There was nearly a contradictory impression between the intensive influence Haecker exercised with his writings and the atmosphere he created as a person. And even after half a century it is not easy to approach him as a historical personality. He left little about his personal life in the sense of autobiographical notes. Richard Seewald, a painter and friend of his for several decades who has left us two portraits of Haecker, describes him in a farewell article: “He was one of the most quiet and most taciturn men I knew.” Most people who met him may have had “great respect for his uprightness and a little fear to be pierced through by his clear blue eyes radiating with an unusual power ... They seemed to ask all the time: Do you quite seriously mean what you are saying? Does your life correspond to your words?” On the other hand Sophie Scholl, one of the “White Rose” martyrs, told her friend about the “impressive hours” she spent with Haecker in the afternoon of February 4th 1943, when he read for a circle of friends from his theodicy Schopfer und Schopfung (Creator and Creation): “His words fall slowly like drops which you can see gathering in advance and which fall under this expectation with a very special weight. He has a very quiet face, a look as though he would look toward the inside. Nobody ever convinced me with his countenance as he did.”