair. Hans Leipelt had no direct contact with the White Rose around the Scholl siblings.

Traute Lafrenz also moved to the University of Munich in 1941, continued her medical studies there and met Hans Scholl and his family through the already known Alexander Schmorell . In the following two years she was mainly involved in the development of the White Rose with content-related contributions to the discussion .

In the summer of 1942, the bookseller Hannelore Willbrandt met the students Margaretha Rothe and Heinz Kucharski in the Conrad Kloss bookstore. After she had met the medical student Albert Suhr - also as a customer - in February 1943, she introduced the three of them to each other. In turn, Suhr had been friends with Reinhold Meyer since his school days, who had taken on the position of junior boss in his father's bookstore, the agency of the Rauhen Haus , that summer . These three took part in the events of the Musenkabinett since 1940 and looked for ways to actively fight against National Socialism. Suhr was also a member of the candidates of humanity at the Eppendorfer University Clinic and befriended the young assistant doctor Frederick Geussenhainer. Through Albert Suhr, various contacts of individual members of the various groups developed.

“You spun a web. And that was what the Gestapo feared most. They weren't that afraid of assassins, they were caught and executed quickly. But this spider web that they spread and the uprising of consciences - that was a particular danger for the Gestapo. "

- Anneliese Tuchel : He doesn't need flowers. In memory of Reinhold Meyer

"Your spirit lives on anyway"

The agency of the Rauhen Haus , the central meeting point of the White Rose Hamburg in 1943, was located in this house at Jungfernstieg 50

In autumn 1942 Traute Lafrenz brought her friends to Hamburg the third leaflet of the White Rose from Munich. The call for passive resistance was discussed and widely received. Margaretha Rothe, Heinz Kucharski, Hannelore Willbrandt, Albert Suhr and Reinhold Meyer in particular agreed to meet regularly from now on and to look for ways to resist the Nazi regime. They copied the leaflet several times, added the poem by Erich Kästner you and stupidity moves in rows of four and passed it on to friends and acquaintances. Further meetings took place in the Leipelt house, the New Year's Eve celebration there in 1942/1943, during which satirical lectures and polemical performances were improvised, is particularly mentioned. Presumably, further leaflets reached Hamburg both via Hans Leipelt and Traute Lafrenz.

After the arrest and execution of Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst in February 1943 and further arrests, Traute Lafrenz was also arrested in March 1943 and sentenced to one year in prison in the second trial against the White Rose in Munich. Hans Leipelt and Marie Luise Jahn then increased their resistance activities. In April 1943 they brought information about the events in Munich as well as the sixth and last leaflet of the White Rose with them for a longer stay in Hamburg. This leaflet was labeled Your Spirit Lives On anyway and was first copied and passed on by Hans Leipelt, Marie Luise Jahn, Karl Ludwig Schneider, Dorothea Zill and Maria Leipelt. Albert Suhr and Hannelore Willbrandt also took part in the reproduction and distribution of the leaflet. In addition, they put pamphlets with the appeal of Thomas Mann's obituary on an executioner German listener! and poems by Bertolt Brecht (including The Widow's Veil ). Finally, Hans Leipelt wrote his own leaflet in satirical style, which was entitled Questionnaires in the 4th Reich . Hans Leipelt and Marie Luise Jahn also got involved with a money collection for the financially distressed widow of Professor Kurt Huber, who was executed in Munich .

The circles intensified their activities and the basement rooms of the Rauhen Haus agency on Jungfernstieg became a permanent meeting point. But other rooms, such as the studio of the painter Adolf Wriggers, also located on Jungfernstieg, were used by the members of the resistance movement for gatherings and celebrations. Topics were the resistance of the Scholl group, the image of an ideal state, problems of Marxism , philosophy, art and literature. In the summer semester of 1943, Professor Flitner held an anthropological colloquium at the University of Hamburg , in which criticism of the Nazi state was hardly concealed. Reinhold Meyer, Heinz Kucharski, Karl Ludwig Schneider, Margaretha Rothe and Albert Suhr attended the seminar.

Content-related discussions and goals

Since no written certificates of its own have survived, the concrete political objectives of the White Rose Hamburg are difficult to grasp. The research therefore relates both to reports from those involved after 1945 and to the records of the National Socialist judiciary in the investigation files and indictments. The basis for discussion within the groups included a. Thomas Mann's speech on the revocation of his doctorate and forbidden books illegally smuggled into Germany such as Ernest Hemingway's : Whom the Hour Strikes , Hermann Rauschnings : Revolution of Nihilism and Magnus Hirschfeld : The Moral History of the World War .

What all those involved had in common was a basic humanistic attitude and a rejection of the Nazi regime and the war; most of them considered a military defeat necessary to bring about political changes. Above all, they advocated freedom of opinion, of the press, of research and teaching, of art and culture, and were against militarization, anti-communism and anti-Semitism and the “ master people ideology ”.

“Not internationalism, but misunderstood nationalism amounts to uniformity of culture. Respect for the national, for the individuality of peoples, but not only in the case of one people, but of all peoples, is respect for humanity. "

- Reinhold Meyer : Presentation at the Philosophical Seminar in 1943

Hermann Degkwitz reported on the position in the cabinet of the Muses that German anti-fascists can not create a new stab-in-the-back legend and therefore should not contribute to the overthrow of the Hitler regime themselves; unconditional surrender is the only way out. On the other hand, Kucharski, Leipelt and especially the younger ones took the view that the Germans themselves should do everything they could to end the war and the Nazi atrocities quickly. The leaflets from Munich met with broad approval, but also provoked extensive discussions. Everyone was impressed by the morals and actions of the White Rose , but there was disagreement about the practical consequences, from handing out leaflets to acts of sabotage .

