Elfriede Scholz

[DavidFrankenberg]

She was the sister of the famous writer Erich Maria Remarque.
She was 5 years younger.

csm_67005x_ab711ce933.jpeg (52.47 KiB) Viewed 10449 times

Born the 25 march of 1903, , née Remark, she lost her mother, named Anna, at the age of only 3 yo. Maybe because of this loss and of the poor conditions of the war she was often ill and got paralyzed for two years due to a lack of red blood cells and weak bones.
She completed an apprenticeship as a tailor then worked as a self-employed dressmaker in Leipzig in 1926, then in Berlin in 1929 and finally in Dresden.

In 1929, her brother became suddenly world wide famous with his best-seller All Quiet on the Western Front.
She was so lucky to have her big brother so famous and rich. What could go wrong at the time ?

Unfortunately for her, Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933 and he did not appreciate at all her brother's book which was consequently forbidden. Erich was a pacifist and became one big target of the nazi propaganda. His book was burnt during auto-da-fe among others books like those of Karl Marx, Freund etc. The nazis even claimed that Remarque was jewish, that his name (Remark) was the anagram of the jewish name Kramer. He had to flee in exile in Italy (1933) then in the USA (1939).

But the poor Elfriede could not afford to flee. She stayed in Dresden. She was not rich. She was not famous. She had to work hard and she did. Life was not so cruel and in 1941 she found love and married the musician Heinz Scholz (1). He served in the Navy.

Suddenly in september 1943 she was denounced for antiwar and antinazi words :

She told an acquaintance and customer at her tailoring shop that she did not believe in the propaganda of a German “final victory” and that the German soldiers on the front were nothing but “beasts for the slaughter.” She also said she would kill Adolf Hitler. She made similar statements to her landlady. In the late summer of 1943 Elfriede Scholz was denounced and indicted on the basis of these two women’s evidence.

https://www.gdw-berlin.de/en/recess/bio ... no_cache=1

A statement to a customer that the war was lost after all led to her arrest after Captain Hans-Jürgen Rietzel denounced and reported "anti-state statements" to the Gestapo.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elfriede_Scholz

Was Captain Hans-Jürgen Rietzel the husband of the customer or of the landlady ? He must have been pronazi for having reported her this way.

Elfriede was arrested. It could have stopped there, but she was the sister of the famous pacifist writer so much hated by the nazis. That's why, soon, in October 1943, she was sentenced to death by Roland Freisler (the terrible nazi judge). He said : "Your brother escaped us, you will not escape us".
She was only 40. She was beheaded in december 1943.

Roland Freisler was the judge of the 20 july 1944 plot. He sentenced to death many people and was famous for his humiliating and violent behavior during trials. He died during a bombing in february 1945 and never faced his crimes. The german justice didnt annoy anyone concerning the unfair death of Elfriede, despite the efforts of her brother. The german justice finally recognized, but very late, that she was innocent in 1998.

A german movie about her (2005) :
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6848076/

She has no wiki in english.
Only a wiki in german.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elfriede_Scholz

(1) Erich Scholz for https://www.gdw-berlin.de/en/recess/bio ... no_cache=1
Heinz Scholz for https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/tod- ... 02222.html and https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elfriede_Scholz

[Helly Angel]

Very very interesting topic! Thanks for sharing!

[Annelie]

Thanks for sharing.

What happened however to her husband if she was beheaded?

[Puck]

https://www.db-thueringen.de/servlets/M ... ettner.pdf

The main witness for the prosecution, Ingeborg Rietzel, died in a bomb attack on Dresden on February 12, 1945. The witness for the prosecution, Antonie Wentzel, was arrested by the public prosecutor's office on February 24/25, 1950 because of her testimony before the People's Court Dresden accused of crimes against humanity, and sentenced to 5 years in prison in the trial at the Dresden Regional Court, ..

Regards Puck

[DavidFrankenberg]

Thanks for support Annelie and Angel.

