Christoph Probst: He was a Husband and Father, and at the age of 23 the Nazis made him a Martyr

IT MAKES SENSE TO ME

By Larry Peterson

 Christoph Probst & Sophie Scholl                                          Aleteia.org

Christoph Probst was born on November 6, 1919, in Bavaria, Germany. His dad, Herman Probst, was a scholar who specialized in Asian culture, Eastern religions, and the language, Sanscrit. Hermann maintained an intellectual environment at home and Christoph thrived within it.

However, inside the Probst home all was not peaceful and content. Christoph’s parents divorced when he was still a young boy, and  His father remarried Elise Jaffee, who was Jewish. Shortly after his second marriage, Hermann Probst committed suicide. How this affected Christoph is unknown, but his contempt for Nazi ideology grew stronger.

There was some money available, and Christoph was admitted to a boarding school at Landheim Schondorf, a school mostly devoted to the fine arts. The school was not an institution that supported Nazi ideas.  It was here that Christoph met a young man named Alexander Schmorell.

Alexander had been born in the Ural Mountains of Russia and had come to Germany with his father when his mother died. Christoph and Alexander had much in common; both young men had lost parents. Upon graduating high school, the two close friends were required to enter the National Labor Service.

Upon leaving the Labor Service, Christoph met and married Herta Dohm. Herta would have three children, Michael, Vincent, and Katherina. Christoph then entered the University of Munich to study medicine. It was during this time that he and his best friend, Alexander,  met up with Hans Scholl, the founder of the White Rose. They all thought alike. They despised Adolf Hitler and hated Nazism. 

The name, White Rose, signified non-violence and peaceful protest. It was a group that simply wanted to exert intellectual resistance to the Third Reich. In March of 1942, the White Rose began their clandestine assault against the Nazi regime. Their weapons of an attack were leaflets. They began mailing the leaflets to random names they picked from the phone book. They tried to find doctors, lawyers, musicians, and scholars.

Then they began leaving them around the different college campuses such as the University of Hamburg and their school, the University of Munich. The leaflets begged the German citizens to fight back against the tyrannical Nazis.

Christoph joined the group after they had started distributing the leaflets. The group tried their best to keep Christoph in a low-profile position. He did not even write leaflets. He was the only one of the group married with two children and they all wanted to do their best to protect his family. So did he.

Christoph had never been born into a specific religion but he always was drawn to religion and the existence of God. His friends were Catholic and their faith influenced him greatly. Soon, he would embrace it fully.

The White Rose group had produced and distributed five different leaflets. The distribution of the leaflets had spread from Munich and to other cities. Over 15, 000 leaflets were used to attack Nazi crimes, oppression, and the mass murder of the Jews. The White Rose quickly climbed to a top spot on the Nazi wanted list.

Christoph finally lent his hand to the leaflets production by designing the layout for the sixth one. This is the one that Hans Scholl had in his pocket when he was arrested. It would prove to be the only evidence of Christoph's involvement with the White Rose.  

On February 18, 1943, Hans and Sophie Scholl were distributing the leaflets on campus when a caretaker spotted them doing so. The man, being a “good Nazi,” quickly reported them to the authorities. The Gestapo took them into custody. Hans and Sophie were searched and they found the leaflet. Handwriting samples taken led them to Christoph.

Hans, his sister, Sophie, and Christoph were interrogated relentlessly by the Gestapo and then taken to the People’s Court. The date was February 21, 1943. They were accused of treason and sentenced to death. German law stated that they should have a ninety-day wait before execution. It made no difference in the “People’s Court.”  They would die that very day.

Christoph, born into no religion, asked if a Catholic priest could visit him. He requested to be baptized and was received into the faith. Sometime during the following hour, he and his two friends, Hans and Sophie, were guillotined.

On November 3, 1999, Christoph Probst was included in the Martyrology of the Catholic Church.

Blessed Christoph Probst, please pray for us.

  ©Larry Peterson 2018

The Genocide Continues--but Without the Music

IT MAKES SENSE TO ME

by Larry Peterson

The pages of history are littered with the evil purveyors of death by genocide.  But the Nazis have to be awarded Satan's Black Medal of Evil.  They managed to accomplish the three Ps all at the same time: proficiency, productivity and performance.  Yup, no one has ever killed so many innocents with the efficiency of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime.

