Willi Graf

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Willi Graf, ground monument in front of the University of Munich

Wilhelm "Willi" Graf (born January 2, 1918 in Kuchenheim , district of Euskirchen since 1969 ; † October 12, 1943 in Munich - Stadelheim ) was a German member of the Catholic youth movement and a member of the White Rose resistance group .

Life

Kuchenheim, memorial plaque on the house where Willi Graf was born
Munich, Mandlstraße 28: memorial plaque for Willi Graf
Grave in the old cemetery St. Johann in Saarbrücken

Willi Graf was born on January 2, 1918, the third child of the married couple Anna Graf (née Gölden, 1885–1953) and Gerhard Graf (1885–1951). The parents were both of rural origin, of Catholic faith and came from the Rhineland. The first child of the Graf couple was born in 1914 and died in 1916. Willi Graf's sister Mathilde was born in 1915, the youngest sister Anneliese in 1921. Gerhard Graf initially ran a dairy as a merchant in Kuchenheim.

In 1922 the family moved from the Rhineland to Saarbrücken - St. Johann , where the father Gerhard Graf took over the Johannishof of the Catholic parish of St. Johann on Mainzer Straße. After primary school, Willi Graf attended the Ludwigsgymnasium in Alt-Saarbrücken in St. Johann . He was an altar boy in the parish church of St. Johann and served from 1935 to 1936 as minister for the then chaplain and later Cardinal Joseph Höffner .

In his résumé, written in prison for the Gestapo in 1943 , Graf describes his childhood in the following words:

“My father was correct and honest in his professional and private life and he encouraged his children to behave in the same way and acted with severity if I made a mistake in any way. The relationship with my mother was always the warmest, because she looked after us children with all imaginable love and tried again and again to make us happy, for example on Christmas or on name day and on other occasions. We children reward this love with small shows of love in return, we helped with household chores early on and tried to be grateful children. Early on I was familiarized with the customs and life of the Catholic Church and the individual seasons were filled with the spirit of religious ideas, and daily life was also guided by the customs of the Church: prayer, going to church, etc. I spent the first years of my life in the Care of a good and loving family. "

Willi Graf soon joined the Catholic association for boys in high schools, the Bund Neudeutschland (ND). This was banned after the National Socialists came to power . In 1934 he joined the Gray Order , a banned Catholic youth association that opposed the Hitler dictatorship and that was formed due to the prohibition of many youth associations . When the reintegration of the Saarland into the German Reich took place after the “Saar referendum” on January 13, 1935, major cuts were made in the political, social and private life of the Saarland population. Graf refused to adhere to the obligation to join the Hitler Youth as a youth . Despite pronounced threats that he would be excluded from high school or the suggestion that he should only join “pretend”, he consistently refused and resisted the pressure exerted on him in this context. After graduating from the Ludwigsgymnasium Saarbrücken in 1937, Graf completed the Reich Labor Service in Dillingen an der Saar from April to October 1937 and then began studying medicine in Bonn .

In 1938 he was imprisoned with other members of the Gray Order and charged with fraternal activities by a special court in Mannheim and sentenced to several weeks in prison. After the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Willi Graf was drafted into the Wehrmacht. From 1940 to 1942 he took part as a medic in various war missions in Belgium, France, Yugoslavia (Yugoslavia campaign), Poland and Russia (Eastern Front). He witnessed atrocities committed several times and became aware of the suffering of the civilian population affected by the war in the individual countries. In a letter home he wrote: "I wish I didn't have to see what happened in my environment." According to memories of his sister Anneliese, this led him to the realization "I have to do something!"

In April 1942 his student company was posted to Munich and here he came into contact with the White Rose resistance group as a member of the 2nd medical student company in Munich at the university . Willi Graf became an active member of this resistance group, which also included his fellow students Sophie Scholl and her brother Hans Scholl . At that time, Willi Graf lived in a room at Amalienstraße 95 in the Maxvorstadt district . The first four leaflets of the White Rose - written by Hans Scholl and Alexander Schmorell - were widely distributed in June / July 1942 with the aim of rousing the population in order to possibly achieve liberation from the Nazi regime “from within”. In the summer this resistance work had to be interrupted because a new call-up to the Eastern Front had taken place. After their return to Munich in November 1942, they stepped up their work considerably. They tried to establish contact with other resistance groups, to become active in other cities outside of Munich and called on the population more directly to passive resistance. The 5th leaflet was already distributed in January 1943 in Munich and some other southern German cities. On February 3 and 4, Willi Graf, Hans Scholl and Alexander Schmorell wrote slogans on several buildings in Munich, Down with Hitler , Hitler the mass murderer . The same action was repeated on February 8th and 9th. On February 15, 1943, they made copies of their 6th leaflet, organized the mailing and put up more wall inscriptions during the night.

