He stood up to embrace her. She held him against her and kissed him one last time. He walked her to the door as the others said good night, and then he closed it behind her.
Hans and Sophie were arrested at the University of Munich on February 18, 1943. A handyman, empowered by the Nazis, and in his spare time a goose-stepping storm trooper, saw them tossing leaflets over the balcony like confetti. He had been briefed by the Gestapo to watch for any suspicious behavior—even more so than usual. It must have seemed like the best day of his life when he saw the two students tossing the forbidden flyers off the balcony. He arrested them himself, doubtless excited about his upcoming promotion and the cash reward that awaited him. Hans and Sophie were taken from the university campus to the Gestapo headquarters at the Wittelsbach Palace, the former royal palace of the Bavarian monarchs in the center of the city. They were charged with high treason, violent overthrow of the government, the destruction of National Socialism, and the defeat of their own army in wartime. Christoph was arrested a few hours later. The Gestapo found all the evidence they would ever need in their apartments, and any trial would be a sham.
The news of Hans and Sophie’s arrest spread throughout the university. Franka was at work that night when Willi came to tell her. She cried all night. There would be no mercy, only retribution, and it was just a matter of time before the Gestapo came for them too. The newspapers reported the arrest of the traitorous students the next day. The editorial trusted that swift justice would follow, and so it did. Roland Freisler, the notorious chief judge of the People’s Court, which only tried cases of treason and subversion, was brought down from Berlin. The trial began just four days later, on February 22. Franka waited along with the other members, praying for some form of leniency. The trial lasted a few hours. Hans, Sophie, and Christoph were convicted and sentenced to death. They were taken from the courtroom to jail, and guillotined. Christoph’s wife, who was sick in the hospital at the time, didn’t find out that he’d been executed until several days later. Hans and Sophie’s parents, who were present at the trial, went home to Ulm after the guilty pronouncements, planning their next trip back to see their children a few days later. They were not told that their son and daughter were to be executed that very day.
Franka was in her apartment when the Gestapo came for her a few weeks later. Her trial was set for April, along with several other members—the panic that had overtaken the Nazis upon the initial arrests had seemingly subsided. The Gestapo questioning she underwent was milder than she’d imagined. She realized after a few minutes that they thought she was too gentle, too pretty, and too much of a girl to have had anything to do with an organization as reprehensible as the White Rose. It seemed like the investigators had already made their minds up about her, and all she had to do was play along. They knew that Hans and Sophie were the driving forces behind the movement, and that Willi, Christoph, and Alex were the other main actors. The interrogators merely wanted Franka to corroborate the story that they’d already formulated about the group and about her role as the leader’s unwilling girlfriend, the loyal Aryan girl misled by the traitorous dissidents. Her role seemed vital in the narrative the National Socialists were trying to spin to a fascinated, shocked German public. The lawyer her father hired could barely believe their luck.
“I don’t think they’d go so easy on you if you weren’t so pretty,” he said.
“The important thing is to get out of this alive,” her father said. “Say whatever you need to say to get out of this with your life. Denounce the organization. Save your skin.”
Franka wanted to speak up for the cause, wanted to tell the court that she was proud of what they’d done, and that Hitler was the murderous traitor. “How can I denounce my friends? That would mean turning my back on everything I believe in. How could I live with myself?”
“Don’t do it for yourself. Do it for me. I need you now, more than ever. Don’t leave me. Live on. For me.”
So she did. She denounced the White Rose in front of the court, stating that she’d been led astray by the dangerous revolutionary her boyfriend had turned out to be. Her heart was ragged inside her, every denial tearing another strip away. Her father smiled at her across the courtroom, giving her the thumbs-up as she declared her loyalty to the Reich. She thought of Hans, and the rousing final speech in support of freedom he’d given in that same courtroom. But as her father said, he was dead now, and so was the White Rose. She didn’t have to die with them. So she sold out everything she believed in to be there for him so he wouldn’t be left alone. Franka got six months in jail. The judge proclaimed that he hoped it would give her pause to reflect on the choice of company that she kept and that once she got out, she should fulfill her duty in marrying a loyal servant of the Reich, preferably a soldier serving on the front, and bear him many children to serve the führer. She cried as the bailiff led her out of the courtroom. The shame was more than she could bear. Willi, Alex, and the professor from the university they’d drawn inspiration from, Dr. Huber, were all executed also. They were the true heroes.
Franka avoided the dreaded KZs, the concentration camps, which had become the unmentionable horror in Germany, the truth that even the most hardened Nazi supporters didn’t want to admit to. She was sent to Stadelheim Prison along with several other former members of the White Rose, where Hans and the others had been executed. She sank into a deep depression. The ghosts of the fallen heroes of the White Rose haunted her dreams. Time passed. Her depression deepened. Her father regularly sent letters, and the promise of the next one was the only thing that kept her alive. His kind, hopeful words were the only sign of love or beauty in a world that had been stripped of such things. The letters stopped in October. Her father had been killed by a stray bomb dropped from an Allied plane. She was due to be released three weeks later. Her family was the victim of both sides in this useless, disgusting war. They had taken everything from her.
She lingered in Munich for a week or two after her release. There was little to remember from that time. She didn’t belong there anymore. She couldn’t pretend to be a part of their society anymore. The flags still flew over bombed-out buildings, and the swastika still adorned the countless coffins shipped home from the eastern front. A letter arrived from her father’s attorney in Freiburg. Her father’s will was ready. No one else would be in attendance. That was when she decided that she would end her life. There was nothing left for her. It seemed fitting to go back, to do it there in her hometown, near the place she’d known the most joy.
She heard the lawyer read her father’s will, endured his disapproving glares under the portrait of Hitler that hung above his desk, and the next day visited her parents’ graves. They lay nestled beside each other on a hill overlooking the city they’d lived in. Immediately after, she retreated to the cabin. The worst of the memories came at night, and sleeping alone was an unendurable torture. The pain became more than she could bear. She set out that night with no destination in mind, never thinking that she’d walk as far as she did, but there was always another hill to climb, another tree line to pass, and then she found him.
Franka finished her story. The candle, almost burned down, flickered in the room. The night was still outside—absolutely silent.
“Franka, what happened to Fredi? How did he die? What did the Nazis do to him?”
“I can’t talk about that now. I have to go.”
She shut the door behind her, leaving him alone in the half-light of the bedroom.