Sophie Scholl’s involvement in the White Rose movement is a powerful example of resistance to the Nazi regime. It reinforces what we see in American cities today: Youth activism playing a critical role in fighting threats to a nation’s democracy.
Within the United States, Sophie Magdalena Scholl is not the best-known resistance fighter, but her story is powerful.
Sophie was born in May 1921, the fourth of six children in an upper-middle-class family in the south of Germany. Robert, her father, was mayor of Forchtenberg in the modern state of Baden-Württemberg.
In 1933, Brown-shirted Nazis swarmed into local church leadership elections and installed new “German Christian” leaders. While a minority of Protestant churches resisted, forming the anti-Nazi “Confessing Church,” most were effectively compromised. Active, organized resistance to the Nazi state would not erupt until June 1942, when a group of Munich students began an eight-month leaflet distribution and graffiti campaign that would end with their arrest and execution.
After the Nazis came to power in January 1933, Sophie and most of her siblings were excited and happy followers of the National Socialist cult of youth. The teenager believed in the ideals propagated at the time. Like many of her contemporaries, Sophie was particularly intrigued by the focus on nature and communal experiences. She joined the BDM, the Bund Deutscher Mädel (League of German Girls), and quickly rose in their ranks.
Sophie’s parents, especially her father, did not like their children’s involvement in the Nazi youth groups and made no secret about it. A critic of the party from the beginning, who had raised their children firmly grounded in the Christian tradition, Robert Scholl viewed the developments in Germany and their children’s interest in Nazism with growing fear and horror. Lively discussions were a daily occurrence at the dinner table, teaching the children the value of open and honest conversation—a rarity in Nazi Germany.
Sophie’s siblings, especially her oldest brother Hans, also were members of non-Nazi groups of young people. These associations shared and propagated a love for nature, outdoor adventures, and the music, art, and literature of German Romanticism.
Initially seen as compatible with Nazi ideology by many, these alternative groups were slowly dissolved and finally banned by 1936. However, Hans remained active in one such group and was arrested in 1937 and several of the Scholl siblings. This arrest left a mark on Sophie's conscience and began the process that eventually turned her from a happy supporter of the Nazi system to an active resistance fighter.
On September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland, and two days later, France and Britain declared war on Germany. The older Scholl brothers left to fight on the front. Sophie's life also changed. She graduated high school in the spring of 1940 and started an apprenticeship to become a kindergarten teacher. Students were required to work for the state’s National Labor Service (Reichsarbeitsdienst [RAD]).
Sophie entered the service in the spring of 1941. She hated it. The military-like regimen and mind-numbing routine caused her to find solace in her spirituality, guided by readings of theologian Augustine of Hippo. She wrote down her thoughts, noting that her “soul was hungry." She longed for an autonomous life, an end to the war, and happiness with her boyfriend Fritz Hartnagel, who was now fighting on the Eastern front. Her doubts about Hitler’s regime grew.
In May 1942, Sophie moved to Munich to study biology and philosophy. Hans, a medical student at the same university, and some of his friends actively questioned the system. Serving on the Eastern Front, they learned about the crimes committed in Poland and Russia and saw the resulting misery firsthand.
Hans and his friends knew they couldn’t remain quiet. Starting in June 1942, they began printing and distributing leaflets in and around Munich, calling their fellow students and the German public to action. Other members of their circle joined in the endeavor, writing four pamphlets until the fall of the same year. The pamphlets were the beginning of the Weiße Rose (White Rose) – a small enterprise with severe consequences.
Sophie had seen the flyers and applauded their content and their authors’ courage to speak truth to power. When she found out about her brother’s involvement, she demanded to join the group. She would not sit on the sidelines.
At the fledgling group’s core were siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl, their fellow students Alexander Schmorell, Willi Graf, Christoph Probst, and a professor of philosophy and musicology at the University of Munich, Kurt Huber. Together they published and distributed six pamphlets, typed on a typewriter, then copied via mimeograph. At first, they only distributed them via mail, sending them to professors, booksellers, authors, friends, and others—going through phone books for addresses and hand-writing each envelope.
In the end, they distributed thousands, reaching households all over Germany. Acquiring such large amounts of paper, envelopes, and stamps at a time of strict rationing without raising suspicion was problematic, but the students managed by engaging a wide-ranging network of supporters in cities and towns as far north as Hamburg and as far south as Vienna. These networks distributed the pamphlets, attempting to trick the Gestapo into believing the White Rose had locations across the country.
Reading the group’s leaflets today, one cannot help but think of how chillingly accurate they were in their accusations and calls to action. They also provided powerful insights into Nazi Germany. The third White Rose pamphlet reads:
“Our current ‘state’ is the dictatorship of evil. We know that already. I hear you object, and we don’t need you to reproach us for it yet again. But I ask if you know that, then why don't you act? Why do you tolerate these rulers gradually robbing you, in public and in private, of one right after another, until one day nothing, absolutely nothing, remains but the machinery of the state, under the command of criminals and drunkards?"
