Sophie and Johann

admin / April 19, 2018 / Leave a comment / Andrews Blog

The story of Sophie Scholl has fascinated me for many years. Such courage and dignity in one so young and so lovely makes a refreshing alternative view of humanity without conscience.

Most Germans already know Sophie Scholl. Recognized as one of the most inspirational Germans ever.

Not that many know about Johann Reichhart. Or about their meeting, brief though it was. I was fascinated by the thought that this dignified looking man, an 8^th generation executioner had to look at this beautiful young woman, just 21, and think “I am just doing my job” before chopping her head off. And her final words “Such a fine sunny day, and I have to go.” Not all Germans were Nazi’s ‘placing duty above conscience without pause to wonder why’ and not all anti-Nazi activists were men. Sophie Scholl is, deservedly, a legend. A bright flame of inspiration to any ideologue.

The man she met for the first time on 22 February, 1943 was Johann Reichhart. The 8th generation German executioner, the worlds leading practitioner of this dark art where he favoured the guillotine for its superior efficiency, ending over 3,000 lives by his own hand.

Following VE Day, Nazi member Reichhart was arrested and imprisoned in Landsberg Prison for the purposes of denazification but was not tried for carrying out his duty of judicial executioner. He was subsequently employed by the Occupation Authorities until the end of May 1946 to help execute 156 Nazi war criminals at Landsberg am Lech by hanging.

He cooperated with Allied chief executioner Master Sergeant John C. Woods in the preparations for further executions of those found guilty and sentenced to death at the Nuremberg Trials, but refused to carry out any further executions himself following two cases of mistaken identity.

Reichhart’s office made him a lonely and disliked person, even after abolition of the death penalty in West Germany in 1949. His marriage failed, and one of his sons, Hans, committed suicide in 1950 due to his association with his father’s profession.

When, in 1963, there were public demands, during a series of taxi driver murders, for the re-introduction of the death penalty in West Germany, Reichhart spoke out against capital punishment.

Reichhart died in Dorfen near Erding in 1972.

Sophie died a traitor and a criminal, sentenced to death for protesting the Nazi ways through membership of the White Rose. Johann was of course an upstanding member of the community and a first rate civil servant bound by duty to his employment.

And yet, despite the dehumanising effects of mindless conformity to one repetitive task legitimized in the guise of employment, I couldn’t help but wonder how Johann must have felt when he heard this beautiful 21 year old say those words before he placed her head on the brace and pressed the lever to end her life.

Known as Hitler’s judge the Nazi fascist Roland Freisler (R) sentenced Sophie and Hans Scholl and Christoph Probst to death in February 1943.

Ironically, it was a Jewish pilot in an American plane who dropped the bomb on Berlin in 45 that killed this rotten fascist judge. The B-17 of USAAF Lt. Colonel Robert Rosenthal

With the passage of time, Sophie’s story lives on. The convicted traitor is shown for what she was, inspiring many millions towards confidence in their own beliefs, while the duty bound civil servant doing his job and saluting the flag is revealed by the passage of time.

Sophie and Johann who met briefly on 22 February 1943, joined forever in a moment in time that shows the best and worst of humanity.

“The real damage is done by those millions who want to ‘survive.’ The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don’t like to make waves—or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honour, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small.

It’s the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it under control. If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you.

But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.”

Sophie Scholl

Here is my original writers version of Sophie and Johann