After the smashing of the Nazi regime, the majority saw a return to parliamentary democracy as the goal. Kucharski, Leipelt and Rothe, who are known to sympathize with communism and who bought works by Lenin and Marx from the Felix Jud bookstore, campaigned for a socialist people's republic.

Radicalization

In April / May 1943, in addition to the distribution of leaflets, the idea of ​​active resistance arose. At a meeting between Hans Leipelt and Bruno Himpkamp, ​​the latter reported on the swingboys' ideas to carry out a sensational protest. So it was considered to organize a demonstration march over the Jungfernstieg or even to blow up the Hamburg Gestapo headquarters in the town hall . Kucharski, Rothe and Leipelt also held discussions about resistance activities. The paralyzing of an important military facility was discussed, such as the destruction of the Lombard Bridge and the neighboring rail link, which would have severely impaired military supplies. The considerations are said to have gone so far that Hans Leipelt suggested getting nitroglycerine from a Munich chemistry student. Reinhold Meyer rejected this plan because of his faith, as he could not reconcile the use of revolutionary violence with his Christian faith. Karl Ludwig Schneider was more against the "Lombardsbrückensprengung operation" for pragmatic reasons. Schneider assumed that active resistance against the National Socialist regime could only be successful in cooperation with anti-fascist officers; in addition, the possible effect would be disproportionate to the danger for the executors. The idea therefore didn't get beyond planning.

“It can be assumed that his size and consistency exceeded the capabilities of these youthful opponents of Hitler. [...] This idea certainly did not come about without the influence of the Scholl siblings, who in their leaflets called for uncompromising resistance and called for the smooth running of the fascist war machine to be prevented and not to shrink from any path or action ''. "

- Ursel Hochmuth : Highlights from the Hamburg resistance

Gestapo spy Maurice Sachs

In the summer of 1943, the French writer Maurice Sachs , who lived in Hamburg and was born under the name Maurice Ettinghausen, contacted the group at the Rauhen Haus agency . Sachs was André Gide's former secretary and a friend of Jean Cocteau . He was seen as the marginal phenomenon of literary, artistic and social life in Paris in the 1930s. After the occupation of France he volunteered as a “ foreign worker ” in Germany, worked as a crane operator at the Deutsche Werft until April 1943 and was then employed by the Hamburg Gestapo as agent “G 117” for a payment of 80 Reichsmarks per week . He introduced himself to the young people as a slave laborer , a Jew and a writer and was able to gain their trust because they wanted to help him on the one hand and on the other hand they hoped to get in touch with the French Resistance through him .

Even after the arrest of the members of the White Rose, Sachs continued to work as an informant. He was admitted to the Fuhlsbüttel police prison on November 16, 1943 , where he was brought together with several prisoners. Since they were not aware of his activity as a spy, they assumed that he was imprisoned like them. Information from conversations between him and Heinz Kucharski and Albert Suhr, with whom he was in a cell for six weeks, got to the Gestapo and into the court files. With John Gluck he acted as agent provocateur , allegedly supporting him in an attempt to escape from the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp and at the same time betraying him to the Gestapo. After the evacuation of Fuhlsbüttel, Maurice Sachs was shot during the so-called death march to Hassee .

Smashing the resistance group

In May and July 1943 the first waves of arrests against the resistance groups of the White Rose began in Hamburg , and by January 1944 more than thirty of the approximately fifty members had been arrested.

Arrests

As early as 1942, there were repeated mass arrests of swingboys , who were increasingly exposed to state repression due to their maladjustment. In this context, Bruno Himpkamp, ​​Gert Spitzbarth and Thorsten Müller were arrested in May 1943 and initially taken into protective custody. Your affiliation to the resistance group around the White Rose was established in the course of the investigation.

From the summer of 1943, the organization of the candidates of humanity at the Eppendorf University Hospital was broken up. Gestapo agent Yvonne Glass-Dufour, an informer, had also been smuggled into this group. She appeared as a "pacifist resistance fighter" and from the spring of 1943 had gained trust among young doctors. In July 1943, Frederick Geussenhainer, John Gluck and Heinz Lord were imprisoned; Albert Suhr was arrested on September 13, 1943.

Hans Leipelt's arrest took place on October 8, 1943 in Munich, a few days later Marie Luise Jahn and other students as well as acquaintances from their southern German environment were also arrested. The case was handed over to the People's Court as a connection matter in the high treason proceedings against Scholl, Huber and others . The investigative authorities established the connection between Hans Leipelt and Hamburg. After a request for assistance from the Munich Gestapo control center, members of the Hamburg resistance group were arrested. On November 9, 1943, Heinz Kucharski, Margaretha Rothe and Maria Leipelt, Hans Leipelt's sister, were arrested. Karl Ludwig Schneider had enrolled at the University of Freiburg on October 1, 1943 , was arrested there on November 12, 1943, and transferred to Hamburg on November 20, 1943.

In December 1943 there was a wave of arrests against family members and loved ones, so on December 3, 1943, Hildegard Heinrichs, Heinz Kucharski's mother, Erna Stahl's former teacher and Kucharski's friend, and Katharina Leipelt, came on December 4 , Hans Leipelt's mother, in custody. In the following December days, the other friends of the Leipelt family were also arrested: Rosa Harter, Alexander Lange, Elisabeth Lange, Margarete Mrosek, Emmy and Johannes Zill and Ilse Ledien. Her father, Kurt Ledien, had to come to Berlin in September 1943 because of anti-Jewish ordinances for a forced labor assignment at the construction of the bunker ; He was arrested there at the end of November, initially placed in the police station of the Jewish Hospital in Berlin and transferred to Fuhlsbüttel on February 29, 1944.

