WWII - Sophie Scholl - How a young woman defied Hitler

 

Munich, February 22nd, 1943, 4 PM.

 Since her sentencing earlier in the day, Stadelheim Prison officials kept a constant watch over Sophie Scholl, a 21 year old student of biology and philosophy, as she sat in her cold prison cell, awaiting her impending fate.

 With an unmistakable air of

 determination about her, she uttered: “How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause. Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go.” The guards were so taken aback by her calmness and bravery that they broke strict rules of prisoner separation and allowed her to see her brother Hans, and her friend Christoph Probst, one last time.

 The three would be beheaded by

 guillotine within the hour.

 This year, 2021, marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Sophie Scholl, a young woman who defied Adolf Hitler and paid for it with her life.

 Her story is a lesson in dissent. A tale of courage, of principle, and of honour.

 In a time when the world birthed heroes and villains across the many battlefields of World War Two, Sophie Scholl fought not with machine guns or bombs, but with something much more powerful: an idea. The idea that the proud and great German people shouldn’t be subjugated by the will of tyrants “devoted to dark instincts”, the idea that doing nothing in the face of bestial crimes against human dignity brings in itself a “sense of complicity”, an idea as simply as that no state should be able to rob the people of their fundamental rights. An idea that would shine bright, a match that would light the consciousness of the German youth, a beacon of dissent and civil disobedience originated within the infamous Third Reich itself.

 Sophie, born Sophia Magdalena

 Scholl in the 1921 Weimar Republic, was the daughter of Robert Scholl, the mayor of her birth town, Forchtenberg, and later a staunch anti-Nazi critic.

 Sophie and her 5 siblings were raised by their father and mother, Magdalena, in a strong Lutheran Christian household and, unlike some other families at the time, often had dinner-time discussions about their morals and values - which helped mould Sophie into the powerful free thinker she would soon become.

 This also led to some tense conversations between Robert and his children, because as it was customary for their age, they began to join Nazi youth organizations. Sophie, in particular, joined the “Bund Deutscher Mädel”, the League of German Girls, at only twelve years old and was noted to have been quite enthusiastic about the organization and even the Nazi party. Despite her father’s passionate disapproval and attempts to convince his children of their misguided ideas, Sophie later explained that she and her siblings brushed off Robert’s opinions and caution because, as kids often do, they saw their father as simply being too old to understand their modern world.

 Consequently, the children

 remained a part of the Nazi youth, and their father, though

 unhappy, did not interfere...

 At first, Sophie was incredibly excited and hopeful about the Nazi party and what they could do for the country and the German people.

 The only real concern that she had at the start was confusion as to why her Jewish friend was not allowed to join the League of German Girls with her, but she nonetheless let it slide for some time. Still, skepticism began to grow in Sophie’s heart and mind. Being surrounded by Nazi propaganda, the ardent opposition from her father, some friends, and teachers, and even some of her siblings beginning to lose hope in the cause, the enthusiasm that the young

 girl once had was now waning.

 The turning point for Sophie may have been in 1937 after her brothers were arrested for participating in the German Youth Movement - one of the many non-Nazi groups that the authorities had been attempting to stamp out.

 Her own brother, Hans Scholl, was himself deeply disillusioned with the regime after spending two years being indoctrinated by the Hitler Youth, which conditioned its members to unconditional subordination. This shook Sophie to the core and began to weigh heavily on her already sceptic mind. She was struggling to see how her own liberal views could align with those of the increasingly fascist regime… In 1939, Germany invaded Poland and World War Two officially began. The following year, as her brothers were sent off to fight in the war, Sophie graduated from high school and wished to enroll at the University of Munich to study philosophy and biology. But first, she had to fulfill the required period of work for the Reichsarbeitsdienst, the National Labor Service, that was required for all students-to-be.

 Hoping to skip this requirement and avoid being a part of the Nazi machinery, Sophie attempted to get a job as a kindergarten teacher for an alternative form of service, but in the end it was not enough and she ended up having to serve the mandatory 6 months working for the auxiliary war service as a nursery teacher starting in the spring of 1941. These months were deeply important for her shifting mindset, as the draining yet boring military-like regiment gave her a new insight into the political situation and how all that had been happening aligned with her own beliefs. By this time, her long-time boyfriend was also serving on the Eastern Front, and her disapproval of the war and criticism of the regime showed in the letters she would write to him, with one explicitly saying, "I can't understand how some people continuously risk other people's lives. I will never understand it and I think it's terrible. Don't tell me it's for the Fatherland."

