The White Rose: Hans and Sophie Scholl

The White Rose: Hans and Sophie Scholl.

Early during her resistance work Sophie Scholl explained her reason for joining was because: “Somebody … had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just don’t dare express themselves as we do… Stand up for what you believe in even if you are standing alone. An end in terror is preferable to terror without end,” and after being told her actions could lead to her death Sophie simply replied, “I’m aware of that”.

During late 1942 White Rose began mailing leaflets to people throughout Munich and quickly came to the attention of the authorities after around two hundred leaflets were handed in to the Gestapo.

The opening paragraph of the first leaflet said: “Nothing is so unworthy of a civilized nation as allowing itself to be ‘governed’ without opposition to an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct. It is certain today that every honest German is ashamed of this government. Who among us has any conception of the dimensions of the 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 infinitely outdistance every human measure reach the light of day? If the German people are already so corrupt and spiritually crushed that they do not raise a hand, frivolously trusting in a questionable faith in lawful order of history; if they surrender man’s highest principles that which raise him above all God’s creatures, his free will; if they abandon the will to take decisive action and turn the wheel of history and they subject it to their own national decision; if they are so devoid of all individuality, have already gone so far along the road toward turning into a spiritless and cowardly mass, then, yes, they deserve their downfall”.