On December 18, 1943, the Gestapo tracked down Rudolf Degkwitz junior, Felix Jud and Hannelore Willbrandt, on December 19, Reinhold Meyer and on December 20, Ursula de Boor. Dorothea Zill was the last of this group to be arrested on January 8, 1944.

Traute Lafrenz was arrested in Munich on March 15, 1943 and was in the Schmorell, Huber, Graf u. a. sentenced to one year in prison. Due to her connection to the Hamburg group, shortly after her release on March 14, 1944, she was arrested again at the end of March 1944 in Munich. She was also transferred to the Fuhlsbüttel police prison in Hamburg.

Rosa Harter and Alexander Lange were released from prison at the end of 1944. The assistant doctor Eva Heiligtag was also briefly imprisoned from October to December 1943 and Bertha Schmitz, Heinz Kucharski's grandmother, in December 1943.

Death in custody

The arrested were initially imprisoned in the Fuhlsbüttel police prison, and partly also in the youth detention center in Hamburg-Bergedorf between December 1943 and January 1944 because of its overcrowding . The preliminary police investigations were carried out by the criminal secretary Hans Reinhard and the criminal inspector Paul Stawitzki . Survivors consistently reported that not only were they subjected to tremendous psychological pressure, but "a number of those arrested, especially the younger men, were also beaten, flogged and otherwise ill-treated."

Kaethe Leipelt died on December 9, 1943, two days after her arrest, in the Fuhlsbüttel police prison. Older sources say that she hanged herself in her cell on the night of January 8th to 9th, 1944 in order to avoid being transported to the Auschwitz concentration camp . Elisabeth Lange was found dead in her cell on January 29, 1944; she too is said to have committed suicide .

On June 6, 1944, a number of prisoners were transferred to the Neuengamme concentration camp as police prisoners because of the overcrowding of the police prison and the upcoming renovation work. These included Reinhold Meyer, Felix Jud, Karl Ludwig Schneider, Wilhelm Stoldt, Albert Suhr, Bruno Himpkamp, ​​Frederick Geussenhainer, John Gluck and Heinz Lord. They were returned to Fuhlsbüttel on October 16, 1944, but Geussenhainer, Gluck and Lord remained in Neuengamme as prisoners. Ten days later, Jud, Schneider, Stoldt, Suhr and Himpkamp were taken to the remand prison because they were to be handed over to the Reich Justice Department after the investigation was over. Only Reinhold Meyer remained from this group in the police prison. No charges had been brought against him and he hoped that he would be released soon. But on November 12, 1944, he died in Fuhlsbüttel, with diphtheria as the cause of death . The Meyers family doubted the representation, fellow prisoners reported that Reinhold Meyer had died after being interrogated in his cell.

Proceedings, charges and trials

The proceedings were opened against 24 members of the group after the preliminary investigation, which was essentially completed in the summer of 1944. On November 6, 1944, the files were handed over to the Oberreichsanwalt at the People's Court , who in January 1945 brought charges of preparation for high treason and other offenses. The main perpetrators were Heinz Kucharski, Karl Ludwig Schneider, Gerd Spitzbarth, Bruno Himpkamp, ​​Margaretha Rothe and the student councilor Erna Stahl. Other accused were Albert Suhr, Hannelore Willbrandt and Traute Lafrenz, Rudolf Degkwitz and Ursula de Boor from the candidates of humanity , the bookseller Felix Jud, the glazier Ludwig Stoldt, Maria Leipelt and her friend Ilse Ledien, Dorothea Zill and their parents Johannes and Emmy Zill, Hildegard Heinrichs, the mother, and Bertha Schmitz, the grandmother of Heinz Kucharski. The 78-year-old Bertha Schmitz was not in custody, and the other co-defendants, Riko Graepel, a friend of Hans Leipelt, Wolrad Metterhausen and Alexander Lange, were released after their arrest. The 24th person on the indictment was Elisabeth Lange, the wife of Alexander Lange, who had died in the Fuhlsbüttel police prison in January 1944. Thorsten Müller of the Swingboys was later added to the indictment.

The prisoners who were to be brought to justice were handed over to justice and first taken to the Holstenglacis remand prison on October 26, 1944 . In November 1944, six of the men accused were transferred to the Stendal Regional Court Prison and nine of the women to Cottbus Prison. From February 1945, after the Red Army had crossed the German border, 340 prisoners were transported from Cottbus to the Leipzig-Meusdorf women's prison . The conditions of the transport were described as inhumane as the prisoners were inadequately fed and clothed in the extreme cold. Margaretha Rothe, who was slightly ill in Cottbus, arrived in Leipzig on February 10, 1945, completely exhausted. On February 18, she was admitted to the prison hospital because of pneumonia and pleurisy and on March 16 to the St. Jakob moved to Leipzig-Dosen with a diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis . She died there on April 15, 1945.

The other women were transported to the St. Georgen penitentiary in Bayreuth on February 19, including Erna Stahl, Hannelore Willbrandt, Traute Lafrenz, Ursula de Boor, Maria Leipelt, Dorothea Zill, Emmy Zill and Hildegard from the Hamburg resistance group Heinrichs. On April 14, 1945 they were liberated by American troops. Albert Suhr, Bruno Himpkamp, ​​Gerd Spitzbarth, Karl Ludwig Schneider, Wilhelm Stoldt and Johannes Zill were liberated in Stendal on April 12, 1945.

Trial and death sentence against Hans Leipelt

The trial against Hans Leipelt took place in October 1944 before the Second Senate of the People's Court in Donauwörth ; he was sentenced to death on October 13, 1944 for Bolshevik propaganda, dismantling of military strength and favoring the enemy . The execution took place on January 29, 1945 in Munich-Stadelheim . Hans Leipelt was buried in the Perlacher Forest cemetery.

