Sophie Scholl and the White Rose

            Sophie Scholl and her brother, Hans, have become heroic figures in the story of resistance in Nazi Germany.  Despite the tragic and sudden end to their young lives, the siblings managed to leave behind a lasting legacy of courageous resistance in the face of evil.  Their life story tells the tale of a young German girl and boy growing up during a turbulent and confusing period of history, struggling to balance life in Nazi Germany with their personal ideologies of morality.

Sophie Scholl during her formative years
Image courtesy of www.madameguillotine.co.uk

            Born during the interwar period, Sophie and Hans spent their formative years under the guidance of their freethinking Lutheran parents, Robert Scholl, a mayor and successful businessman, and Magdalene Müller, a nurse and lay minister.  As Hitler and the Nazis began to accumulate power and influence, the childhoods of Sophie and Hans began to follow a path in line with other Aryan children of the time, one headed toward Nazi youth organizations.  Hans rose in the ranks of the Hitler Youth, while Sophie participated in the Jungmädel, or Young Girls League, and eventually the Bund Deutscher Mädel, or League of German Girls (Vargo).  In the face of rising National Socialism, however, Robert insisted that his children not listen to Nazi ideology, but instead maintain their individual spirits and critical minds.  Initially, they disregarded their father’s warnings, but Sophie and Hans quickly became disillusioned by the bombardment of Nazi ideology that transcended all corners of society (Scholl).   They saw through the Party’s façade, recognizing its underlying darker fanaticism and hatred. 

By the mid-1930s, Sophie and Hans began to take actions opposing the regime.  Sophie was never enchanted by Nazi ideology, participating in Party youth organizations for recreational and social reasons rather than for ideological ones.  In fact, she rejected anti-Semitism entirely and continued friendships with Jewish children at school, despite Nazi pressures to do otherwise.  Hans’s discontent heightened, and he soon resigned from the Hitler Youth, joining a forbidden organization called the Deutsche Jungenschaft, or German Boys Federation, which provided relief from the oppressive regime of Nazism.  In 1937, Hans’s opposition activities and an alleged homosexual relationship attracted the attention of the Gestapo; the entire Scholl family was questioned and placed under suspicion indefinitely.  This scare solidified Sophie and Hans’s convictions of the Nazi Party’s villainy.  While fulfilling her required year of work for the National Labor Service by working on a farm, she solidified her religious and moral beliefs (Vargo).  Before attending university, Sophie and Hans embodied opposition, performing acts of dissent against the Third Reich (Henderson).  However, once the pair became students at Munich University, their acts of opposition evolved into full-fledged resistance, as they organized actions intended to confront the regime head-on. 

(Left to right):   Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl,
and Christoph Probst in Munich, 1943
Image courtesy of www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org

            By 1942, Sophie and Hans had met likeminded individuals at the University, students and professors eager to speak out against Nazism.  Among their acquaintances were Traute LaFranz, Katharina Schüddekopf, Marie-Luise Jahn, Alex Schmorell, Christl Probst, Willi Graf, and Kurt Huber, their philosophy professor at the University.  Members of the group – eventually named the White Rose – shared similar socioeconomic statuses and religious beliefs.  Many came from affluent families and had comfortable lives within German society, sheltered from the chaotic social transformations that overwhelmed the public during Hitler’s reign.  Their resistance was an act of choice, not one of survival.   Similarly, members held compatible religious beliefs; most followed the Catholic faith intently, and while Sophie and Hans were Lutheran, they held Catholic teachings in high regard (Vargo).  The members’ shared religious beliefs permeated the White Rose’s central moral messages. 

            The White Rose printed and distributed its first leaflet in June 1942.  Its first sentence read, “Nothing is so unworthy of a civilized nation as to allow itself to be ‘governed’ without any opposition by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to basic instincts.  It is certainly the case today that every honest German is ashamed of his government” (Dumbach).  The messages were intended for the German intelligentsia, who the White Rose believed held the political potential to oppose the Nazi Party.  Each leaflet called for people to make copies and further disseminate their messages.  Quoting renowned philosophers like Schiller, Goethe, and Aristotle, and citing biblical themes, the White Rose’s leaflets initially underscored the wrongs of fascism in Germany.  As the group’s efforts strengthened and its members grew more frustrated with Nazism, the final leaflets began to make direct calls to resistance (Michalczyk).  Within weeks of the first leaflet, three more were distributed under the name “Leaflets of the White Rose.”  By February 1943, the White Rose had written two more leaflets titled, “Leaflets of the Resistance Movement in Germany,” which encouraged Germans to liberate themselves from oppression by asserting their inalienable democratic rights of free speech.  By the time the movement neared its fatal end, it had distributed leaflets of resistance to thousands of influential community members – including writers, professors, doctors, and businessmen – in cities across Germany and Austria (Henderson).  Yet, due to their risky resistance campaigns – including a scheme to graffiti public walls with the phrase “Down with Hitler!” – Sophie and Hans soon jeopardized their own safety, growing more reckless as the War progressed. 

The White Rose's first leaflet
Image courtesy of www.holocaustresearchproject.org

As the two Scholls distributed copies of the sixth leaflet around Munich University campus on February 18, 1943, they were caught in the act by a school custodian and soon after arrested by the Gestapo.  Four days later they were put on trial at Munich’s Palace of Justice.  The trial – a formality given the fact the siblings faced certain execution – was no small matter; Heinrich Himmler, leader of the SS and the Gestapo, oversaw the procedure, intent on warning students against any forms of resistance.  Sophie, Hans, and their friend Christoph Probst were indicted for treason and sentenced to death.  During the proceedings, Sophie interrupted Roland Feisler, the notoriously cruel Nazi judge overseeing the trial, shouting, “Somebody had to make a start…What we said and wrote are what many people are thinking.  They just don’t dare say it out loud!”  Later that afternoon, the three friends were killed by guillotine.  Hans’s last words: “Long live freedom!” (Dumbach).