Thanks for sharing.

What happened however to her husband if she was beheaded?

Good question. What was his reaction ? Was he on the see at the moment ?
Maybe the german movie made in 2005 answered many of these questions ? I have not watched it.

I am prone to think that all the trial was fake, even the testimonies.
Why was she beheaded in dec 43 ? the war was lost. Even Freisler knew it.
She was not a resistant at all.

Hans & Sophie Scholl ? Active resistants. OK
Otto & Elise Hampel ? Same.
All beheaded by Roland Freisler.

But why Elfriede ?

Do you know some one else beheaded for words ? she was not a big deal.. she had no influence at all... she was no member of a White Rose movement or something like that. She was not known as a communist or a friend of some jews...

She was just the sister of a famous writer hated by the nazis. And she died for that. Horrible thing. This is maybe the most horrible nazi crime i know.

I remember having read Ian Kershaw book on public opinion under the Third Reich. After Stalingrad, words like "war is lost", "Hitler is crazy", "Göring is a fool" were common at the time... even in the army many did not make the hitlerian salute anymore...
She was not beheaded for having said "war is lost". It cant be. I will launch a strong assumption : she was killed probably because Hitler asked for it. Roland Freisler was just the axe handled by Hitler.

[DavidFrankenberg]

https://www.db-thueringen.de/servlets/M ... ettner.pdf

The main witness for the prosecution, Ingeborg Rietzel, died in a bomb attack on Dresden on February 12, 1945. The witness for the prosecution, Antonie Wentzel, was arrested by the public prosecutor's office on February 24/25, 1950 because of her testimony before the People's Court Dresden accused of crimes against humanity, and sentenced to 5 years in prison in the trial at the Dresden Regional Court, ..

Regards Puck

First news : she was born in 1902 and not in 1903 (p.121).
Huge book !
Amazing.

[DavidFrankenberg]

6 minute documentary on Elfriede and Erich Maria Remarque https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpLoLKphBqc

You can see this photo of Elfriede in the middle, Erich on the right, and Erna on the left.

Erna was the elder sister. She was 6 years older.
She was married to a certain Brames and lived in Bad Rothenfelde. After the war she married to another guy, Mister Rudolf. She died in 1978.
https://www.remarque.uni-osnabrueck.de/bio.htm

While in prison, in october, Elfriede wrote to her sister begging for winter clothes. She was arrested in august and had only on her a summer dress. p.122-123. https://www.db-thueringen.de/servlets/M ... ettner.pdf (link provided by Puck)

[DavidFrankenberg]

Elfriede lived in Berlin from 1924 till 1929.
Nowadays, there is a tiny commemorative plaque at Elfriede's Berlin adress : Suarezstrasse 31, 14057 Berlin

Hier lebte zwischen 1924 und 1929 die Schneidermeisterin
Elfriede Scholz
geb. Remark 25. März 1903 – 16. Dezember 1943
Elfriede Scholz wurde im August 1943 in Dresden wegen regimekritischer Äußerungen von „Freunden” denunziert und vom Volksgerichtshof wegen Wehrkraftzersetzung zum Tode verurteilt. Sie war die Schwester des von den Nationalsozialisten verfemten Schriftstellers Erich Maria Remarque. Am 16. Dez. 1943 wurde Elfriede Scholz in Plötzensee enthauptet.

https://www.berlin.de/ba-charlottenburg ... 125819.php

[DavidFrankenberg]

The official charge was as following :