People's Court in Hamburg in April 1945

The proceedings against the White Rose in Hamburg were opened in February 1945 and carried out in four trials from April 17 to 20, 1945 before the People's Court , which was in session in Hamburg , although most of the defendants had already been liberated by Allied troops in Stendal and Bayreuth .

The first trial against Heinz Kucharski, Margaretha Rothe, Erna Stahl, Rudolf Degkwitz jun. and Hildegard Heinrichs took place on April 17, 1945. Heinz Kucharski, against whom a death sentence was passed, and Rudolf Degkwitz, whose sentence was one year in prison, were presented. Margaretha Rothe had been dead for two days, Erna Stahl and Hildegard Heinrichs had been freed from St. Georgen Bayreuth prison by American troops on April 14, 1945. After the verdict had been pronounced, Heinz Kucharski was initially brought back to the remand prison and transported to the Bützow-Dreibergen prison for execution on the night of April 20-21 . In Grevesmühlen the train by British low-flying aircraft was attacked, Kucharski was able to escape in the general panic and flee the Red Army.

The second trial took place on April 19, 1945 against Albert Suhr, Hannelore Wilbrandt, Ursula de Boor, Wilhelm Stoldt and Felix Jud. Only Felix Jud was brought before and sentenced to four years in prison. Albert Suhr and Wilhelm Stoldt were freed on April 12, 1945 by the US Army from the Stendal Regional Court Prison, Ursula de Boor and Hannelore Wilbrandt on April 14, 1945 by American troops from the St. Georgen Bayreuth prison.

In the third trial, also on April 19, 1945, against Bruno Himpkamp, ​​Gerd Spitzbarth and Thorsten Müller, at which only Thorsten Müller was present, the main hearing was suspended. Bruno Himpkamp and Gerd Spitzbarth had already been freed from the Stendal regional court prison on April 12, 1945 by American troops.

The fourth and final trial against Karl Schneider, Maria Leipelt, Dorothea Zill, Emmy Zill, Ilse Ledien and Riko Graepel took place on April 20, 1945. The two defendants present, Ilse Ledien and Riko Graepel, were acquitted. Karl Schneider was liberated on April 12, 1945 by American troops in Stendal, Maria Leipelt, Dorothea and Emmy Zill on April 14, 1945 by American troops in Bayreuth.

The proceedings against the last five defendants, Johannes Zill, Traute Lafrenz, Alexander Lange, Wolrad Metterhausen and Bertha Schmitz no longer came to trial.

Protective custody without trial

The preliminary proceedings against Frederick Geussenhainer, Heinz Lord and John Gluck, who were nevertheless not released from prison, but were handed over to the SS as protective prisoners in Neuengamme concentration camp in the summer of 1944 , as well as against Margarete Mrosek and Kurt Ledien, who were initially in the police prison , did not lead to charges Fuhlsbüttel remained. Geussenhainer and Gluck were brought to Mauthausen concentration camp on November 7, 1944 on a transport departing from Neuengamme . It is known of Frederick Geussenhainer that he was subordinate to the Gusen Command , a satellite camp of the concentration camp , from December 13, 1944 , and to the Amstetten Command , another field command, from April 3, 1945 . He probably died in April 1945 or after the liberation in Mauthausen concentration camp, ie after May 5, 1945. John Gluck experienced the liberation of Mauthausen concentration camp seriously ill and died on July 6, 1952 in Johannesburg ( South Africa ) of the consequences of imprisonment.

Margarete Mrosek and Kurt Ledien, both referred to as “half-Jews” by the National Socialists, remained in protective custody. At the beginning of 1945, Gestapo officer Paul Stawitzki, who was entrusted with the investigation into the White Rose, placed their names on a so-called "liquidation file", which contained a total of 71 prisoners, mainly from the Hamburg resistance. These were people against whom no proceedings had been opened, but who were nevertheless classified as dangerous by the Gestapo and referred to as "unsustainable elements". These 71, among them Margarete Mrosek and Kurt Ledien, were brought from Fuhlsbüttel to the Neuengamme concentration camp in April 1945 and hanged in the detention bunker there between April 21 and 23, 1945. This atrocity is also known as the final phase of the crime in Neuengamme concentration camp .

Heinz Lord survived both the protective custody and the Cap Arcona disaster after the evacuation of the Neuengamme concentration camp in April 1945. He and his family emigrated to the USA in the 1950s . His health did not recover from the consequences of imprisonment and suffered from chronic heart disease. He died 43-year on 4 February 1961 after 1960 as Director General of the World Medical Association was elected (World Medical Association).

Research status and classification

The research of the historian Ursel Hochmuth , published in 1969 in the work Streiflichter from the Hamburg Resistance 1933–1945 , is considered to be the first historical review of the White Rose Hamburg . Since the mid-1980s, several biographical studies on individuals from resistance circles have been published. One focus of the exhibition Enge Zeit. Traces of displaced and persecuted people at Hamburg University in 1991 were portrayed by some of the group's personalities. Comprehensive historical research that goes beyond Ursel Hochmuth's work is still pending.

In the literature on the resistance against National Socialism, the group is mentioned, if at all, in connection with the White Rose in Munich and classified as a youth and student opposition. Little attention is paid to the intergenerational relationships. A numerical analysis shows that of the 36 known arrested people, 21 belonged to the younger generation and were pupils, students or interns. 15 of the detainees were significantly older, mostly family members and friends or were considered mentors.

