Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl, and Christoph Probst, July 23, 1942.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, photo © George J. Wittenstein
ON FEBRUARY 22, 1943, a German university student named Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans, and one of their friends, Christoph Probst, were all awaiting trial in the Nazirun “People’s Court” in the Munich Palace of Justice. The judge who was to preside over their case, Roland Freisler, suddenly swaggered into the courtroom, dramatically dressed in flowing red robes. Judge Freisler was known as the hanging judge because he passed death sentences on nearly everyone tried in his court. This trial, its audience filled with those loyal to Hitler’s Third Reich, looked like it would be no exception. Judge Freisler opened the proceedings with a furious and demented tirade, making great billowing gestures with his robes and screaming that the defendants were guilty of treason, conspiracy, rendering the armed forces unfit to protect the German Reich, giving aid to the enemy, and crippling and weakening the will of the German people.
The defendants were not given a chance to speak on their own behalf, but in the midst of the judge’s tirades, Sophie Scholl suddenly cried out, “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!”
What exactly had Sophie said—and written—that had caused her to be on trial for her life? That can be answered in three words: the White Rose.
The White Rose. That was the name on the leaflet Sophie Scholl had just found under a desk. It was June 6, 1942, and Sophie had begun her studies at the University of Munich six weeks earlier. As she read through the pamphlet, Sophie was almost trembling with excitement; there were ideas in it that had often crossed her mind but that she hadn’t been able to fully articulate. Although she loved Germany and had even, for a while, been an enthusiastic participant in the Union of German Girls (the female branch of the Hitler Youth organization), she had since come to understand that there was something very wrong with Nazi Germany.
When she was only 12 years old, she had wondered aloud why her Jewish friend, who had blue eyes and blonde hair, wasn’t allowed to be a member of the Hitler Youth, while she, with her dark hair and eyes, was. Her father, a staunch opponent of Hitler and the Nazi party, always argued with his son, Hans, about Hans’s enthusiastic leadership role in the Hitler Youth program. Sophie listened to these arguments in silence and later observed Hans carefully as he became completely disillusioned with the Nazis.
Sophie almost didn’t pass her qualifying high school exam—the Abitur—because she stopped participating in her high school classes when they became more about Nazi indoctrination than about real learning. She did the work and passed, however, and although she was eager to go straight to a university, she was first forced by the state, as all girls her age were, to serve six months of manual labor for the National Labor Service, enduring not only exhausting work but also more Nazi indoctrination administered by fanatical and cruel female Nazis.
She finally had been allowed to enroll at the University of Munich, the same university where her brother Hans was studying, and now, six weeks later, she was holding this White Rose pamphlet in her hand. The third sentence was particularly gripping:
Who among us has any conception of the dimensions of shame that will befall us and our children when one day the veil has fallen from our eyes and the most horrible of crimes—crimes that infinitely outdistance every human measure—reach the light of day?
The “most horrible of crimes” referred to in the pamphlet was the Nazi practice of euthanasia (mercy killing) of mentally retarded Germans and others who were considered “unproductive” because of certain physical defects. The bishop of Münster, Clemens August Graf von Galen, had delivered an impassioned sermon against this practice one year earlier, on August 31, 1941. The sermon was reprinted and then secretly but widely duplicated and distributed.
It is not certain whether Sophie had ever seen a Bishop von Galen sermon leaflet, but it is certain that her brother Hans had, and she wanted to speak to him immediately. Sophie rushed to his rented room. He wasn’t there, so she waited for his return, occupying herself by flipping through some of his books. She noticed
that he had underlined a phrase in one of his philosophy books: “If a state prevents the development of the capacities which reside in man, if it hinders the progress of the spirit, then it is reprehensible and corrosive.” She quickly looked at the White Rose pamphlet again. That phrase, word for word, was in the pamphlet. She knew at once that Hans was involved with the White Rose.
When Hans returned to his room, Sophie confronted him by showing him the pamphlet in her hand. Did he have anything to do with it? He had, in fact, written it, but at first he wouldn’t admit this, telling Sophie instead that “these days it is better not to know some things in case you endanger other people.” But Sophie was persistent, and before their conversation was over, Hans had not only told her everything regarding his own involvement, he had also given her permission to join the White Rose.
With Sophie helping them, the six central members of the White Rose created and distributed three more leaflets during the summer of 1942. The leaflets, intellectual in tone and filled with quotes from the Bible and famous philosophers, called upon Germans to resist the Nazi government. The leaflets were targeted toward university professors and students in hopes that the most intelligent thinkers in Germany could not possibly fail to see the evil of the Nazi government. And if the brightest minds could be convinced to resist, surely the rest of Germany would follow.
“Why are the German people so apathetic in the face of all these abominable crimes, crimes so unworthy of the human race? … The German people slumber on in their dull, stupid sleep and thereby encourage these fascist criminals.”
—from the second White Rose leaflet
One associate of the White Rose said later that Hans Scholl and Alexander Schmorell were the minds of the White Rose (because they were the principal authors) but that Sophie was its heart. She helped to copy, distribute, and mail the leaflets and was also in charge of the group’s finances, which included buying paper and stamps from many different post offices so as not to create suspicion.
For suspicion there certainly was. The Gestapo (the Nazi secret police) was desperate but unable to discover the pamphlets’ authors. They called on anyone who received a leaflet to turn it in or face immediate arrest. The Gestapo thought the perpetrators must be a large group. Little did they know that the most active members of the White Rose totaled a mere six people!
