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Sophie Scholl was a German student and anti-nozi political activist, who was in the White Rose.

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Sophie Scholl was executed by Guillotine on February 22, 1943,along with her brother Hans and their friend Christopher Probst.The three were found guilty of treason and beheaded in Munich's Stahlhelm Prison.

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Sophie Scholl's last words are expected to be "The sun is still shining" or "God, my refuge unto eternity."

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Sophie's actions with the White Rose Movement, despite the extreme risks involved encouraged others to question and resist Nazi rue, even if only on a small scale.Sophie also inspired young people by demonstrating the power of resistance and the importance of standing up against oppression.

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Sophie Scholl once said "Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming touch does.I chose my own way to burn."

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The White Rose was founded in 1942 by several students at the University of Munich, including Sophie Scholl and her brother Hans. The members were united against Nazi policies and began writing and distributing leaflets calling on the German people to take action to stop injustice and genocide.

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Hans and Sophie Scholl found their final resting place at the Perlacher Forst cemetery, Stadelheimer Strasse 24. The grave bears the number 73-I-18/19. On a vacated former grave site opposite the honorary grave of the “Weiße Rose”, a “thinking space“ was designed that invites cemetery visitors to linger and reflect.

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Within the United States, Sophie Magdalena Scholl is not the best-known resistance fighter, but her story is a powerful one. She was a key member of the Weiße Rose (White Rose)-a resistance group run by students at the University of Munich who distributed leaflets and used graffiti to decry Nazi crimes and the political system, while calling for resistance to the Nazi state and the war. On February 22, 1943, she was beheaded for treason at just 21 years old.

Sophie was born in May 1921, the fourth of six children to an upper-middle class family in the south of Germany. Robert, her father, was mayor of Forchtenberg, an idyllic town in the northeast of the modern state of Baden-Württemberg. When Sophie was 10, the family moved to Ulm, a mid-size southern town dating back to the Middle Ages, where her father worked as state auditor and tax consultant.

After the Nazis came to power in January 1933, Sophie, along with most of her siblings, was an excited and happy follower of the National Socialist cult of youth. The teenager believed in the ideals propagated at the time. Similar to many of their 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. The 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 at the time.

Sophie's siblings, especially her oldest brother Hans, later to become a founding member of the Weiße Rose, also were members of non-Nazi groups of young people. These associations shared and propagated a love for nature, outdoor adventures, as well as the music, art and literature of German Romanticism. Originally seen as compatible with Nazi ideology by many, these alternative groups were slowly dissolved and finally banned by 1936. Hans remained active in one such group, however, and was arrested in 1937 along with several of the Scholl siblings. This arrest left a mark on Sophie's conscience and began the process that eventually turned her from happy supporter of the Nazi system to 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 were sent off to fight on the front. Sophie's life in Ulm changed as well. She graduated high school in the spring of 1940 and started an apprenticeship to become a kindergarten teacher. She eventually wanted to study biology and philosophy. In order to be admitted, students had to spend a period of time working for the state in the Reichsarbeitsdienst (RAD; National Labor Service). Sophie's hopes that becoming a teacher would allow her to substitute for the RAD were quashed and she instead had to enter 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 own 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 for happiness with her boyfriend Fritz Hartnagel, who was now fighting on the Eastern front. Her doubts about the regime grew.

When she finally moved to Munich to study biology and philosophy in May 1942, her brother Hans, a medical student at the same university, and some of his friends had already begun to actively question the system. Serving on the Eastern Front, they learned about the crimes committed in Poland and Russia first hand and saw the misery with their own eyes. They 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. As a student, Sophie had seen the flyers and applauded their content as well as their authors' courage to speak truth to power. When she found out about her brother's involvement, she demanded to join the group. She did not want to stay passive anymore.

The White Rose was a small endeavor with large consequences. At its 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, first typed on a typewriter, then multiplied 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 were also activated to distribute the pamphlets, attempting to trick the Gestapo into believing the White Rose had locations all across the country.

In reading the group's leaflets today, one cannot help but think of how chillingly accurate they were in their accusations and calls to action, and the powerful insights they provide about Nazi Germany: The third 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 you, 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?"

In their attempt to gain traction for the resistance and to stop the war effort, they gave clear advice and advocated sabotage of 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' in the most effective way....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 group was well-organized 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, distributing the flyers directly in person and writing 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 honour 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."

Hans and Sophie distributed them at their university on February 18, for their fellow students to find walking 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 unto the central hall. What is now an iconic scene in every movie and documentary about the group, was the moment that changed everything. The pamphlet drop was seen by a janitor, a staunch supporter of the Nazis, who had Hans and Sophie immediately 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.

Mug shots of Sophie and Hans Scholl after their arrest by the Gestapo on February 18, 1943.

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 persecution 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 sentenced to death for treason. Despite this horrific prospect, Sophie did not waver. Freisler asked her as the closing question whether she hadn't "indeed come to the conclusion 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."

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, they 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.

The memorial for the White Rose in front of the main building of the Ludwig Maximilians University depicts the group's flyers.

In post-war Germany, the White Rose was and is revered. A myriad of schools, streets, and a prestigious award are named after individual members, the group or the siblings Scholl. Sophie's story looms especially large in the history of Ulm, my hometown. She personifies the importance of acting according to one's beliefs and of following your conscience, even in the face of great sacrifice. In our collective memory, her story reminds us to not be silent, and fight for what Sophie wrote on the back of her indictment a day before she was killed: Freiheit-Freedom.

English texts of the pamphlets are from White Rose Translation Project and The Holocaust Research Project.