It is clear that the Hamburg group was not a firmly established resistance group with a political program or a formulated objective. Ursel Hochmuth describes it as a “loose group of like-minded people with a revolutionary core”, which consisted of Heinz Kucharski, Albert Suhr, Hans Leipelt and Margaretha Rothe. These endeavored to "turn a non-binding, passively resistant community into a resistance group [...]." This structure means that, apart from a few personal contacts, there was no interaction with other resistance groups. There was a personal connection to the Bästlein-Jacob-Abshagen group on the one hand through the bookstore of Felix Jud and on the other hand through the circle of friends of Katharina Leipelt, in particular through Hanna Marquard, the wife of the resistance fighter Otto Marquard, who was executed in 1944. John Gluck's support for the International Women's League for Peace and Freedom also became known through his relationship with the politician Magda Hoppstock-Huth .

The reports and publications of the post-war period show that most of the members of the Hamburg Weisse Rose did not see themselves as resistance fighters. Anneliese Tuchel, Reinhold Meyer's sister, describes the group's activities as a rebellion:

“They wanted to rebel against the curtailing of all freedom. That it was forbidden to read what one wanted to read. That it was forbidden to look at what one wanted to look at. They hoped they could make a difference too. They weren't resistance fighters like Stauffenberg. You didn't have any options. "

- Anneliese Tuchel : He doesn't need flowers. In memory of Reinhold Meyer

Commemoration

The history of the Hamburg districts received little attention in the first post-war period. With a bronze plate in the University of Hamburg, some members of the group were included in the public commemoration for the first time in 1971. In the following decades, eight more places of memory of the White Rose Hamburg were created . In Munich, Hans Leipelt was seen as a member of the White Rose and included in the reappraisal and commemoration there. In 1997, the Chemical Institute at Ludwig Maximilians University set up a thinking room under his name.

Monuments

Memorial plaque in the Audimax of the University of Hamburg
Memorial table with twelve chairs in Hamburg-Niendorf

From 1968, at the suggestion of Professor Wilhelm Flitner, there were plans at Hamburg University to relocate a memorial plaque for the student members of the resistance. On September 28, 1971, this idea was implemented and a bronze plate designed by the artist Fritz Fleer was inaugurated in the foyer of the Audimax . It is a panel embedded in the floor with a short reminder text and the names of Hans Conrad Leipelt, Frederick Geussenhainer, Reinhold Meyer and Margaretha Rothe.

In 1977, on the initiative of the chairman of the local committee at the time, a shopping center and an adjacent square were named after the White Rose in the Hamburg district of Volksdorf and at the same time the construction of a work of art was commissioned for this square. The resulting, over two meter high sculpture or free- standing sculpture made of shell limestone by the artist Franz Reckert was inaugurated on June 1, 1978. Since the meaning was not revealed to the public, the local committee expanded the memorial in 1981 with a plaque on which the names of those executed by the Munich group were named. In addition, the eight names of the murdered members of the Hamburg resistance group were not added until 1993.

As part of the so-called Hamburg board program of the Scientific Inventory Unit , which marks sites of persecution and resistance 1933–1945 with black memorial plaques , such a black enamel plaque was placed on the building of the former Rauhen Haus agency at Jungfernstieg 50 in 1984 as a reference to the meeting point of the Group attached. Another sign of this program is located on the building at Vogteistraße 23 in Rönneburg and reminds of the Leipelt family, who lived there until 1937.

In 1987, in Hamburg-Niendorf , the artist Thomas Schütte set up the table with twelve chairs , on which the names of thirteen resistance fighters are affixed on small brass plates, representing various groups of the Hamburg resistance. One chair is marked for Reinhold Meyer and one for Margaretha Rothe.

In December 1987 a study building was named Rothe-Geussenhainer-Haus on the grounds of the Eppendorf University Medical Center .

The interrogation cell is a memorial for the Geschwister-Scholl and other victims of the Nazi regime

The interrogation cell memorial, inaugurated on November 2, 1990 - a memorial for the Scholl siblings in Hamburg-Eppendorf - is the result of the private initiative of the artist Gerd Stange . The installation is sunk into the floor and shows the situation in an interrogation room. A plaque attached nearby indicates that it applies to the victims of arrest and torture during National Socialism beyond the White Rose. In 2005 the garden area around the interrogation cell was redesigned. While the interrogation cell sunk into the ground can trigger claustrophobia and reminds of the barely pronounced and already executed death sentence, the redesign of the garden as a literary garden represents the education and humanism of the White Rose.

Memorial stone for Margaretha Rothe and Erna Stahl in the women's garden

Within the women's garden at the Ohlsdorf cemetery, which was laid out in 2001, a “spiral of memories” made of sandstones of different designs commemorates important Hamburg women. Inside this sculpture there is also a memorial stone for Margaretha Rothe and Erna Stahl with an opening symbolizing a cell window and a leaflet of the White Rose shaped into a metal swallow.

The Margaretha-Rothe-Gymnasium in Barmbek-Nord took the name of the resistance fighter in 1988. In 2002, students there designed a permanent exhibition with panels in the style of a graphic novel , which show scenes from the life of Margaretha Rothe. The work was awarded the Bertini Prize in the same year .

Street names

In the Hamburg city area, the following streets were named after members of the White Rose in Hamburg:

  • Leipeltstrasse (1960) in Hamburg-Wilhelmsburg
  • Kurt-Ledien-Weg (1982) Hamburg-Niendorf
  • Margaretha-Rothe-Weg (1982) Hamburg-Niendorf
  • Reinhold-Meyer-Strasse (1982) Hamburg-Niendorf
  • Elisabeth-Lange-Weg (1988) Hamburg-Langenbek
  • Felix-Jud-Ring (1995) in Hamburg-Allermöhe
  • Margarete-Mrosek-Bogen (1995) in Hamburg-Allermöhe
  • Erna-Stahl-Ring (2008) in Hamburg-Ohlsdorf

As early as 1947, at the request of Edgar Engelhard, Niendorfer Strasse in Hamburg-Eppendorf was renamed Geschwister-Scholl-Strasse . In 2002 the Christoph-Probst-Weg was inaugurated in their immediate vicinity .

