Cross-examination: Hans Hirzel

His family wished to raise young Hirzel to be a respectable German. He is clearly sickly. He has endured a series of grave illnesses and leans to an intellectual preoccupation which in reality is nothing more than word play and a passion for experimentation. Barely even aware of what he was doing, this boy came under the influence of a vulgar girl – Sophie Scholl – and allowed her to take advantage of him. His confused quasi-philosophical attempts to explain his actions – although he was not in agreement with the leaflet – indeed appear not to be dishonest. But they do testify to his eccentricity.

The court assumes that he will divest himself of these deeds upon his moral awakening to manhood. Just as his eccentric – but in this context, telling – attempts to inject himself for the sake of chemical experiments, or when he allowed himself to be locked inside a cement mixer so he could observe the mixing process of gravel and cement from inside! One must judge him differently than students or especially college teachers.

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Source: Verdict with reason, second trial