Remembering Willi Graf: 80 years to the day

Alexandra Lloyd remembers Willi Graf and the White Rose struggle against Hitler, 80 years after his execution

Stadelheim Prison, Munich
October 12, 1943

My dear parents, my dear Mathilde and Anneliese,

Today I depart this life and go into eternity. More than anything, it grieves me that I have caused such pain to you, you who must go on living. But you will  find comfort and strength with God, and so I will pray until my very last breath, because I know that it will be harder for you than for me. I beg you sincerely, Mother and Father, to forgive me the suffering and disappointment I have caused you. I have often had cause to regret how I have hurt you, especially now that I am in prison. Forgive me and pray for me! Remember me. Stay strong and composed and trust in the hand of God, who directs all things for the best, even though at this moment there is bitter pain. I could not tell you in life how much I loved you all, but now in these final hours let me say, albeit on this sober paper, that I love you from the depths of my heart and have honoured you. May God bless us; we live and dwell in Him.  Farewell, be strong, and trust in God!

I am, with love always,
Your Willi

This letter was written by 25-year-old student Wilhelm (Willi) Graf. After eight months in prison, he had been informed earlier in the day that he was to be executed at 5pm. Graf had been sentenced to death for his part in the resistance activities of the White Rose circle (die Weiße Rose), a group that secretly wrote, printed and disseminated anti-Nazi, anti-war pamphlets between June 1942 and February 1943.

In February 1943 the core members of the group were arrested. Willi Graf was the last of them to be executed. His fellow resisters Hans and Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst had been tried and executed in February 1943. Another student, Alexander Schmorell, and the university academic Professor Kurt Huber had been tried alongside Graf in April, and they were executed in July. This year therefore marks the 80th anniversary of the White Rose resistance circle’s arrests and executions. It is an important moment to recall their actions and to consider what we might learn from them today.

Their collective act of resistance against Nazism is an important example of moral courage and the power of listening to, and acting upon, the voice of conscience. A striking aspect of the group is that its core members belonged to different Christian denominations: Hans Scholl and Sophie Scholl were Lutherans, Alexander Schmorell was Russian Orthodox, Willi Graf and Kurt Huber were Catholics, and Christoph Probst was baptised by the Catholic prison chaplain an hour before his execution in February 1943.

What brought Willi Graf to this point? He was born on January 2, 1918 in a town just west of Bonn. He grew up in a  Catholic home. He served at Mass. He attended primary and secondary school in Saarbrücken and was a member of two Catholic youth organisations which were subsequently banned by the Nazis: New Germany (Neudeutschland) and the Grey Order (Der Graue Orden). He left school in 1937 and after completing a period of compulsory labour service, began studying medicine in Bonn. Two months later, he was arrested by the Gestapo for “subversive activities” relating to his involvement in the youth groups. Before he could stand trial, though, he was released as part of a general amnesty to mark the occasion of the annexation of Austria in March 1938. 

After the outbreak of war, Graf was conscripted, and subsequently deployed as a medical orderly during the university vacations, serving in France, Belgium and on the Eastern Front. These tours of duty would make a deep impression on him. At university in Munich he read widely, including German, French and Russian literature, sang in the Bach Choir, fenced, went to Mass regularly and took a serious interest in liturgy and theology.

His involvement with the White Rose began in the summer of 1942 when he first met Hans Scholl, another medical student, in Munich. They soon discovered common interests, and a shared commitment to active resistance followed. Willi was instrumental in distributing the White Rose circle’s resistance pamphlets and in forging connections with others who could support the movement. Along with Hans Scholl and Alexander Schmorell, he painted anti-Nazi slogans on buildings in Munich, including the words “Freedom” and “Down with Hitler”.

On February 18, 1943, Hans Scholl and Sophie Scholl undertook a daring mission on behalf of the White Rose: they deposited White Rose resistance pamphlets in the main building of their university. They were caught, arrested and interrogated. That evening, when Willi Graf returned to the flat he shared with his sister the Gestapo were waiting. Under the pretext of changing into his uniform, Willi went into his bedroom and hid his diary. He and his sister were taken to the Gestapo prison. During the following eight days of interrogation, he denied his involvement in the White Rose. However, the weight of evidence against him was significant and he, like his co-resisters, admitted his part.

Willi Graf spent eight long months in prison. He was permitted to write home every fortnight. A month before his execution, he wrote to his parents and sisters:

“Might we not almost be happy to be able to carry a cross in this life that sometimes seems to go beyond man’s ability to bear it? … Let us try not simply to endure this cross, but to love it and to live ever more fully trusting in God’s will … For us, death is not the end, but rather a gateway, the portal to true life. I try to make myself fully aware of this reality and ask for [God’s] strength and blessing to do so.”

Willi Graf was executed at 5pm on Tuesday October 12, 1943. In his final words to his sister Anneliese, he asked her to pray for him and to send greetings to his friends, writing “They should continue what we have begun.”

A cause for his beatification is currently open in the Archdiocese of Munich-Freising. He is a remarkable example of deep faith and conviction channelled into action and the events of his life deserve to be better known outside the German-speaking world.

Dr Alexandra Lloyd is a Fellow by Special Election of St Edmund Hall, Oxford, and the author of Defying Hitler: The White Rose Pamphlets (Bodleian Library, 2022).

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