Stumbling blocks

In the meantime, stumbling blocks have been laid for all murdered members of the White Rose Hamburg at their last places of residence and in some cases also at their places of work:

  • for Fredrick Geußenhainer at Johnsallee 64, Rotherbaum, and in front of the main university building at Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1, Rotherbaum (here: Friedrich Geussenhainer );
  • for Elisabeth Lange , Hoppenstedtstrasse 76 in Harburg-Eißendorf;
  • for Kurt Ledien both in Hohenzollernring 34 in Altona and in front of the civil justice building at Sievekingplatz 1 in Hamburg-Neustadt;
  • for Hans Leipelt at Mannesallee 20, Wilhelmsburg, at Vogteistraße 23 in Harburg-Rönneburg and in front of the main university building;
  • for Katharina Leipelt at Mannesallee 20, Wilhelmsburg and at Vogteistraße 23 in Harburg-Rönneburg;
  • for Reinhold Meyer at Hallerplatz 15 in Eimsbüttel and in front of the main university building;
  • for Margarete Mrosek , Up de Schanz 24 in Nienstedten;
  • for Margaretha Rothe at Heidberg 64 in Winterhude, in front of the main university building, in front of the convent school in St. Georg and in front of the Heinrich Hertz school in Winterhude.

literature

  • Sibylle Bassler: The White Rose. Contemporary witnesses remember , Reinbek 2006, ISBN 3-498-00648-7 .
  • Christiane Benzenberg: Monuments for the resistance group 'White Rose' in Munich and Hamburg , master's thesis submitted to the Philosophical Faculty of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Bonn 1993; Available as a PDF file at: Benzenberg: Denkmäler (PDF; 531 kB), accessed on May 23, 2010.
  • Angela Bottin: Tight time. Traces of expellees and persecutees at the Hamburg University. Catalog for the exhibition of the same name in the Audimax of the University of Hamburg from February 22 to May 17, 1991. Hamburg Contributions to the History of Science Volume 11, Hamburg 1992, ISBN 3-496-00419-3 .
  • Maike Bruhns: Art in Crisis . Volume 1: Hamburg Art in the “Third Reich” , Volume 2: Artist Lexicon Hamburg 1933–1945 , Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-933374-93-6 .
  • Rudolf Degkwitz: The old and the new Germany , Hamburg 1946
  • Herbert Diercks: Freedom lives. Resistance and persecution in Hamburg 1933–1945. Texts, photos and documents. Published by the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name in the Hamburg City Hall from January 22 to February 14, 2010
  • Birgit Gewehr: Stumbling blocks in Hamburg-Altona. Biographical search for traces ; published by the State Center for Political Education Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-929728-05-7 .
  • Ursel Hochmuth : Candidates of Humanity. Documentation on the Hamburg White Rose on the occasion of Hans Leipelt's 50th birthday ; Editor: Association of the anti-fascists and persecuted persons of the Nazi regime Hamburg eV, Hamburg 1971
  • Ursel Hochmuth, Gertrud Meyer: Streiflichter from the Hamburg resistance. 1933–1945 , second edition, Frankfurt 1980, ISBN 3-87682-036-7 .
  • Gertrud Meyer : Night over Hamburg. Reports and Documents , Hamburg 1971 (Supplementary Volume on Hochmuth / Meyer: Streiflichter from the Hamburg Resistance 1933–1945 )
  • Helmut Scaruppe: My island dream . Childhood and youth in the Hitler Reich , self-published 2003, ISBN 3-8330-0732-X ; also as a google book , accessed on February 15, 2010.
  • Inge Scholl : The White Rose . Extended new edition, Frankfurt a. M. 1993, ISBN 3-596-11802-6 .
  • Ulrike Sparr : Stumbling blocks in Hamburg-Winterhude. Biographical search for traces ; published by the State Center for Political Education Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-929728-16-3 .
  • Marie-Luise Schultze-Jahn: "... and your spirit lives on anyway!" Resistance under the sign of the White Rose , Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-936411-25-5 .
  • Gerd Stange: Interrogation cell and other anti-fascist memorials in Hamburg , edited by Thomas Sello and Gunnar F. Gerlach, Museum Pedagogical Service Hamburg, Backgrounds and Materials, Verlag Dölling & Galitz, Hamburg 1994, ISBN 3-926174-32-3 .
  • Peter Normann Libra: Long live freedom! - Sweet Lafrenz and the White Rose. Stuttgart 2012, ISBN 978-3-8251-7809-3 .
  • Günter Weisenborn: The silent uprising. Report on the resistance movement of the German people 1933–1945 , Reinbek 1962
  • Hinrich CG Westphal: A conversation with Anneliese Tuchel about her brother Reinhold Meyer , in: He doesn't need flowers. In memory of Reinhold Meyer , Buchhandlung am Jungfernstieg, Hamburg 1994