These disciples of all that is evil, even fine-tuned the process to a point where they had orchestras playing music as the doomed were "merrily" paraded to their deaths.   The irony was that the Nazis had silenced Jewish musicians throughout Germany and their occupied countries.  Then some of the upper echelon "death designers",  in their ongoing quest to speed up and expedite the extermination process, decided to add beautiful music to the blood curdling screams coming from those about to die.  So they began rounding up the silenced musicians, gathered up confiscated instruments (including many grand pianos) and distributed them to death camps.  The orders were for the commanders of these camps to put together an orchestra and have them play music for the prisoners as they departed the death trains and as they were marched to their deaths.

Imagine the utter callousness of the conquerors.  They decided to use orchestras to drown out the anguished cries coming from the camps.  The prisoners dubbed this practice, "Symphonia Diabolica" or the "Devil's Symphony".  At the Janowska concentration camp located near Ukraine, SS officer Wilhelm Rokita, a former violinist, ordered the inmate orchestra to compose something a bit more "lively" than the standard classical fare. They came up with a little ditty called, "Tango fun toyt" or "Tango of  Death".  This piece had some 'bounce" to it and it encouraged the condemned to "move more quickly" as they were herded to their executions.  This is hard to even imagine but it happened and was orchestrated by folks who not long before were, for the most part,  regular, hardworking, family types who seemingly would not hurt anyone or anything.  It is proof that we must never, ever underestimate the power and influence of evil.

That was then and this is now.  What has changed?  The genocide continues---but without the music.  As we sit and move through our day Christians and Jews are the targets of the the forces of the Evil One.  I do not mean to minimize what is happening in Gaza but there is an  intentional massacre and elimination of Christians and Christianity taking place in Iraq and other places.  One third of Iraq has already been conquered by Islamist radicals who have declared the territory a new Caliphate.  This means that this is now a Muslim nation under Sharia Law and the Constitution of Medina.  There is NO place for Christianity in this place.  The entire nation of Iraq is targeted for complete  takeover.

There are no up to date numbers as to how many Catholics and non-Catholic Christians have been executed.  All Christians have been ordered to convert to Islam or leave the city immediately, leaving their belongings behind.  Penalty for non-compliance is  immediate death.  The Islamist maniacs and butchers have no concentration camps and there is definitely no music being played.  These evil-doers simply kill you and they actually seem to get "joy" from lopping off the head of an "infidel".  Where is the world's outrage?

There were supposedly one million plus Christians in Iraq before 2003.  The last number (before the US completely pulled out) was 400, 000.  There are unconfirmed reports from Mosul that all women between the ages of 11 and 46 will have to go for immediate "circumcision".  What kind of medieval, barbaric behavior is this.  Why aren't the women's organizations screaming about this?   Why isn't our mainstream media reporting it?  Why hasn't our administration  engaged with this?  American dead from the Iraq war comes to 4800.  Almost 32,000 Americans were wounded.  We stabilized that nation and now it is being stolen away by lunatics.  Doesn't anyone give a damn?  We are not only watching the annihilation of Christianity in the mid-east but Christianity is under attack all over the world.

Violence against Christians has become a global epidemic.  From North Korea, to Syria, to Iraq, and Libya, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Pakistan,  Iran, and most of  sub-Saharan Africa, Christians are being tortured and killed.  In Europe they are being slowly but surely minimized on their way to the secular and Islamist goal of eradication.

Right here, in the United States of America, the land of the "free", Christianity is being portrayed as indifferent and intolerant because it stands its ground against the forces of secularism.  There are Americans who want to purge it from the public square, this in a nation founded on Judeo-Christian principles.   We have those who are offended by a cross and go to court to have it removed.  They must not have a clue as to how they are chipping away at the very foundation of the greatest nation ever to exist.

They might want to consider that the Islamist radicals want them dead too.  They hate them as much as they hate any Christian simply because they are American.  They hate anyone that doesn't defer to their religious fanaticism.  If they ever manage to come here they will not be playing music.  It is time for everyone to pray.

                                                                                             

70 years Later: Remembering D-Day: What Price Freedom? It is Always "Blood & Treasure".

by Larry Peterson

LCVP Landing Craft at Omaha Beach, June 6, 1944

June 6, 1944: It was 6:30 a.m. in France.  In America it was 12:30 a.m. on the East Coast and still June 5 on the West Coast.  Most Americans at home were sleeping not having the slightest inkling that many of the best and the bravest of the American future were beginning their day by dying  for the most noble of reasons; to save the world from the maniacal Adolf  Hitler and his Nazi hordes. What price freedom?

