German eyewitness of Nazi -Germany Franz J. Mü ller talks to students and high school pupils
On 2 May students of the German section in the Department of Modern Foreign languages and grade 11 and 12 pupils of German from Paul Roos, Bloemhof and Rhenish had the privilege to meet Mr . Franz J. Mü ller , one of the last surviving members of the White Rose Movement ( “Weiß e Rose” ), a student resistance organisation led by Hans and Sophie Scholl in Munich during the Nazi -era. Mr. Müller, a guest of the Friedrich Ebe rt Stiftung, came to Cape Town to open an exhibition on the White Rose Movement at the Holocaust Centre.
Franz Müller was born in 1924 in Ulm where he went to the same High S chool as Sophie and Hans Scholl . Like everyone at the time we was forced to work for the state (“Reichsarbeitsdienst”) and during this time participated in acts of resistance. From 24 to 26 January 1943 he helped to distribute the now famous Leaflet V of the “Wei ße Rose” in Stuttgart . He was arrested two months later in France shortly after having been conscripted to the army. I n the second trial against the W eiße Rose at the Volksgerichtshof (court of the people) he was sentenced by infamous judge Roland Freisler for High Treason to 5 years of imprisonment. Just before the end of the Second World War he was set free by the US Army. As chair of the Weiße Rose Stiftung (The White Rose Foundation) he speaks since 1979 at public discussions in schools, universities and other educational institutions.
In his one hour lunch time talk in a packed lecture hall Mr. Müller gave a moving account of his harrowing experiences and told students about his involvement in the “Weiß e Rose”. Müller who knew the Geschwister Scholl from school first saw the now famous Leaflet V at a meeting with his frien d Hans Hirtzel, who had received it from Sophie Scholl herself. For Müller, the leaflet’s call for a free and democratic Eur op e is an accurate prediction of the years to come . Driven to make this message known to fellow Ge rmans , he and a friend put up a ma keshift office behind a church organ on which th ey regularly played during s ermon s. Caught in the problematic situation of only being allowed to buy 5 envelopes at a time but having to mail more than 1000 leaflets lead to inventive measures: Mr. Müller, st ill under age and not allowed i n the street before 6 o’clock in t he morning, bravely took the key s to his father’s office and stole about a thousand envelopes, arranged for finance, organized stamps and mailed them. Under mysterious circumstances this Lea flet V made its way to England, where it was found, re printed and dropped over Germany by the British Airforce. This exceeded al l the expectations of the “Weiß e Rose”, as they could have never spread the word to such an extent.
The more than 90 students w ere captivated by Mr. Müller ’s vivid description of his past , among them also his account of his farcical trial where he came into face -to - face contact with cruel and frightening high court judge Freisler. “Nomen est Omen”, Müller said , because he found ou t much later that ‘Freisler ’ in fact means “the Terrible” in middle -high -German.
(written by German 328 students Marli Zietsman and Sandra Wallenhorst)