On February 18, 1943, Hans and Sophie Scholl were caught while laying out leaflets at Munich University and imprisoned. A few hours later, Willi Graf was arrested and imprisoned in Munich together with his sister Anneliese . On April 19, 1943, he was sentenced to death by the People's Court under the chairmanship of Roland Freisler for high treason , degradation of military strength and favoring the enemy . But the sentence was not carried out immediately, as was the case with Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst . The Gestapo hoped for months to get the names of co-conspirators out of him during interrogations. Willi Graf was beheaded with a guillotine in the Stadelheim prison on October 12, 1943 and buried in the Perlacher Forst cemetery. In 1946 his remains were exhumed at the request of his family, transferred to Saarbrücken and buried in a grave of honor on November 4th in the old cemetery of St. Johann .

Honors

Willi-Graf-Glocke, St. Elisabeth-Kirche, Saarbrücken-St. Johann, inauguration on November 1, 2018

Several schools in Germany were named after his name, among others

further

At the Geschwister-Scholl-Gymnasium in Münster, the Willi-Graf-Prize initiated by Anneliese Knoop-Graf is awarded annually to particularly reliable and committed high school graduates.

A commemorative plaque was placed on the Johannishof in Saarbrücken, the place of his childhood, on October 12, 1990. In Saarbrücken St. Johann, the district where the Graf family lived, and in Kuchenheim, Graf's birthplace, a street is named after Willi Graf. In 2003, on the 60th anniversary of his death, he was posthumously made an honorary citizen of Saarbrücken. A bust of Willi Graf financed by donations was inaugurated in 2004 in the stairwell of the town hall of St. Johann.

In 2008 a street in the Vilich-Müldorf district of Bonn was named after him .

In 1999, the Catholic Church accepted Willi Graf into the German martyrology of the 20th century as a witness of faith .

In 2010, a highly acclaimed film with the title Willi Graf - Civil Courage and Resistance to the Public was presented, which traces the life of Willi Graf. And on the occasion of his 100th birthday in 2018, the state capital of Saarbrücken is dedicating a commemorative year to its honorary citizen.

After the Second World War, his sister, Anneliese Knoop-Graf , who did not know anything about his work in the White Rose until his arrest , occupied herself intensively with his life, his work and his motives and, among other things, evaluated his diaries. On April 26, 2006, Knoop-Graf received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Karlsruhe for her lifelong engagement with the resistance against National Socialism .

In October 2018, the Maria-Königin-Bell, cast in 1965 from the demolished church tower in Primsweiler, was dedicated to the memory of Willi Graf with a new engraving. The bell was put into service on All Saints Day 2018 in Saarbrücken's St. Elisabeth Church. It should now ring three minutes every day from 5 p.m. at the hour of Willi Graf's death.

beatification

On December 27, 2017 it was announced that the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising was considering the possibility of a beatification process for Willi Graf.