THE WHITE ROSE? The White Rose was not a membership club in the usual sense. It began casually with a group of university friends who often met to discuss art, music, literature, and philosophy. Soon they realized that they had the same political opinions. They were all decidedly anti-Nazi and, inspired by the successful duplication of Bishop van Galen’s sermon, decided to write their own “sermons” of protest. The core group, the ones most responsible for the creation and distribution of the leaflets, were Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl, Christoph Probst, Alexander Schmorell, Willi Graf, and Traute Lafrenz. But numerous others were involved, such as fellow student and friend Jürgen Wittenstein, who edited several of the leaflets, and Kurt Huber, a university professor, who wrote the sixth leaflet.
In July 1942, Hans Scholl, Willi Graf, Alex Schmorell, Jürgen Wittenstein, and others—all medical students—received orders to spend their semester break working as medics at the Russian front, the battle zone between Germany and Russia. This meant that the work of the White Rose had to stop temporarily, and the duplicating machines were dismantled and hidden.
“We must bring this monster of a state to an end soon. A victory for fascist Germany in this war would have inconceivable and terrible consequences.”
—from the third White Rose leaflet
When the young medics returned in November 1942, they had a new perspective on the war. Despite the German propaganda that had been declaring glorious victories in Russia, the young medics had seen the truth, that the German army was exhausted and being beaten by the Soviets. And en route to the Russian front, they had seen the horrendous conditions in the Warsaw ghetto, the place where many of Poland’s Jews were being slowly starved.
Now more determined than ever to overthrow the Nazi government, the members of the White Rose quickly wrote the fifth leaflet. They wanted to give an impression that the White Rose was part of a much larger network, so they got on trains and mailed the leaflets—20 percent more than any of their previous mailings—to and from many different German cities.
“We will not be silent. We are your bad conscience. The White Rose will not leave you in peace!”
—from the fourth White Rose leaflet
On February 3, 1943, after the Nazi government admitted to defeat by the Soviets at Stalingrad, Hans Scholl, Alex Schmorell, and Willi Graf went out that night (as well as two subsequent nights, February 8 and 15) and painted slogans such as “Freedom,” “Down with Hitler,” and “Hitler mass murderer” in public places all over Munich, including city hall and the university.
Then they decided to do something even bolder. On February 17, 1943, Hans and Sophie carried a large suitcase filled with copies of the sixth White Rose pamphlet into a lecture hall at the University of Munich. They placed piles of the leaflets outside the classrooms, on windowsills, and on the large stairway that led down to the main floor.
Sophie and some members of the White Rose at the Munich East train station before the medical students left for the Russian front, July 23, 1942.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, photo © George J. Wittenstein
They had just left the building when Sophie suddenly realized that there were perhaps 100 more leaflets left in the suitcase. They went back inside, climbed the stairs to the top landing of the university’s inner court, and tossed the remaining leaflets into the air, just as students were exiting their lecture halls. It would be the last thing that they would do as free Germans. A custodian named Jakob Schmid, a Nazi, saw them on the top landing, just as the leaflets hit the floor. He followed Sophie and Hans as they tried to blend in with the crowd of exiting students and made sure that they were both arrested.
On February 22, 1943, Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans, and Christoph Probst were executed just hours following their trial. There would be more arrests, imprisonments, and executions of those who had been involved, but as of that sad day the work of the White Rose, as it had been, was no more. As Sophie and Hans faced their executions, they were surprisingly optimistic. Although their tracts had reached many Germans, the news of their executions would certainly reach many more; surely other students would rise up, take their place, and continue their work.
“Germans! Do you and your children want to suffer the same fate that befell the Jews? … Are we to be forever the nation which is hated and rejected by all mankind? No. Disassociate yourselves from National Socialist gangsterism. Prove by your deeds that you think otherwise.”
—from the fifth White Rose leaflet
Sadly, this didn’t happen. There were a few isolated incidents at the university that involved graffiti and the words “Scholl lives! You can break the body, but never the spirit,” but by and large, the University of Munich students did not agree with the work of the White Rose. A rally held at the university shortly after the first executions was attended by hundreds of students, who gave custodian Jakob Schmid a thunderous ovation for helping to capture the Scholls.
However, the work of the White Rose leaflets did not end with the executions of their creators. When the story of the White Rose was discovered months later by the Allies, thousands of the leaflets were duplicated and dropped all over Germany by airplane. Many more Germans now had a chance to read them. For those who were still trying to resist Hitler, the words in the leaflets and the story of the young people who had paid the ultimate price for those words gave them courage and hope.
“We grew up in a state where all free expression of opinion has been suppressed. The Hitler Youth, the SA [Sturmabteilung], and the SS [Schutzstaffel] have tried to drug us, to revolutionize us, and to regiment us in the most promising years of our lives.”—from the sixth White Rose leaflet
“Our people stand ready to rebel against the National Socialist enslavement of Europe in an impassioned uprising of freedom and honor.”—the last words of the sixth White Rose leaflet
LEARN MORE Hans and Sophie Scholl: German Resisters of the White Rose by Toby Axelrod (The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc., 2001).
“Memories of the White Rose” by George J. (Jürgen) Wittenstein, M.D. (a friend of the Scholls and associate of the White Rose) The History Place: Points of View www.historyplace.com/pointsofview/white-rose1.htm.
Sophie Scholl and the White Rose by Annette Dumbach and Jud Newborn (Oneworld, 2007).
“The White Rose Leaflets and Their English Translations” The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team (HEART) www.holocaustresearchproject.org/revolt/wrleaflets.html.