Frau Scholz has struck her landlady Frau Toni Wentzel in many conversations as a woman who does not believe in our victory, who admits to such and who asks scornfully, after some setbacks, whether she (Frau Wentzel) still believes in victory. Moreover, Frau Scholz has for months had an undermining, defeatist influence on Frau Ingeborg Rietzel. She knew Frau Rietzel as her customer — she is a dressmaker — and had already made friends with her. So they sometimes met in Frau Rietzel's apartment and sometimes came to Frau Scholz's apartment together. According to Frau Rietzel, she (Frau Scholz) revealed to her her scornful and ironic state of mind, particularly in remarks about the progress of the war. She said she did not believe in victory and asked whether Frau Rietzel still believed in it.
Once she said to Frau Rietzel, 'What luck has he (Hitler) brought us? Everyone who goes to the front is mere "cattle for slaughter", which he has on his conscience. If I had the chance, I'd put a bullet through his head myself. I would gladly take the consequences. At least then the German people would be rid of this man. I would gladly sacrifice myself' Or 'Is this idiot going to destroy all our cities before he makes peace?' Or 'I have travelled the world and met many people. When the enemies get here it won't be so bad. They are much better than we are given to believe and Germany is so hated by the whole world through its own fault.'
Or '1 wish that the women who are still for this..war will lose their husbands (in battle) and that the wives and children of the men who fight so fanatically will be killed by bombs.' Frau Elfriede Scholz admits that she has made negative remarks about the outcome of the war out of a general feeling of pessimism. But she says she only did it to give herself strength. She knew that Frau Rietzel is a believer in National Socialism and that Frau Rietzel's husband is an active officer, a soldier in body and soul and a believer in National Socialism. She thought she could take new heart from the pair of them. She said she did not say the things Frau Rietzel said.
She has never had the intention of allowing Frau Rietzel to convert her to National Socialism; on the contrary she has tried to destroy Frau Rietzel's beliefs.
Frau Rietzel has informed the court of the above remarks and Frau Scholz's scornful and ironic demeanour without any hatred and with such convincing certainty, and given the impression of a thoroughly credible person, aware of her responsibilities as a witness, that there can be no doubt that it was as she has said. Moreover, Frau Scholz's attitude, as conveyed by Frau Rietzel, tallies exactly with Frau Wentzel's account. Neither lady knew each other when they first became involved in this case.
If Frau Scholz wants to blame her pessimism partly on the influence of her brother, the author of the notorious shoddy effort (Machwerks) All Quiet on the Western Front, that cannot excuse her because, by her own admission, she has not seen her brother for thirteen years.
Rather, she is a shameless traitor to her own and our German blood, to our life as a people, a propaganda agent who stirs up defeatist attitudes in favour of our enemies. There can be only one punishment for a woman who has so forgotten her honour and who will therefore be forever without honour: the death penalty.

cf. Tims Hilton in his biography of Erich Maria Remarque : https://archive.org/details/erichmariar ... ew=theater

[DavidFrankenberg]

Elfriede's case at first surprised me. Did she tell any "defeatist talks" at all ? Maybe... but, that kind of talks were common 6 months after Stalingrad.
Tims Hilton quotes Viktor Klemperer's diary of the time :

11 May (1943)— . . . the arrests are attributed to 'politically suspect conversations' which have somehow been overheard, denounced, perhaps inadvertently betrayed . . . What is a politically suspect conversation? Everything and anything.
20 August — Only one thing is surprising about the talk: people's courage and lack of caution, because the papers are full of prison and death sentences for every kind of 'defeatism'.
13 September — The same newspaper . . . reports the carrying out of two death sentences for defeatism and betrayal of the people. How many have been carried out? How long can they act as a deterrent?
15 September — Two people, another two!, executed for `undermining the fighting strength of the armed forces'i

I have also read that in the army some soldiers began to criticize the power ; many in the army did not use the hitlerian salute or did not answer to it anymore etc. It seems that "defeatism" became really common... among the people... among the army.

Did she criticize Hitler ? It seems... but what about Goring and the Meyer story ? Göring was the number 2 of the régime, and he was publicly criticized for his incapacity to stop the air bombings on german cities...
Was Elfriede only killed for having criticized the Führer ? would she have survived if she had only criticized Göring ? I guess so.