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* A Seventh Leaflet? |
| When Hans and Sophie Scholl
were taken into Gestapo custody on that fateful February morning, Hans
carried in his pocket the draft of the next leaflet - handwritten by Christoph
Probst. When discovered, Hans insisted it was thrust upon him in a crowd
by an unknown student and then Hans shred the document into innumerable
pieces. It was carefully taped together by the Gestapo and matched to a
sample of Christl's handwriting found in Hans' apartment. The Gestapo also
forced him to "reconstruct" the draft during his interogation. So what
did Christl have to say?
The following is quoted from an article entitled "The White Rose in the Light of New Archival Evidence" by Christiane Moll [Resistance Against the Third Reich 1933-1990; ed. by Michael Geyer and John W. Boyer]: After listening to BBC broadcasts, Probst quoted in his draft Roosevelt's demand for unconditional surrender on January 24, 1943, emphasizing that this demand was not directed against the people but against the political systems of the Axis powers. The positive example he referred to was the clearance of the German-Italian troops on January 23, 1943, in Tripoli by the British, which was carried out without senseless sacrifices [of human life]. Probst wrote, "What did the English do? They let the lives of the citizens continue in their usual tracks. They even keep the police and the civil servants." The other extreme, Probst wrote, was the senseless sacrifice of two hundred thousand German soldiers in Stalingrad "for the prestige of a military con-man." National Socialist propaganda had concealed the humane nature of the Russian demands of surrender. Probst then appealed to the Germans: "Today Germany is as encircled as Stalingrad was. Will all Germans be sacrificed to the harbinger of hate and destruction? To him, who tortured the Jews, who eradicated half of the Poles, who desired the annihilation of Russia - to him who took away liberty, peace, happiness, hope and joy, and gave us inflationary money instead? This ought not, this must not be. Hitler and his regime must fall so that Germany can live. Make your decision, Stalingrad and downfall, or Tripoli and a hopeful future. And once you have decided, act." A desire for a "hopeful future" must have been especially strong for Probst, who had a family and whose third child had just been born. |