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ VVN Hamburg: Streiflichter Hamburg Resistance , Brochure 1948; Excerpt printed in: Ursel Hochmuth (Ed.): Candidates of Humanity. Documentation , p. 24.
  2. ↑ a b Ursel Hochmuth, Gertrud Meyer: Streiflichter from the Hamburg Resistance 1933-1945. Report and Documents , Second Edition, Frankfurt 1980, ISBN 3-87682-036-7 , pp. 387-421.
  3. ↑ Ursel Hochmuth, Gertrud Meyer: Streiflichter from the Hamburg resistance , p. 410.
  4. ^ Sönke Zankel : With leaflets against Hitler: the resistance group around Hans Scholl and Alexander Schmorell , Böhlau Verlag, Cologne 2008, ISBN 3-412-20038-7 , p. 531.
  5. ↑ Traute Lafrenz in an interview with Katrin Seybold, 2000; see also: Weisse Rose Foundation, exhibition Traute Lafrenz ( Memento of the original from March 7, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed January 10, 2011. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.weisse-rose-stiftung.de
  6. ↑ Heinz Kucharski, quoted from Ursel Hochmuth / Gertrud Meyer, Streiflichter from the Hamburg Resistance , p. 388.
  7. ↑ Angela Bottin: Tight Time. Traces of expellees and persecutees at the Hamburg University. Catalog for the exhibition of the same name in the Audimax of the University of Hamburg from February 22 to May 17, 1991. Hamburg Contributions to the History of Science Volume 11, Hamburg 1992, ISBN 3-496-00419-3 , p. 69.
  8. ↑ Ursel Hochmuth, Gertrud Meyer, Streiflichter from the Hamburg Resistance , p. 388.
  9. ↑ Marie Luise Schultze-Jahn: Hans Leipelt - a chapter Munich University under National Socialism, 1991, p. 67.
  10. ↑ Ursel Hochmuth, Gertrud Meyer: Streiflichter from the Hamburg resistance , p. 294 f.
  11. ↑ People who have resisted. Candidates of Humanity. Hamburger Abendblatt , January 27, 2011.
  12. ↑ Angela Bottin: Tight Time. Traces of expellees and persecuted persons at Hamburg University , p. 81.
  13. ^ Judgment of the People's Court against Rudolf Degkwitz of February 24, 1944, Az. 5 J 223/44, 1 L 23/44; quoted from Ursel Hochmuth, Streiflichter from the Hamburg Resistance , p. 300.
  14. ↑ Maike Bruhns, Art in the Crisis. Volume 1: Hamburg Art in the “Third Reich”, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-933374-94-4 , p. 325.
  15. ↑ Ursel Hochmuth, Gertrud Meyer: Streiflichter from the Hamburg resistance. 1933-1945 , p. 393.
  16. ↑ quoted from: Ursel Hochmuth, Gertrud Meyer: Streiflichter from the Hamburg resistance , p. 411 f.
  17. ↑ Herbert Diercks: Freedom lives. Resistance and persecution in Hamburg 1933–1945. Texts, photos and documents. Published by the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name in the Hamburg City Hall from January 22 to February 14, 2010, p. 38 f.
  18. ↑ Angela Bottin: Tight Time. Traces of expellees and persecuted persons at Hamburg University , p. 65.
  19. ↑ Ursel Hochmuth, Gertrud Meyer: Streiflichter from the Hamburg resistance , p. 393.
  20. ^ Report by Marie-Luise Schultze-Jahn from September 13, 1964; in: Ursel Hochmuth, Gertrud Meyer: Streiflichter from the Hamburg Resistance , p. 396.
  21. ↑ Traute Lafrenz , short biography of the German Resistance Memorial Center , accessed on February 6, 2018.
  22. ↑ a b Angela Bottin: Narrow time. Traces of expellees and persecuted persons at the University of Hamburg , p. 69.
  23. ↑ Hinrich CG Westphal: A conversation with Anneliese Tuchel about her brother Reinhold Meyer , in: He doesn't need flowers. In memory of Reinhold Meyer , Buchhandlung am Jungfernstieg, Hamburg 1994, p. 26.
  24. ^ Text of the 3rd Flyer of the White Rose , see State Center for Political Education , accessed on December 28, 2010.
  25. ^ Text on collection of poems , accessed on December 28, 2010.
  26. ^ Text of the 6th White Rose leaflet , see State Center for Political Education , accessed on December 28, 2010.
  27. ↑ Ursel Hochmuth, Gertrud Meyer: Streiflichter from the Hamburg resistance , p. 400.
  28. ^ Declaration by Albert Suhr of February 5, 1948, Research Center for Contemporary History, quoted from Ursel Hochmuth, Gertrud Meyer: Streiflichter from the Hamburg Resistance , p. 400 f.
  29. ↑ Ursel Hochmuth and Ilse Jacob: Combative Humanism (1969) in Ursel Hochmuth (Ed.): Candidates of Humanity , p. 45.
  30. ↑ quoted from Ursel Hochmuth, Gertrud Meyer: Streiflichter from the Hamburg resistance , p. 412.
  31. ↑ Report Gerd Spitzbarth, in: Ursel Hochmuth, Gertrud Meyer: Streiflichter from the Hamburg resistance. 1933-1945 , p. 404 f.
  32. ↑ Hans-Harald Müller, Joachim Schöberl: Karl Ludwig Schneider and the Hamburg "White Rose". A contribution to the resistance of students in the "Third Reich" . In: Eckart Krause, Ludwig Huber, Holger Fischer (eds.): Everyday university life in the “Third Reich”. The Hamburg University 1933–1945 , Part I, Berlin and Hamburg, 1991, pp. 423–437.
  33. ↑ Ursel Hochmuth, Gertrud Meyer: Streiflichter from the Hamburg resistance , p. 405.
