Eickemeyer learns truth about arrests

I did not learn until the end of March 1943 that the Scholl siblings were caught as they distributed seditious leaflets at the University of Munich in February 1943 and that they were condemned. [At that time], I had come to Munich on business. …

Only after I arrived in Munich did I make contact with the artist Wilhelm Geyer, whom I had temporarily granted access to my studio. I learned from him that the Scholl siblings and Christoph Probst had been executed for treason and that they (Scholl siblings and Probst) had been captured because of someone from Stuttgart named Hirzel.

Mr. Mayer, the janitor of the Leopold Str. 38 property, told me that the police had found a typewriter platen and other items in my basement and that they had taken them, because all kinds of things had taken place in my studio while I was gone.

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Editor’s note: The statement about “Hirzel” raises many questions. First, there is no evidence that Hans Hirzel was the person who had betrayed White Rose.

Second, however, Wilhelm Geyer likely got his information about Hirzel (whom he did not know) from the Scholl family. Apparently the Scholls wrongly blamed Hans Hirzel for the arrest of Hans and Sophie Scholl.

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Source: Second interrogation of Manfred Eickemeyer, April 7, 1943