Traudl Junge and Sophie Scholl: Two Young Women in Nazi Germany, Part 3 - Trials

Traudl Junge (tumblr.com)

L to R: Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl, Christoph Probst (jewishvirtuallibrary.com)

Continued from Part 2

Four days later, on February 22nd, the three White Rose defendants, Sophie Scholl, Hans Scholl, and Christoph Probst, appeared before the so-called people’s court, presided over by Roland Freisler. This was a show trial, as were all trials that came before Freisler. The outcome could never really be in doubt. Freisler was infamous for verbal abuse screaming among other things, personal insults, and other means of showmanship. Although we have no footage of Sophie’s trial, we do have an example of Freisler’s courtroom demeanor. Here he is shown berating one of the conspirators involved in the botched July 20, 1944 attempt on Hitler’s life. Like all defendants was dressed plainly because showing up dressed magnificently in a business suit or a uniform doesn’t help the propaganda value.

It must have been as intimidating for Sophie and her co-defendants but Hans held his own and Sophie was able to say this:

Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just don't dare express themselves as we did.

At another point in her trial, she made this bold statement:

You know the war is lost. Why don't you have the courage to face it?

When asked for closing statement she said “Where we stand today, you will stand soon.” She might have been right, had Freisler not been killed in an Allied air raid in February, 1945 while the “People’s Court” was in session.

“Justice” was brutally swift.  The Scholls and Probst were sentenced to death and later that same day, they went to the guillotine. Several more of their associates would be tried and some like them would be executed.

Traudl Junge at this time went to the Berghof, Hitler’s retreat in the Bavarian Alps.  She was at the Wolf’s Lair when the attempt on Hitler’s life took place, and thought it horrible that they might not have a leader. And she spent the last days of the Third Reich in the bunker with Hitler. Her last duties: to take his last will and political testament. She thought that finally she could learn the real reason that Germany had lost the war.  Hitler characteristically avoided blame.  Before, he said that National Socialism was dead, yet he was making plans for a successor government. She heard the shot with which he ended his life. She was with the Goebbels children.

Traul was angry with Hitler. As much as it is difficult for most of us to believe, Hitler was gentle to Traudl, almost the kind father figure she had always been lacking. This is how in her words he “cast his spell” over her. She had faith in him that we would lead them to final victory, but he had given up while others were still fighting. She felt betrayed.

Traudl Junge made it out of the bunker, eventually being captured by the Russians. She was in prison for several months. Eventually, with the help of a benefactor to keep her out of prison and by not being caught crossing the border between the Russian zone and the British zone, she eventually made it to Bavaria in the American zone. During the so-called denazification, she would be classified as a fellow traveller, meaning she was innocent of any wrongdoings because of her age. She would live a long life as a secretary and science journalist. She often kept quiet about her war experiences. But she would occasionally appear in films, and she can be seen in an English-speaking interview for the 1970’s British documentary miniseries, The World at War.

We know fully well where Sophie Scholl stood, but Traudl Junge seems more enigmatic, more like an apathetic rather than innocent bystander. Was it the tough family life, the aspirations, the immaturity to not see beyond one’s one immediate world? There is also a message from the Second Leaflet of the White Rose that seems be what the White Rose would say to and about Traudl Junge:

...only by way of example do we want to cite the fact that since the conquest of
Poland three hundred thousand Jews have been murdered in this country in the most bestial way. Here we see the most frightful crime against human dignity, a crime that is unparalleled in the whole of history. For Jews, too, are human beings - no matter what position we take with respect to the Jewish question - and a crime of this dimension has been perpetrated against human beings.   Someone may say that the Jews deserved their fate. This assertion would be a monstrous impertinence...

...Why tell you these things, since you are fully aware of them - or if not of these, then of other equally grave crimes committed by this frightful sub-humanity? Because here we touch on a problem which involves us deeply and forces us all to take thought. Why do the German people behave so apathetically in the face of all these abominable crimes, crimes so unworthy of the human race? Hardly anyone thinks about that. It is accepted as fact and put out of mind. The German people slumber on in their dull, stupid sleep and encourage these fascist criminals; they give them the opportunity to carry on their depredations; and of course they do so. Is this a sign that the Germans are brutalized in their simplest human feelings, that no chord within them cried out at the sight of such deeds, that they have sunk into a fatal consciencelessness from which they will never, never awake?

 It seems to be so, and will certainly be so, if the German does not at least start up out of his stupor, if he does not protest wherever and whenever he can against this clique of criminals, if he shows no sympathy for these hundreds of thousands of victims....For through his apathetic behavior he gives these evil men the opportunity to act as they do; he tolerates this "government" which has taken upon itself such an infinitely great burden of guilt;indeed, he himself is to blame for the fact that it came about at all! Each man wants to be exonerated of a guilt of this kind, each one continues on his way with the most placid, the calmest conscience. But he cannot be exonerated; he is guilty, guilty, guilty!

Sophie Scholl demonstrates an example of resistance - non-violent and symbolic, being that her movement did not really affect change in her time. But it must have certainly alamrmed the authorities, as The White Rose was physically broken up and their actions were never really supported by the University of Munich students.  Nevertheless, she has become a German national hero. She is immortalized in memorials, sculpture, photographs, and even postage stamps. Traudl Junge comes to us as really someone without whom we might not know the full details of the bunker as soon as we did. But there’s that disturbing element that she really had the opportunity to know more than she claimed to. She was very critical of herself for this, almost to her dying day. Perhaps it is safe to say that it is the fervent wish of every decent human being that no circumstances would exist that would set the stage set for either path either young woman took.

Older Traudl Junge (imdb.com)

The Scholl gravesite outside Stadelheim Prison (findagrave.com)

Non-Internet Sources:

1. Traudl Junge and Melissa Müller. Until the Final Hour: Hitler's Last Secretary pp. 42, 115, 128-130, 183-184, 187, 218, 222-226
2. Atwood, Katherine J. Women Heroes of World Wat II, (Chicago,Chicago Review Press, Inc. 2011, pp. 21-22