  34. ↑ Ursel Hochmuth, Gertrud Meyer: Streiflichter from the Hamburg resistance , p. 407.
  35. ↑ Ursel Hochmuth, Gertrud Meyer: Streiflichter from the Hamburg Resistance , p. 416 f .; see also: Report Karl Ludwig Schneider, 1951, in: Ursel Hochmuth (Ed.): Candidates of Humanity , p. 26.
  36. ↑ Herbert Diercks : Freedom lives. Resistance and persecution in Hamburg 1933–1945 , p. 39.
  37. ^ Gertrud Meyer: Night over Hamburg. Reports and Documents , Hamburg 1971, p. 126; Ursel Hochmuth: Streiflichter from the Hamburg Resistance , p. 415 fn. 55.
  38. ↑ Ursel Hochmuth, Gertrud Meyer: Streiflichter from the Hamburg resistance. 1933-1945 , p. 415.
  39. ^ Klaus Möller on Kaethe Leipelt , accessed on September 29, 2013.
  40. ↑ Ursel Hochmuth, Gertrud Meyer: Streiflichter from the Hamburg resistance. 1933-1945 , p. 417.
  41. ↑ Hinrich CG Westphal: A conversation with Anneliese Tuchel about her brother Reinhold Meyer , in: He doesn't need flowers. In memory of Reinhold Meyer , p. 27.
  42. ↑ Documentation of the indictment in: Ursel Hochmuth (Ed.): Candidates of Humanity. Documentation , pp. 15-17.
  43. ^ Ingeborg Staudacher: Margaretha Rothe. A Hamburg student and resistance fighter , Ed. Gunther Staudacher, Balingen 2010, ISBN 3-00-033234-0 .
  44. ^ Report by Heinrich Hamm, in: Ursel Hochmuth (Ed.): Candidates of Humanity , p. 34.
  45. ↑ Angela Bottin: Tight Time. Traces of expellees and persecutees at the Hamburg University. P. 83.
  46. ↑ Angela Bottin: The UKE: a "hotbed of public hostility?" , Page 370.
  47. ^ Arbeitsgemeinschaft Neuengamme: Neuengamme as the Gestapo's execution center (1960), in: Ursel Hochmuth (Ed.): Candidates of Humanity , p. 30; Gertrud Meyer: Night over Hamburg. Reports and documents 1933–1945 , Frankfurt 1971, p. 103 ff.
  48. ↑ Michael H. Kater: The impact of American popular culture , in: Jonathan Huener, Francis R. Nicosia : The arts in Nazi Germany: continuity, conformity, change . Berghahn Books, 2006, ISBN 978-1-84545-209-4 , p. 49; viewable as google book ; Obituary in the Canadian Medical Journal, March 1961 (in English), PMC 1939322 (free full text)
  49. ↑ Angela Bottin: Tight Time. Traces of expellees and persecutees at the Hamburg University. Catalog for the exhibition of the same name in the Audimax of the University of Hamburg from February 22 to May 17, 1991. Hamburg Contributions to the History of Science Volume 11, Hamburg 1992, ISBN 3-496-00419-3 .
  50. ↑ Herbert Diercks: Freedom lives. Resistance and persecution in Hamburg 1933–1945. Texts, photos and documents. Published by the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name in the Hamburg City Hall from January 22 to February 14, 2010, p. 70; See also: taz article from February 20, 2009: Disordered findings , accessed on May 23, 2010.
  51. ↑ Federal Agency for Civic Education : German Resistance 1933–1945 , Information on Civic Education, reprint 2004, ISSN  0046-9408 , p. 42.
  52. ↑ Ursel Hochmuth and Ilse Jacob: Fighting Humanism (1969) in Ursel Hochmuth (Ed.): Candidates of Humanity , p. 46.
  53. ↑ Ursel Hochmuth, Gertrud Meyer, Streiflichter from the Hamburg Resistance , p. 402.
  54. ↑ Hinrich CG Westphal: A conversation with Anneliese Tuchel about her brother Reinhold Meyer , in: He doesn't need flowers. In memory of Reinhold Meyer , Buchhandlung am Jungfernstieg, Hamburg 1994, p. 25.
  55. ↑ Christiane Benzenberg: Monuments for the resistance group 'White Rose' in Munich and Hamburg , p. 48 ff.
  56. ^ Christiane Benzenberg: Monuments for the resistance group 'White Rose' in Munich and Hamburg , p. 54 ff .; Detlef Garbe, Kerstin Klingel: Memorials in Hamburg. Guide to sites of remembrance of the years 1933 to 1945 , p. 62 ( also available as a PDF file , accessed on January 7, 2011).
  57. ↑ Memorial plaque on the former bookstore Agentur des Rauhen Haus , accessed on September 29, 2013.
  58. ^ Detlef Garbe, Kerstin Klingel: Memorials in Hamburg. Guide to places of remembrance of the years 1933 to 1945 , p. 29.
  59. ^ Christiane Benzenberg: Monuments for the resistance group 'White Rose' in Munich and Hamburg , p. 62 ff .; Detlef Garbe, Kerstin Klingel: Memorials in Hamburg. Guide to places of remembrance from 1933 to 1945 , p. 44.
  60. ↑ hamburg.de: The interrogation cell and the literary garden ( Memento from January 22, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on January 11, 2011.
  61. ^ Detlef Garbe, Kerstin Klingel: Memorials in Hamburg. Guide to places of remembrance from 1933 to 1945 , p. 51.
  62. ↑ "Scenes of Resistance" panels on the biography of Margaretha Rothe ( memento from March 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on September 29, 2013.
  63. ↑ Christof Brauers: The FDP in Hamburg 1945 to 1953. Start as a bourgeois left party, Martin Meidenbauer Verlagbuchhandlung, Munich 2007, p. 369, ISBN 978-3-89975-569-5 .
This article was added to the list of excellent articles on January 20, 2011 in this version .