To gain traction for the resistance and stop the war effort, they gave clear advice and advocated sabotaging Hitler's war machine. Their fifth pamphlet stated: "And now every convinced opponent of National Socialism must ask himself how he can fight against the present 'state’ most effectively." We cannot provide each man with the blueprint for his acts, we can only suggest them in general terms, and he alone will find the way of achieving this end: Sabotage in armament plants and war industries, sabotage at all gatherings, rallies, public ceremonies, and organizations of the National Socialist Party. Obstruction of the smooth functioning of the war machine. "Try to convince all your acquaintances…of the senselessness of continuing, of the hopelessness of this war; of our spiritual and economic enslavement at the hands of the National Socialists; of the destruction of all moral and religious values; and urge them to passive resistance!"
In January 1943, the group felt empowered and hopeful. Their activism seemed to be working, rattling the authorities, and sparking discussions amongst their peers. Their well-organized group moved forward, and they were about to set up even more connections to other underground resistance groups.
Observing the political situation in Germany in January of 1943, Sophie and the White Rose members believed a change in the country was imminent. The German army's disastrous defeat at Stalingrad was a turning point on the Eastern Front, and voices of dissent grew louder at the University of Munich after students were publicly called out as leeches and war resisters. This encouraged them to work more boldly, distribute the flyers directly in person, and write slogans like "Down with Hitler" and "Freedom" on the walls around Munich. Their sixth—and last—pamphlet reads: "Even the most dull-witted German has had his eyes opened by the terrible bloodbath, which, in the name of the freedom and honor of the German nation, they have unleashed upon Europe, and unleash each day anew. The German name will remain forever tarnished unless finally the German youth stands up, pursues both revenge and atonement, smites our tormentors, and founds a new intellectual Europe. Students! The German people look to us! The responsibility is ours: just as the power of the spirit broke the Napoleonic terror in 1813, so too will it break the terror of the National Socialists in 1943."
Hans and Sophie distributed pamphlets at their university on February 18 for students to find as they walked between classes. At some point, in what we can assume was an attempt to make even more people see the flyers, Sophie pushed a stack off a railing into the central hall. What is now an iconic scene in every movie and documentary about the group, was the moment that changed everything. A janitor, who was a staunch Nazi supporter, saw the pamphlets drop and immediately had Hans and Sophie arrested by the Gestapo. The draft for the seventh pamphlet was still in Hans' bag, which led to Christoph Probst's arrest the same day.
The three endured a mock trial after long and arduous interrogations. They took all blame for the White Rose’s actions. This attempt to save their friends from prosecution failed in the end, and Willi Graf, Alexander Schmorell, and Kurt Huber were arrested later in February and put to death shortly after.
After a half-day trial led by the infamous Roland Freisler, president of the People's Court, Hans, Sophie, and Christoph were convicted of treason and sentenced to death. Despite this horrific prospect, Sophie did not waver. Freisler asked her as the closing question whether she hadn't "indeed concluded that [her] conduct and the actions along with [her] brother and other persons in the present phase of the war should be seen as a crime against the community?" Sophie answered: "I am, now as before, of the opinion that I did the best that I could do for my nation. I, therefore, do not regret my conduct and will bear the consequences that result from my conduct."
Though little known, the name of the judge Roland Freisler is inextricably linked to the judiciary in Nazi Germany. As well as serving as the State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of Justice, he was the notorious president of the ‘People’s Court,’ a man directly responsible for more than 2,200 death sentences. With almost no exceptions, cases in the ‘People’s Court’ had predetermined guilty verdicts. In August 1944, Freisler played a central role in the show trials that followed the failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler on July 20 that year – a plot known more commonly as Operation Valkyrie. Many of the ringleaders were tried by Freisler in the 'People's Court.' The Gestapo filmed the proceeding, the intention being to use the images as propaganda in newsreels. Freisler was alternating between clinical interrogations of the defendants through to his yelling of personalized and theatrically enraged abuse of them from the bench. Nearly all of those found guilty were sentenced to death by hanging; the sentences carried out within two hours of the verdicts.
Sophie Scholl, Hans Scholl, and Christoph Probst were executed by guillotine on February 22, 1943.
While their deaths were only barely mentioned in German newspapers, the executions of Sophie, Hans, and Christoph received attention abroad. In April, The New York Times wrote about student opposition in Munich. In June 1943, Thomas Mann, in a BBC broadcast aimed at Germans, spoke of the White Rose's actions. The text of the sixth leaflet was smuggled into the United Kingdom, where they were reprinted and dropped over Germany by Allied planes in July of the same year.
In post-war Germany, the White Rose was and is revered. Many schools, streets, and a prestigious award are named for individual members, the group, or the siblings Scholl. Sophie personifies the importance of acting according to one’s beliefs and of following your conscience, even in the face of great sacrifice. Sophie reminds us not to be silent and fight for what she wrote on the back of her indictment a day before her execution: Freiheit—Freedom.
A memorial for the White Rose in front of the University of Munich depicts the group's flyers.
I’ll end this diary with an Edmund Burke quote, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Source Citations:
Sophie Scholl and the White Rose | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans (nationalww2museum.org) - 2/20/2020 — Contributor - Tanja B. Spitzer
Nazis arrest White Rose resistance leaders - HISTORY
White Rose | History, Members, & Leaflets | Britannica — “White Rose German Anti-Nazi Group”
(Article written by Michael Ray)
whiteroseinternational.com/… — Timeline Including photos and Images
Female Hitler Youth | The National Holocaust Centre and Museum
Amazon Book Review – “Hitler’s Executioner” by Helmut Ortner