The Gestapo officer who interrogated Sophie Scholl : Robert Mohr
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- Опубліковано 26 лис 2023
- Robert Mohr was born on 5 April 1897 in the village of Bisterschied. Bisterschied is located in the hills of the North Palatinate between Kaiserslautern and Bad Kreuznach. It was then in Bavaria, an exclave of Bavaria, today it is in the state of Rhineland Palatinate which was created after WW2.
His father was a master bricklayer. One of nine children, he had five brothers and three sisters. The plan for Mohr was that he should be a tailor, however when he was only 17, WW1 broke out. He served in the army throughout the war and was awarded the Iron Cross II for bravery. He was lucky enough to come out of the conflict unharmed. On 11 May 1919 he was demobilised and on 1 October he joined the Bavarian gendarmerie.
On 27 June 1923 he married Martha Klein, a farmer’s daughter from his home village of Bisterschied. A year later his son Willi was born.
In 1933 he joined the NSDAP, membership no. 3,271,936. This does not necessarily indicate that he believed in the party, for many this was just a career move - or in some cases, a necessary part of hanging onto their jobs. However he did join various National Socialist associations: Motor Corps, People's Welfare, Reich Association of German Civil Servants, Reich Air Protection Association and Colonial Association. This shows more interest in the system than would be expected of most. Nonetheless it did him no harm. Mohr became chief of police in Frankenthal, a town then of around 20,000 people. In 1938 he switched to the Gestapo, whether voluntarily or not, I do not know - police officers could be rotated into the Gestapo. He was transferred to Munich.
Whilst the Panzers were on their way to disaster in Stalingrad in the east, the Munich Gestapo started to receive duplicated flyers with the heading "The White Rose". The sheets comprised 2 typewritten pages and were addressed to various people in the intellectual elite of the Third Reich. The Munich Gestapo was assigned with the task of finding out where these flyers originated from. The evidence suggested that they came from Munich but the investigation was initially fruitless.
As the German Sixth Army lay dying in Stalingrad, around 8 - 10,000 duplicated leaflets were found in housing blocks and on the pavement. The theme was Stalingrad and the message was anti Nazi and anti war. The objective was to end an already lost war.
As Munich was without doubt the capital of the Nazi movement, it was after all where the party had been founded, such resistance was considered especially dangerous by the regime.
Some time around 11 in the morning of 18 February 1943, Mohr was asked by telephone at his desk in the Munich Gestapo, the Wittelsbacher Palace, to report to his boss, Oberregierungsrat Oswald Schäfer.
Mohr was ordered to drop whatever he was doing and to find those responsible for the leaflets.
Almost at the same time, large numbers of leaflets with similar or even the same content appeared in the mail in Stuttgart, Augsburg, Vienna, Salzburg and Innsbruck. As the mail was posted to addresses in these cities but hand delivered in Munich, it appeared even more obvious that this was where the resistance group was.
Up until then the Gestapo had been able to determine that the envelopes were manufactured in Munich and the paper had been purchased there. The 8 pfennig stamps had been purchased by one person from the Post Office on Ludwigstrasse in Munich. The counter clerk had been able to provide a description. The authors had clearly studied at university and the addresses of the leaflets sent out in Munich and the surrounding area were taken from a university student directory.
On the morning of 18 February 1943, there was a call from Munich university that a large number of leaflets had been thrown down from the balustrade of the atrium and that two people were being held there, suspected as being the propagators.
Mohr went to the university where he saw more of the leaflets that he had already seen on Schäfer’s desk. A university official called Schmitt claimed to have seen the two near the dropping point. There were two people being held there, who identified themselves as the siblings Sophie and Hans Scholl by showing their student ID cards.
Both were taken to the Gestapo by motor vehicle and questioned separately. Mohr questioned Sophie Scholl.
At first, Sophie Scholl denied having anything to do with the leaflets. She was on her way to the train station with her brother and popped into the university to see a friend. They had an empty suitcase to pick up some laundry from their parents’ home in Ulm. It was her brother who had knocked the leaflets over which were standing at the top of the atrium.
