White Rose activist Willi Graf became a hero for standing against Nazism

Handing out pamphlets at a university could be a dangerous thing in Nazi Germany, but Willi Graf did it as a matter of faith.

German anti-Nazi activist Willi Graf in the army in 1941.

HANDING out pamphlets at a university hardly raises an eyebrow today but back in 1940s Germany it could be very dangerous. Young medical student, turned army medic, Willi Graf was part of group that wrote and distributed leaflets denouncing the Nazi government and urging people to take action against Hitler and his cronies.

Graf had proven himself to be a hero at the front, saving lives with little regard for his own. But his greatest act of heroism was taking on Nazism, by trying to change the minds of students. Graf, who was born a century ago today, would pay the ultimate price for his heroism, not by dying on a battlefield, but executed for treason.

Born Wilhelm Joseph Graf in Kuchenheim, on January 2, 1918, in an urban district of Cologne, his father Gerhard was the manager of a dairy but later moved the family to Saarbrucken where he managed a wine wholesale business and a banquet hall. Gerhard was something of a disciplinarian, who raised his son a strict Catholic, teaching him to be pious and behave properly at all times. Graf was especially close to his mother Anna, and was in awe of her devotion to her family.

German medicWilli Graf, pictured on the Russian Front in 1942, worked with the White Rose anti-Nazi resistance.

In 1929 Graf joined Bund Neudeutschland, a Catholic youth group, but the organisation was banned by the Nazis in 1933. Graf was then expected to join the Hitler Youth, the Nazi organisation indoctrinating boys from 14 to 18, but he refused — even ending friendships with boys who joined.

Instead, he became a member of another Catholic group, the Grey Order, formed in 1934 from mostly middle class Catholic boys. The Grey Order drew suspicion from the Nazis by taking camping trips to other countries, an illegal activity under Hitler’s regime. The group was crucial in the formation of Graf’s idea that Nazism and Christianity were incompatible. However, despite the difficulty he chose to follow god’s teachings rather than Hitler’s.

In November 1937 Graf began medical studies at Bonn, but two months later his studies were interrupted when the Grey Order was banned and he was rounded up for being a member. He escaped time in prison when his case was dropped during an amnesty to celebrate the Anschluss with Austria.

Willi Graf, anti-Nazi resistance activist, in uniform in about 1942.

German anti-Nazi activist Sophie Scholl in about 1942.

While he had avoided becoming involved in Nazism, the war changed that and in 1940 he was drafted for military service. With medical training he was able to serve as a sanitatssoldat or medic, which presented no particular ethical problems, since he was saving lives rather than trying to take them.

While serving in France, Poland and on the Russian front he saw first hand atrocities committed against civilians in captured territory, becoming more convinced that he needed to do something to stop the Nazis. While given leave to study in April 1942 he became friends with like-minded students Alexander Schmorell, Hans Scholl and Christoph Probst. Initially they gathered to read poetry, playing a game where one would read a poem and the others would have to guess the poet.

Members of the anti-Nazi group the White Rose (from left) Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst in 1942.

At one session Scholl read out a poem about a tyrant who “spews his message to the world”. The others, thinking it was written about the current situation in Germany, suggested it should be printed in a newspaper. Scholl then revealed that it was about Switzerland in 1878.

It became obvious they were all on the same plane politically and they began to talk about nonviolent ways to act against the Nazis. Eventually they formed a secret organisation known as the White Rose, named either after a poem of that name by Clemens Brentano or a novel by B. Traven. The flower symbolised purity in the face of evil. Scholl’s sister Sophie also later joined the group, becoming one of its most famous members, primarily through film adaptations of her story.

Bronze pamphlets embedded in the ground outside the University of Munich mark the White Rose Memorial.

The activities of the White Rose were confined largely to writing, printing and distributing leaflets but they also indulged in a bit of graffiti with slogans such as “Down with Hitler”. But in February 1943 Sophie tossed leftover leaflets from a balcony at Munich University and was seen by a maintenance man who reported her.

She was arrested and Graf was also later detained along with other members of the group. Sophie and Hans Scholl, and Probst were sentenced to death and executed on February 22, but Graf endured months of interrogation and torture. He never abandoned his principals, nor did he turn in other members. In fact he accepted blame for things done by others.

He was executed by guillotine at Munich Stadelheim prison on October 12, 1943.

The White Rose activists are now considered heroes in Germany. Graf has schools named after him and there is a White Rose memorial at Munich University, bronze pamphlets embedded in the ground, looking like Graf or other members scattered them there.