Look at the photo to the right. Those young men in that LCVP were about to land on the beach. They were probably so frightened as those sand dunes got closer and closer.  The fear was normal and justified. Fifteen (15) minutes after that picture was taken many of them were dead. Just like that. Sons, brothers, husbands, gone. Shredded by the relentless machine gun fire coming from the German bunkers.  Many killed were still teenagers. What price freedom?  The price never changes. It is always "blood and treasure", isn't it?

Word of the invasion quickly reached the Jewish ghetto in  Lodz, Poland.  German authorities, hearing these "rumors", quickly began searching the ghetto for illegal radios. Six Jews were promptly arrested and just as promptly executed.  On the island of Corfu, located west of Greece, 1800 Jews were arrested by the Gestapo and summarily deported to Auschwitz. Upon detraining the transports, 1600 were immediately murdered in the gas chambers and the remaining 200 were sent off to forced labor. As word of the invasion began to take hold the Nazis took a ship with 260 Canean Jewish "passengers" aboard plus an untold number of corpses of Jews already murdered by the Nazis and sank it to destroy the evidence. The noose around the neck of the Third Reich was beginning to tighten. Another ship, bound for the trains to Auschwitz, was sunk by torpedoes from a British submarine. Besides all the Jewish people on board there were also 300 Italian POWs and 400 Greek civilians.  It was still June 6 and, as young men were dying by the thousands on the beaches of France, an uptick in the extermination of the Jewish people began to take hold.

We know that Operation Overlord turned the tide of WWII in favor of the allies. It was the beginning of the end of the Third Reich and Adolf Hitler and his evil henchmen. Casualty numbers for the Normandy Invasion still stagger the mind. 29,000 Americans were killed and 106, 000 were wounded.  The British suffered 11,000  killed and 54,000 wounded. The Canadians lost 5,000 killed and 13,000 wounded.  The French, fighting as partisans, lost 12,200 killed and missing. The casualties were mind boggling. The allies lost 57,000 killed and more than 175,000 wounded. Factor in the 30,000 Germans killed and 80,000 wounded and it is simply hard to comprehend how one man, filled with an ego so massive it knew no bounds, could somehow influence such evil and destruction. But Adolf Hitler managed to do just that.  As always, evil could not and did not prevail.  But the cost to defend the freedoms threatened were profound. What price freedom?  It is always, just as it is to this very day, "blood and treasure".  It is always mostly taken from the young

It would be almost another year before the war in Europe ended. On April 30, 1945 Adolf Hitler committed suicide in a bunker as the Battle of Berlin raged above.  On May 8, 1945, the war in Europe came to its official end with the German surrender.  It was President Harry Truman's 61st birthday.  He dedicated the victory to his predecessor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had died only a month before.

Operation Overlord, aka D-Day, was the largest undertaking of its kind in the history of mankind. Thousands upon thousands of  soldiers: American, British, Canadian, French and others too, died that day. Many more were wounded.  An evil had taken root and festered and exploded like an unstoppable virus infecting  and killing millions.  But honor and integrity and justice coupled with a permeating belief in an almighty God saw victory come to those who respected GOODNESS.  What price freedom?  The price is always "blood and treasure". The alternative is bondage and tyranny.
                                  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fast forward 70 years:

 On June 3, 2014,  Boko-Haram Islamist Militants (modern day, 21st Century cowardly and evil storm-troopers) entered the town of Gwoza in Nigeria. They were wanting to kill Christians. And kill they did. After they finished their "mission" of killing they had left behind at least 168 people dead, mostly women and children. An elderly Christian man faced the Boko-Haram and yelled, "IF YOU DO NOT REPENT OF KILLING INNOCENT CHRISTIANS THAT BELIEVE IN JESUS, THEIR BLOOD WILL JUDGE YOU."

This statement enraged the insurgents and they slashed the man's body apart with their swords. Then they beheaded him.  He was 80 years old.  He died defending Jesus.  Whether it is a Jew or a Christian, not much has changed in 70 years.  Persecution of Christians and Jews continues.  The Nazis were ultimately crushed by GOODNESS.  Boko-Haram will be crushed the same way.  Make no mistake, the Battle for Goodness will require much blood and treasure but the battle will eventually be won.  For those yesterday, today and tomorrow who have fought, fight and will fight the evil in this world, God bless you all.