Mohr believed her story as did Reich student leader Scheel who also talked to her. Mohr told her that she would be released that day.
However, the Gestapo did a search of Hans Scholl's room, and found hundreds of eight pfenning stamps and the draft of a handwritten leaflet.
![Lp. Последняя Реальность #97 ЧЁРНАЯ МАТЕРИЯ [Анти Скинт] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/k4MjXCzKsYw/mqdefault.jpg)
*No one ever got to be a high ranking Gestapo officer by being a decent chap. Robert Mohr, as the video admits, was a member of the Nazi party but he was also a specialist in interrogation for the Gestapo. Whatever could that have meant, I wonder.*
Fabulous effort Tino. Rich in detail, horror on the move, and endings.
Another great one Alan!!!
Thanks for listening
By now, we know history to not be so monochromatic, even in some cases of certain Third Reich individuals. It's believable that .
Mohr was sincere and even had rapport with the Scholl family. Incidentally, I found your portrayal of Mohr consistent with the less than draconian character portrayed in the film. At any rate, BRAVO. Thanks for taking the time to make this.
Thanks Steven - in all fairness we were both using the same source material which was the Gestapo records of the interrogations of the White Rose members - so we should have come to the same conclusions!
A very enlightening perspective on the Scholl deaths
I honestly think it's one of the best films ever made very underrated
Another wonderful historical coverage video about White roses groups...shared by an excellent ( History on UA-cam) channel
I look forward to your podcasts, sir! I had a bit of trouble watching this one because my my initial reaction was hostility; I am very glad I watched it. I learned a lot from it, and I look forward to your follow-ups. Can you please do one? That's if you haven't already on Jakob Schmid, the janitor who was involved with their arrest?
I don't know why you might have felt hostilitiy Frederick but thanks for your honesty. Here is a video on Jakob Schmid I made just for you! ua-cam.com/video/0pQBCXSgYZo/v-deo.html
An excellently researched piece sir.❤
Thanks Leon!
Great contribution..amazing that even Staufenbergs wife was NOT allowed a pension due to the fact that Claus had been responsible for sedition!
Robert, I think Nina Stauffenberg did get a pension. I don't know whether or not it was a lump sum annual payment or regular payment and if it followed her husband's career path as I explained in the video on Roland Freisler's wife.
@@HistoryonUA-cam thank you for your reply...you are quite correct..but I do be.ieve she had to jump through quite a few legal hoops to get this said pension.
Great contributions...very informative. I myself was in the British Army in Sennelager and Osnabruck and got to know many Germans well...my late Grandfather was taken prisoner by the 90th Light at El Alemein and spoke very highly of them. He would always ask how it was in the good bars talking to some of,der Germans...when we got to know them it was good times...
However..many thanks for your kind reply
Fascinating stuff, good work mate!
Many thanks Eddie!
@@HistoryonUA-cam My pleasure, love this type of history and your channel is right up my street, have subscribed and checking out the rest of your uploads!
Interesting video. One has to guard against authoritarianism as an actively political citizen, once they are in power, the strength of the undertow of evil sweeps good, as well as bad people, into participation.
For Freisler, witnesses were at best window dressing to keep up a slight appearance of presiding a normal court of law....Mostly, his mind was made up when by just reading the files of the accused
Fascinating.
Interesting video.
You demonstrate some form of legal process which may have been less obvious by the NKVD for comparison.. This side of the case, I have found very interesting. 🙏🇦🇺
Glad it was helpful Phil! I have read NKVD reports, clearly the people doing them were uneducated, and the person being questioned was running rings around them intellectually - not that it helped him of course.
So do we conclude that one could be a decent human and a Gestapo operative? You seem quite well-inclined to this chap
It would seem that way - however, it needs to be pointed out that Gestapo officers could be rotated from the police, they were not necessarily just party hacks.
Mohr most probably had quite some respect for the Scholl-family aspecially Sophie. Besides an interesting story in that context. What does that really tell you? Probably less then you may think.
People are people - on any political regime. We are used to dealing with stereotypes.
Is a good baddie better than a bad goodie? Interesting conundrum, Alan.
