With You There Is Light
Historical Context, Notes on Readings and Excerpts from
Sophie Scholl and Fritz Hartnagel's True Story
Translation of Sophie Scholl’s Gestapo Interrogation Notes
Fortsetzung der Vernehmung der Beschuldigten Munich, February 20, 1943 Context: Two days earlier, siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl were captured and arrested at the University of Munich after distributing Professor Kurt Huber’s sixth edition of the “German Resistance” leaflets. They were interrogated by Chief Inspector Robert Mohr at the State Secret Police Headquarters on Briennerstrasse. The below…
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Seventy-Five Years Ago Today
Seventy-five years ago today Sophie Scholl sketched “FREEDOM” on the backside of her conviction for “treason.” F R E E D O M. She would die hours later, forgiving her executioners as the passageway to eternal life. (See: Pastor Alt’s eyewitness testimony to her last Communion.) If one wants to know this great hero of…
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Dear Sophie from Fritz Hartnagel, sent from Occupied Poland, February 17, 1943
Context: Captain Fritz Hartnagel was one of the last Officers from the Sixth Army flown out of surrounded Stalingrad. Although this letter exists, it is doubtful that Sophie received it. It was written on the day before her last leaflet protest, capture and arrest. My dear…
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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…
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Resistance 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…
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Christmas 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…
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Reading 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…
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Reading #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…
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Dietrich 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…
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#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…
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