On Feb. 18 , 1943 , during the height ofWorld War II , two German college student at the University of Munich recruit one of the main campus buildings , walk to the top of a staircase andtossed a stack of leafletsover the railing and down into the crowded atrium . The leaflet , the sixth in a series of underground publications from a group calling itself the White Rose , press fellow student to climb up againstAdolf Hitlerand the Nazi war simple machine .
" The Day of Reckoning has make out , " understand the White Rose brochure , " the reckoning of our German young person with the most despicable tyranny ever endured by our land … Students ! The German people are looking to us ! "
The two students who dumped the pamphlet at the University of Munich were grab by the janitor and handed over to the Gestapo , the Nazi secret police . They were sib , Hans and Sophie Scholl . And within days , Hans and Sophie , and their friend Christoph Probst , were convicted of traitorousness and fulfill . Many of their co - coconspirator in the White Rose resistance movement were executed in the months that followed .
Today , the name Sophie Scholl is synonymous in Germany with courageousness , strong belief and the inspirational exponent of youth . At just 21 years honest-to-goodness , Sophie contend a murderous government — not with gun and grenades , but with musical theme and ideals .
The Awakening of a ‘Hitler Youth’
Sophie was born into a Christian family in 1921 . She was 12 years sometime when Hitler and his National Socialist Party came to power . Like her schoolmates and siblings , she eagerly enter in Nazi - run youth programs , the Hitler Youth for boy and the League of German Girls for girls , though her parents were critical of the Nazi party . With her exuberance and leading ability , Sophie quickly turn out through the rank .
By the time Sophie graduate from gamy schoolhouse , though , Germany was at warfare , and two of her brothers and her boyfriend had been muster in to fight . The pollyannaish patriotism of her youth was replace with grief for the young multitude drop dead at the front , fear for her family and friends , and contempt for the fascist constabulary state that controlled every aspect of their lives .
sound and ambitious , Sophie wanted to study biology and school of thought at university , but was coerce to solve for a year in the National Labor Service , where she grated against the military regimen and mind - numbing task . In diary entry and letters to her boyfriend , we get a glimpse of a untried woman who hungered for heartsease and freedom .
" In these documents , we can trace Sophie ’s development from a shaver to a thoughtful young cleaning woman , " say Hildegard Kronawitter , chair of theWhite Rose Foundationin Munich . " The closer we get to her , the more we ’re impressed by her mentation and her strong judgment . "
Leaflets Call for Passive Resistance and Sabotage
In 1942 , Sophie inscribe in the University of Munich , where her older brother Hans was already studying medicine . Hans and his champion had been conscript as medics on the Eastern Front and witnessed atrocities like the mass murder of Polish Jews and the needless deaths of countless German soldiers .
ineffectual to hold back their anger at Hitler ’s criminal government , Hans and a modest circle of similar - minded friends formed the White Rose in June 1942 and began to publish and distribute underground leaflet hollo for average Germans to place upright up against Nazism .
" [ W]hich of us can judge the extent of the ignominy that will get over us and our nipper when one day the veil has fallen from our eyes and the roughshod crimes , infinitely surpass all cadence , come to Christ Within ? " wrote Hans and his friend Alexander Schmorell in thefirst leaflet . " Therefore , every individual must resist at this last hour as much as he can , cognizant of his responsibleness as a phallus of Christian and westerly polish , must act upon against the scourge of mankind , against fascism and every standardised organization of the absolute state . "
In thesecond cusp , Hans and Schmorell truly call the aggregative murder of Polish Jews in German engrossment camps " the most dire crime against human dignity , a criminal offense for which there is no comparison in the full history of mankind . "
And by thethird leaflet , the White Rose urged even Germans to practice secret acts of sabotage wherever they labored : in munition factories , government offices , newspapers , universities — " every one of us is capable of bestow something to convey down this organization . "
Sophie connect her comrade in the White Rose resistance and facilitate publish and distribute the leaflets around Munich and other German urban center , which was n’t easy given wartime rationing and travel limitation . " Please duplicate and pass on ! ! ! " implored the third folder , with promise that it would encounter its way into the hands of more Germans defend to the authorities .
‘They Knew the Danger and Chose to Act’
By 1943 , Sophie and the other members of the White Rose feel that the lunar time period of the war had turn against Germany . During the disastrousBattle of Stalingradin late 1942 , Germany lose a staggering500,000 troop . The White Rose begin taking bolder steps to stimulate a disillusioned world into action .
The grouppainted graffitiall over Munich read " exemption " and " Down with Hitler . " And rather of mailing their leaflets in secret , they settle to pass them out in person on campus .
" I would n’t say that they were to a fault idealistic and did n’t understand the risk of what they were doing , " order Kronawitter . " They knew the danger and choose to play nevertheless . "
The cusp that Sophie and Hans rain down down into the crowded atrium was thesixth leaflet , publish by one of their professors , Kurt Huber , and ended with this hopeful exhortation : " Our nation is on the threshold of come up up against the enslavement of Europe through National Socialism , in the new , god-fearing breakthrough of exemption and honor ! "
A Life Cut Short and a Legacy of Resistance
When Sophie was arrested , she first denied any connexion to the leaflets or the White Rose , but once Hans admitted his role , she confess , too .
" We were convinced that Germany had lost the war and that every life that is sacrificed for this lose movement is sacrificed in conceited , " Sophietold her inquisitor . " The sacrifice ask at Stalingrad especially act us to undertake something in foeman to the ( in our opinion ) senseless peeling of bloodline … I readily know that our demeanour was intended to put an end to the current authorities . "
Sophie and Hans tried to protect the other White Rose conspirators by claiming that they two were entirely responsible for write the folder , but their supporter were at long last draw into the investigation and bear the same brutal fate , demise by closure by compartment . The other White Rose members executed by the Nazis were Alexander Schmorell , Willi Graf , Kurt Huber and Christoph Probst .
Oneremarkable artifactfrom Sophie ’s visitation and condemnation is a document she was hand that place out the province ’s case against her . On the back , Sophie wrote the word " Freiheit " or " Freedom " in a decorative handwriting .
" I think that ’s really affecting , " say Kronawitter . " Here she was in prison house and had just been informed that the public prosecutor demanded the death sentence . And after she take this , her response was ' freedom . ' "
Among Sophie’sfinal wordsbefore being taken away for execution were : " It is such a splendid sunny sidereal day , and I have to go . But how many have to die on the field of honor in these days , how many young , assure life . What does my decease thing if by our acts thousands are warned and alerted . "
As it happened , the 6th cusp was snuck out of Germany and made it to the U.K. and the U.S. , where the exiled German author Thomas Mannpraisedthe extremity of the White Rose , sound out , " skillful , splendid youthful multitude ! You shall not have died in sleeveless ; you shall not be forgotten . [ … ] A novel faith in freedom and honor is dawn . "