See also

literature

  • Inge Aicher-Scholl : The White Rose. Fischer Verlag, ISBN 3-596-11802-6 .
  • Tatjana Blaha: Willi Graf and the white rose. A reception story. Saur, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-598-11654-3 .
  • "Carry on". Studies on the "White Rose". Festschrift for Anneliese Knoop-Graf on her 80th birthday. Edited by Michael Kißener and Bernhard Schäfers; UVK: Konstanz 2001, ISBN 3-87940-727-4 .
  • Hans-Josef Gebel: Consistent - from the school desk to the scaffold. In: Commemorative pamphlet on the 50th anniversary of the execution of the Saarbrücken resistance fighter Willi Graf. City administration, Saarbrücken, pp. 28–37.
  • Hans-Josef Gebel: Willi Graf, a picture of life. On the 40th anniversary of his execution on October 12, 1943. In: Journal for the history of the Saar region. Volume 31 (1983).
  • Peter Goergen: Willi Graf. A path to resistance. Röhrig Universitätsverlag , St. Ingbert 2009, ISBN 978-3-86110-458-2 .
  • Theo Heinrichs: Willi Graf, member of the “White Rose” resistance group. In: Gerg G. Koenig (Ed.): Cuchenheim 1084–1984. Euskirchen 1984, pp. 153-163.
  • Anneliese Knoop-Graf, Inge Jens (Ed.): Willi Graf. Letters and Notes. Fischer, Frankfurt / M. 1994, ISBN 3-596-12367-4 .
  • Helmut Moll (Ed. On behalf of the German Bishops' Conference): Witnesses for Christ. The German martyrology of the 20th century. Paderborn et al. 1999, 7th revised and updated edition 2019, ISBN 978-3-506-78012-6 , Volume I, pp. 486-489.
  • Franz Josef Schäfer: Willi Graf and the Gray Order. Young people between the cross and the swastika. Röhrig Universitätsverlag, St. Ingbert 2017, ISBN 978-3-86110-618-0 .
  • Franz Josef Schäfer: When the White Rose started to bloom. Willi Graf's school days at the Ludwigsgymnasium in Saarbrücken. In: Saargeschichten, Heft 4, 2017, No. 49, pp. 18–22.
  • Klaus Vielhaber et al. (Hrsg.): Violence and conscience. Willi Graf and the "White Rose". A documentation. Herder, Freiburg / B. 1964.
  • Hildegard Vieregg et al. (Ed.): Willi Graf's youth in National Socialism in the mirror of letters. Willi Graf group in the Bund New Germany. Munich 1984.
  • Klaus Vielhaber: Willi Graf. From the roots of the “White Rose.” In: Hirschberg. Vol. 10 (1983).

Movie

music

  • Willi Graf Lied is about Willi Graf's adventurous journey in January 1942 with the fifth leaflet and a copier to Saarbrücken, Ferdinand Ledwig (CD "Aufbruch für Meine Freunde" 1990)

Web links

Commons : Willi Graf  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Goergen: Willi Graf - A Path in the Resistance, 2nd edition, St. Ingbert 2009, p. 18.
  2. ↑ Willi Graf: Letters and Notes, ed. by Anneliese Knoop-Graf and Inge Jens with an introduction by Walter Jens, Frankfurt am Main 1988, p. 280.
  3. ^ Biography of Willi Graf in: http://www.saarbruecken.de/kultur/Stadtgeschichte/ehrenbuerger/willi_graf_Gedenkjahr_2018/biographie_willi_graf
  4. ↑ Peter Goergen: Willi Graf: a path in the resistance (= series of publications of the Stiftung Demokratie Saarland eV, history, politics and society, 11). St. Ingbert 2009, pp. 70-72.
  5. ^ Biography of Willi Graf in: http://www.saarbruecken.de/kultur/Stadtgeschichte/ehrenbuerger/willi_graf_Gedenkjahr_2018/biographie_willi_graf
  6. ^ Biography of Willi Graf in: http://www.saarbruecken.de/kultur/Stadtgeschichte/ehrenbuerger/willi_graf_Gedenkjahr_2018/biographie_willi_graf
  7. ↑ Lisa Sonnabend: Amalienstraße - politician, comedian and a resistance fighter . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , May 17, 2010, accessed on January 2, 2018.
  8. ^ Willi Graf . Biography on the website of the German Resistance Memorial Center - gdw-berlin.de, accessed on January 3, 2018.
    Kirsten Schulz: Willi Graf . Biography on the website of the Federal Agency for Civic Education, April 20, 2005, accessed on January 3, 2018.
  9. ↑ St. Johann cemetery. In: saarbruecker-friedhoefe.de of the state capital Saarbrücken, accessed on January 3, 2018.
  10. ^ Franz Josef Schäfer: When the White Rose began to bloom: Willi Graf's school days at the Ludwigsgymnasium in Saarbrücken . In: Saargeschichten, Heft 4, 2017, No. 49, pp. 18–22, here p. 22.
  11. ↑ List of honorary citizens of Saarbrücken. Retrieved December 25, 2017 .
  12. ^ Willi-Graf-Ring in the Bonn street cadastre
  13. ↑ News on eli-ja.de, accessed on May 4, 2019.
  14. ^ Archbishopric examines beatification for Nazi opponent Graf. kna article on the website of the Archdiocese of Munich, December 27, 2017, accessed on December 27, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Count, Willi
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Graf, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German resistance fighter, member of the White Rose resistance group
DATE OF BIRTH January 2, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Kuchenheim
DATE OF DEATH October 12, 1943
Place of death Munich - Stadelheim