 Finally, in 1942, Sophie was able to join her brother Hans at the University of Munich.

 Hans and his friends, after experiencing the atrocities of war at the Eastern Front, had already made up their minds: they would no longer be part of the evil machinery that comprised, in their words, “the dictatorship of evil”. While Sophie was becoming a part of this friend group as well, they mostly bonded over their shared love of art, philosophy, music, and other subjects not related to politics.

 This kept Sophie in the dark as Hans and his friends began to act on their dissatisfaction… Calling themselves the White Rose, Hans and his friends started printing and distributing leaflets that called for resistance against the state, be it by trying to make the German people to open their eyes at what was happening in their own house and abroad, or by appealing to their sense of morality and pride as Germans and Christians.

 Eventually, since these leaflets were being passed around at the university that both Hans and Sophie attended, she stumbled across one of them while in class. At first, she was impressed and excited to see such bold expression, and in time, Sophie would discover that it was none other than her own brother, his friends, and one of her teachers who were responsible for the White Rose and its leaflets. Stunned yet pleased, she immediately demanded to join.

 Sophie would prove to be a crucial member of the group for her work helping to write, print, and distribute the leaflets, and thanks to her being a woman,

 she was much less likely to be stopped and questioned unexpectedly by the SS.

 There was an impressive amount of strategy and planning that went into staging the actions of the White Rose. For one, being able to obtain all of the necessary paper, envelopes, stamps, and so on without drawing suspicion was a challenge. To get around this, the group set up a network of support from a multitude of cities from the north to the south who could provide them with the proper supplies without tipping off the government. Thanks to this, they managed to create six leaflets, first typed using a typewriter and then copied using a mimeograph.

 Frustration grew as the participants noticed the lack of action from the general German populace, they began to use cruder language with each new print, and also to name the heads of the Nazi Party directly, calling them evil and liars, accusing them of using their own people and attributing them the responsibility of the war crimes being committed.

 With the disastrous defeat at Stalingrad, criticism against the regime and the war grew, emboldening the White Rose

 participants even further.

 This led them to print and distribute what would soon become their final leaflet… “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 anew each day. 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.” Those were the words boldly written across the papers now being distributed through the empty halls of the university as the other students were in class on February 18, 1943. The Scholl siblings carried a suitcase filled with the leaflets and rushed to spread as many as they could around the school. Acting on impulse, as they realized there were some leftover leaflets that they hadn’t yet shared, Sophie stood on the top floor despite people now filling the building in full view, and in a dooming turn of events, the worst possible person had entered the hall just as she launched a stack of leaflets down into the main hall for all to see… Jakob Schmid, a university janitor and a firm Nazi supporter, saw what the Scholl siblings were doing after Sophie’s daring stunt, and immediately reported them to the Gestapo.

 Both Hans and Sophie were swiftly arrested.

 The siblings tried to take full responsibility for the White Rose and its actions, but their plan quickly fell apart when the Gestapo found parts of the draft for the yet unpublished seventh leaflet - which Hans had attempted to tear up and swallow - and were able to match the handwriting to other works by a Christopher Probst, who had been one of the other members of the White Rose and a friend of the Scholls.

 The three were put on trial on February 22nd, during which none of the 3 were even given the right for testimony. They were together found guilty of treason in a mock trial and sentenced to death by guillotine… Before the execution began at 5 pm that same day, Sophie made her final remarks:

 “How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause...It is such a splendid sunny day, and I have to go.

 But how many have to die on the battlefield in these days, how many young, promising lives. What does my death matter if by our acts thousands are warned and alerted? Among the student body, there will certainly be a revolt.”...

 At the promising age of 21 years old, Sophie Scholl was laid to rest by the tyrannical forces she was trying to denounce, but even after such a tragical loss, her cause would live on.

 A copy of the group’s final leaflet was soon smuggled into the United Kingdom and later used by the Allied forces to drop millions of copies over Germany only a few months later.

 Today, Ms. Scholl is often remembered for her unmoving sense of morality and civic duty to one’s people and nation.

 But amongst all, her bravery at such a young age and her unfaltering will at the face of execution is what makes her one of the greatest heroes of the second world war and of the 20th century…