Professor-Huber-Platz: The Professor Who Wrote the Last Leaflet
Why is it significant?
Across Ludwigstraße from the main building, stand by the round fountain on this second square, the twin of the one you have just left. The two fountains splash on either side of the avenue like a pair of open hands.
Key Facts
| Place | Professor-Huber-Platz: The Professor Who Wrote the Last Leaflet |
|---|---|
| Address | Professor-Huber-Platz, 80539 München, Germany |
| Geo Coordinates | 48.15090, 11.58200 |
| Part of Walk | Munich 1918-1945: The Nazi Era, Its Victims and the White Rose |
| Generated | Generated |
Across Ludwigstraße from the main building, stand by the round fountain on this second square, the twin of the one you have just left. The two fountains splash on either side of the avenue like a pair of open hands. This one carries the name of a man who was older, quieter and less famous than the students.
Kurt Huber was a professor of philosophy and music at this university, born in 1893, and a passionate collector of Bavarian folk songs. A childhood illness had left him with a limp and a hesitant speech, and he never quite fitted the academic world. Yet his lectures were packed. Students said that when he spoke about the philosopher Leibniz, everyone in the hall understood he was really talking about freedom of conscience.
Through those students, Huber found the White Rose, and in February 1943, just after the catastrophe of Stalingrad, he wrote its sixth leaflet himself. It was addressed to his fellow students and called on them to rise against the party that had stolen their freedom. That was the leaflet Sophie Scholl pushed over the balustrade.
He was arrested at the end of February 1943. The university even stripped him of his doctorate. On the 13th of July 1943 he was executed at Stadelheim together with Alexander Schmorell, one of the founders of the group, and in October their friend Willi Graf followed them. Schmorell had grown up between two cultures, with a Russian mother, and in 2012 the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad declared him a saint, Saint Alexander of Munich.
Today two squares face each other here, one for the brother and sister, one for the professor, with the traffic of Ludwigstraße running between them. It is fitting: the students and the teacher who joined them, on equal terms. Now walk north along Ludwigstraße, just a couple of minutes, to the great triumphal arch where the avenue ends.