The White Rose

On Feb. 18, 1943, two students at the University of Munich were arrested and taken into police custody. Hans Scholl, 25, and his sister Sophie, 22, were members of the White Rose, an underground anti-Nazi resistance group founded in 1942 by a handful of students at the University of Munich. The Nazis were committing genocide against the Jews and other “undesirables” in Germany and the parts of Europe it occupied. By discreetly placing anti-Nazi leaflets in public places across Germany, the group hoped to rouse people to action against Adolf Hitler’s totalitarian Nazi regime.

The courageous acts by the Scholls and others in their group—six ended up paying with their lives—only recently began getting attention in the U.S. And the account of their bravery during the darkest days of World War II (1939-45) offers lessons that are still relevant today, according to Annette Dumbach, co-author of the book Sophie Scholl and the White Rose.

“In a world filled with totalitarian tendencies,” says Dumbach, “[the White Rose] story is emblematic for people who fight back in the extreme moments of total state control.” She adds that their actions resonate with young people “who can identify with their struggle, their fumbling, their mistakes, their daring and courage even in the face of death.”

Hitler rose to power in the early 1930s at a time when Germany was in desperate shape (see Timeline). Its defeat in World War I (1914-18) and the harsh conditions imposed on it by the U.S., Britain, and France in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles—including enormous reparation payments to the victors—had left Germany humiliated and impoverished. Its economy only worsened with the worldwide economic depression that followed the 1929 stock market crash.

All this provided fertile ground for Hitler’s radical nationalist ideology. The Nazis (short for National Socialists) promised to stop reparation payments, give all Germans food and jobs, and make them proud to be German again. In 1930, Hitler’s party won 18 percent of the vote in parliament, effectively making it impossible to govern the country without Nazi support. To break the deadlock, President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler chancellor (similar to prime minister) in January 1933.

Less than a month later, Hitler used a fire that destroyed the Reichstag, the parliament building in Berlin, as an excuse to declare a state of emergency and suspend democratic protections like freedom of speech. The Nazis began embedding the idea of a “master race” into the national psyche, elevating Germans to a genetic ideal they called “Aryan” and categorizing non-Aryans as “sub-human.”

Jews, in particular, became the prime scapegoats for Germany’s ills. In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of their citizenship and political rights, expelled them from the army, and banned them from marrying people of “German blood.” Following two days of state-sanctioned violence against Jews in 1938 that came to be known as Kristallnacht (see box), Jews were banned from public places like universities and theaters and were eventually forced into ghettos.

Hitler’s plans extended beyond Germany and led to the start of World War II in 1939. In an effort to give the German people more “living space,” Hitler annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939. His invasion of Poland in 1939 sparked an all-out war in Europe. By 1942 Germany occupied much of Europe, including France and a chunk of the Soviet Union (see map). Nazi persecution of the Jews was formalized as the “Final Solution,” a plan to systematically murder all of Europe’s 10.5 million Jews. (The Nazis also persecuted and killed millions of others, including Poles, Gypsies, homosexuals, Communists, and the disabled.)

The Nazi police state controlled all aspects of German society, from the news media and the judicial system to education and religious institutions. Anyone accused of opposing the party risked arrest by the Gestapo, the German secret police, which didn’t hesitate to execute opponents of the Nazi regime or send them to concentration camps, where most would die of starvation or overwork. Under these circumstances, most Germans didn’t risk open defiance.

But some did. Hans and Sophie Scholl are the best-known members of the White Rose. Both had enthusiastically joined the Hitler Youth as kids but went on to reject Nazism once its true nature became clear. Hans and many of White Rose’s other founding members were medical students. The friends often met to discuss poetry and philosophy, as well as their opposition to the Nazi regime. In 1942, as word of Hitler’s euthanasia program targeting the mentally ill reached students at Munich, the group decided it was time to put their beliefs into action.

The White Rose operated in secret locations across Munich, fully aware of the risks their resistance activities posed. They met in their apartments, at local inns, on campus, and even behind the organ at Martin Luther Church, where one member’s father was a pastor. From these locations, they used a hand-crank “duplicating machine” to print thousands of copies of the anti-Nazi tracts and mail them to their professors and fellow students. Through a loose system of couriers and friends, they also left the writings in public places, like in phone booths and on university campuses across Germany.

In one leaflet, the group wrote, “Since the conquest of Poland, 300,000 Jews have been murdered in this country in the most bestial way. Here we see the most frightful crime against human dignity, a crime that is unparalleled in the whole of history.”

By 1942, Germany was fighting on multiple fronts against the expanded forces of the Allies, including Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the U.S. In July of 1942, some of the male members of the White Rose, as well as Sophie Scholl’s fiancé, were sent to the Russian front, which had a profound effect on the White Rose members’ resolve.

“As medics, they performed amputations and saw men die in pain,” says Dumbach. This “added fury to their flame of resistance.”

The leaflets often incorporated quotes from the Bible and Chinese and German poets and philosophers. Though they wrote and distributed four of their seven tracts without incident, their operation led to a greater awareness of student activities by the Gestapo, and Sophie began to feel an ever-tightening net around the White Rose.

“Trust in other people has to give way to suspicion and watchfulness. Oh, it’s exhausting and discouraging,” she wrote to her fiancé.

On Feb. 18, 1943, the group’s curtain of secrecy was torn open by a spontaneous act. After distributing leaflets in a building at the University of Munich, Hans and Sophie realized they had copies left in their suitcase. When students were about to change classes, Sophie flung the remaining copies in the air from the second floor of the atrium, showering the floor below with the leaflets. A janitor saw them and informed the Gestapo, who took the Scholls into custody.

Four days later, after interrogations and a short public trial, the Scholls and fellow White Rose member Christoph Probst were found guilty of treason and sentenced to death. They were executed with a small, portable guillotine that same day. The incident received little attention in the U.S.

Three more White Rose members were later executed, including Kurt Huber, a philosophy professor associated with the group. (Following his execution, his wife received a bill for 3,000 reichsmarks for the wear and tear on the guillotine.)

But seeds of unrest and dissent had taken hold. The next year, in 1944, some of Hitler’s own officers would attempt to assassinate him, as portrayed in the 2008 Tom Cruise movie Valkyrie. (The White Rose story has been the subject of at least four foreign films, most recently the 2005 Oscar-nominated German film Sophie Scholl: The Final Days.)

By 1945, Germany was defeated, along with its Axis allies, Italy and Japan. Hitler committed suicide in his bunker rather than risk capture. Of the 10.5 million Jews in Europe before the war, an estimated 6 million had died in the Holocaust.

Elizabeth Hartnagel, the Scholls’ sister, later married Sophie’s fiancé, and was left to ponder her siblings’ motivations and sacrifice.

“I think it was sympathy in the best sense of the word. Sympathy for the oppressed. And reaching a point where you cannot stand by and watch. It was the human thing to do,” Hartnagel said years later. “The Germans were such cowards.”

In Germany, the White Rose story remains a part of the narrative of the Holocaust and those who did resist, such as Oskar Schindler of Schindler’s List fame.

“They are a part of Munich and known by virtually everyone here,” says biographer Dumbach. “Their legacy is clear: It is a call for truth, for decency, for overcoming fear, of knowing that youth does have power. Knowing they existed makes all of us stronger.”

Robert K. Elder is a writer and editor living in Chicago.