Sophie Scholl
To Fritz Hartnagel, Munich, February 16, 1943
Context: Fritz Hartnagel survives Stalingrad. It is World War II’s most horrific battle. He is recuperating from near starvation and amputations from severe frostbite at a field hospital in occupied Poland. Sophie is studying Nazi approved philosophy with her brother and his friends at the University of Munich. They have kept their resistance activities, started…
Read MoreResistance Then and Now: Social Media vs. Leaflets
Young people in the Islamic Republic of Iran are taking great risks to publicly protest against their President Rouhani and cleric leader, Ayatollah Khameni. With the help of social media, Iranians are gathering in the streets to protest theocratic corruption – rampant hunger and an estimated 40% unemployment plagues their country. The state controls all…
Read MoreChristmas Greeting from Stalingrad
Translated here into English for the first time with permission of S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt. To Sophie Scholl from Fritz Hartnagel, December 1942. Yesterday, my dear Sophie, as the Russians fired on our position with heavy artillery and the sirens went berserk, a little bird suddenly sat at the edge of our trench and peeped…
Read MoreReading to the Religious: With You There Is Light
November 26, 2017 After Service at the St. James Episcopal Church, North Salem, New York The first excerpt I read last Sunday came from Chapter Three of “With You There Is Light.” Sophie Scholl attended St. Georges, the Protestant Church in Ulm, with her mother. Sophie noted reading Exodus 17:11 in her journal so I imagined…
Read MoreReading #4 from “With You There Is Light: Based on the True Story about Sophie Scholl and Fritz Hartnagel”
November 17, 2017. Books & Books in Grand Cayman, B.V.I. “Is today’s information overload the opposite problem of censorship?” The interested diverse crowd at my reading in November wanted to talk about Nazi Germany’s censorship and elimination of personal freedoms. We were discussing the Party’s control…
Read MoreDietrich Bonhoeffer (German, 1906-1945)
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German theologian, pastor and political resistance activist involved in Berlin’s July 1944 plot to kill Hitler. Bonhoeffer assisted in providing intelligence that led to the uprising. Executed before the war’s end, he left behind diaries and letters written while in prison that testify to an enduring and unwavering faith. Here below is…
Read More#Resistance during the Age of Trump: Not at all like German Resistance during World War II
Note: The below personal essay describing a reading experience in September, 2017 provided this writer with the opportunity to further define “With You There Is Light” and its publicity platform. Although “resistance” is a popular word at present, future author readings will not address today’s appropriation and the attempt to often equate it with its…
Read MorePolitical Resistance History and Context in the Age of Trump, Part 2 of 4
For the liberal elite, Progressives, and #NeverTrumpers, resistance means opposition to the country’s sitting President. Referring to this ray of light in World War II history along with shouting “Nazi” and instilling fear in those who do not think or believe as strongly in another group’s identity politics obstructs the unification of this country.* Journalists…
Read MoreCivil Disobedience as Resistance
A Series of Posts (Part One of Four) On Political History, Context and President Trump Civil Disobedience As Resistance in America and Europe during the 19th and 20th Centuries “We should be men first, and subjects afterwards.”-Henry David Thoreau, American (1817-1862) “Laws change; our conscience does not.” -Sophie Scholl, German (1921-1943) It is doubtful that Sophie Scholl read the…
Read MoreRe-Visiting The White Rose Student Resistance Movement in Munich
New Munich Student Resistance Installation (LMU, 2/17) Munich, June 10, 2017. Re-visiting the new installation at the University of Munich (LMU) furthered my commitment to sharing the history of the White Rose student resistance movement. During World War II, siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl, and Alexander Schmorell, began active opposition against Hitler and the Nazi Party.…
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