This may seem insane, but I really wish I lived in this time. Even though this time had the Nazi’s in power, there was so many people that had honor, like the Scholl’s. Having honor, keeping your word. Things like that, it meant more to people than all the money in the world. Try to find someone like that today. It’s almost if not indeed impossible.
I will do what I can to remind me of what happened then but I would not want to have been around then Alan! Rather you than me!
I think there were but a few with honour. I see the need for war.
Britain was very lucky to drag USA into WW2. If you read up on Churchill you will find he acted far from honourably and allowed London to be bombed to help the war effort ie to keep it going when people were considering asking for terms. As well using passenger ships listed as "butter" to carry gun cotton, so the Germans would shoot a legitimate war target carrying Americans, to get them into the war. The war is littered with things like this. As well as German and allied soldiers acting honourably with POW. But make no mistake both sides shot POWs, and the Americans, well read up on the Rhine camps. All sides committed war crimes. Although it is clear the Germans shot more pows than the allies.
@@HistoryonUA-camI Know you’re voice . Do u do any other YT channels?
The qualities you talk of probably only surface/ become visible, or don't, if not possesed, when people are in societal turbulance due to war or natural disaster.
@@laurahunt9513 Putin sees this, you think he would have dared try anything like this decades prior?
Complimentz on your who, what, when'n'why!
Thank you!
Kan die ook wat stadswachten en handhavers in Nederland onder handen nemen?
He was never in the Netherlands, maybe you are thinking of someone else. (I cannot speak Dutch, I can only respond in English or German!)
What think ye of David Irving?
On a personal level he is very trying and I have never met a person as impatient as he is.
@@HistoryonUA-camThe man is 85.He is a great historian.His books are most excellent.The world needs more bold historians like David Irving.
He is the greatest historian on nazi Germany
He got it seriously wrong on the fake Hitler diaries, and, was forced by a court in Germany to make a public apology concerning his comments on the third reich.
Yes indeed if you like a nazi historian of nazism as you apparently do.@@alexanderspear9464
Is that a schlager duelling scar on his cheek..
I don't think so as he wasn't the type to do that sort of thing.
No, prob. not..@@HistoryonUA-cam
I have used the Scholls as examples both of Nazi viciousness _and_ as a lesson on just how futile resistance to such a regime really is. It was a beautiful gesture. But gesture is all it was. The Nazis weren't impressed by heroic resistance. We hear people say, "I'd have stood up to the Nazis." They did not care.
It some ways, it reminds me of the Mafia. They kill you because it's part of what they do. They don't get excited about it. Much they don't think of it at all. If Arendt's atrociously overused phrase has _any_ real meaning it is this: horrific crimes became routine. This does not diminish their evil; far from it. But it does illustrate how such men did such terrible things day after day and went home to kiss their children. And why opposing the Nazis with anything but armies was doomed.
I disagree. Georg Elser came very close to killing Hitler on November 8th 1939. Hitler dying could very well have led to a Wehrmacht coup which in turn might have stopped the Holocaust if not the war.
@rullangaar I don't actually disagree with you so I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with.
If Himmler had emerged as leader the Holocaust would have continued. If had been Göring
Then maybe it wouldn't have happened at least not on an industrial scale.
It's fascinating what if, isn't it?
@scottmccrea1873
Hans and Sofia would have done better to live for post-war Germany, as opposed to dying so young.
I agree. There were, perhaps other ways to resist. But they practically begged for martyrdom. Like one of the ancient Christians. @@petebondurant58
@@scottmccrea1873 Precisely. It was all quite pointless, however much we may admire their resistance.
So he was one of those Nazi torturers who just couldn’t get all fevered up and his torture technique and beating up Jewish women were at best C or C(-)’s?
What in the name of all that’s holy is this minidoc supposed to accomplish?
What in the name of all that's holy is this comment supposed to accomplish.
If you can't take facts, then stick to fiction.
Secret Police (GesPo) in text and picture SD Sturmbannfurer ? Different
Organisation ? Security D Service
Presumably you did not watch the video?
Geheime Staats Polizei
GeStaPo