Image of the indictment courtesy of Institute fuer Zeitgeschichte.

Tanja B. Spitzer, a native of Germany who came to New Orleans a little over a decade ago to study at Tulane University, is an expert on transatlantic history and cultural diplomacy.

Learn More

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Sophie Scholl and the White Rose | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

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Within the United States, Sophie Magdalena Scholl is not the best-known resistance fighter, but her story is a powerful one. She was a key member of the Weiße Rose (White Rose)-a resistance group run by students at the University of Munich who distributed leaflets and used graffiti to decry Nazi crimes and the political system, while calling for resistance to the Nazi state and the war.

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We want to be Jungmädel. / We want to have clear eyes / and busy hands. / We want to become strong and proud: (...) too defiant to be cowards.
In 1934 in the German city of Ulm, a group of girls made that solemn pledge to the Jungmädelbund (Young Girls' League), a branch of Adolf Hitler's youth movement for girls aged 10 to 14. Sophie Scholl was one of them, and she, too, was given the trademark black scarf to tie around her neck.

Just three years later, she and her brother Werner were confirmed wearing Hitler Youth uniforms at St. Paul's Church in Ulm. These two examples are often quoted as evidence that Sophie Scholl, who became famous as a member of the White Rose student group and an icon of the anti-Nazi resistance, first had sympathies for the regime.

Werner Milstein, author of a biography on Sophie Scholl, sees different explanations as to why she would have joined Hitler's youth groups.

For Sophie Scholl, the League of Young German Girls was "very attractive, because it was where she could do what she enjoyed doing - be outdoors, climb trees," the biographer told DW. She liked to sit around the campfire, but also read poetry by Rainer Maria Rilke, "which didn't fit at all with Nazi ideology," he added.

An ambivalent young generation

Born on May 9, 1921 in the town of Forchtenberg, Sophie Scholl grew up with four siblings in a politically liberal, Christian home. She liked to spend time in nature, enjoyed reading and painting. She spent her childhood in the southern city of Ulm, where her father worked as a tax consultant.

Sophie Scholl's parents had little use for the new regime, and were upset to see their children react with enthusiasm to the Nazis, even taking on leadership positions in Nazi youth organizations.

For the young people of that time, membership meant personal responsibility, independence and emancipation from home, even if Nazi youth organizations demanded iron discipline and obedience.

But the young generation was split; not everyone was as fanatical as the Nazis would have liked them to be. "They thought they had the youth under control, that they had infiltrated them enough, so they were shocked when things turned out differently," said Milstein.

For the most part, young people in church or political groups were reticent. By dissolving and synchronizing youth associations including Boy Scouts, Socialist Workers' Youth and Christian youth associations, the regime tried to get a handle on these youngsters, too.

Decaptitated under the guillotine: Hans and Sophie Scholl

Late in the 1930s, the Nazis introduced "compulsory youth service," which meant young people were forced to join the Hitler Youth. Those who resisted faced harsh consequences, including jail time.

One of the best-known opposition youth groups at the time were the Edelweiss Pirates, which had branches in large cities across Germany. They rejected the Hitler Youth coercion and drill.

Students at German universities were not much involved in the resistance. In fact, some helped pave the way to power for the National Socialists before 1933. Munich's Die Weisse Rose (White Rose) resistance group, which Sophie Scholl joined, was one of the few exceptions.

Ready to shoot Hitler

Sophie Scholl went from Hitler Youth to uncompromising resistance fighter. Her change of heart was prompted by several events, including her friend Fritz Hartnagel's accounts from the front and her father's arrest for "treachery" in 1941. Cracks had appeared in her world, and she began to recognize the signs of the times.

"If Hitler came along and I had a gun, I would shoot him. If the men don't do it, a woman has to do it," Sophie Scholl told her best friend one day in 1942 when they were sitting in a café, according to Milstein's book, Someone has to do something: Sophie Scholl's Life.

A commemorative €20 coin to mark Sophie Scholl's 100th birthday

As part of the White Rose group, she asked Fritz Hartnagel for 1,000 Reichsmark for a printing machine - procuring materials like ink, paper and stamps was her task. The first four White Rose flyers appeared between June 27 and July 12, 1942, before Sophie Scholl had joined the group, so she was not yet involved in these early writings.

"Of course, Hans Scholl and his friend Alexander Schmorell were much more important, they were the center of the group. Sophie Scholl came later, but as a young woman, she has a special appeal," noted Milstein.

Resistance hero's name misused by anti-lockdown protesters

To this day, Sophie Scholl is an icon of resistance against Nazi Germany, a symbol of exemplary civil courage.

Lately, however, her name has been misused by a loud minority in Germany.  Participants in protests over the coronavirus policies have been drawing comparisons with the Nazi era, and stylizing themselves as victims.

At one rally, a young woman who introduced herself as Jana from Kassel said, "I feel like Sophie Scholl, because I've been active in the resistance here for months," - suggesting that COVID-19-related restrictions on basic rights constitute a "coronavirus dictatorship."

Sophie Scholl would have not have joined the protests, said Milstein, adding that "she was way too smart." He said she probably would have looked at the issue from all angles, and since she was a biology student, "she would have taken a scientific approach."

Werner Milstein, a German biographer of Sophie Scholl

"Freedom also means responsibility," the biographer said. "Freedom does not mean that we can do whatever we want. Sophie Scholl fought for a different Germany, and the fact that she is now being misused for other purposes leaves a bitter aftertaste."

Activist for a different Germany

The fates of Sophie and her brother, Hans Scholl, were sealed on February 18, 1943. At 10 o'clock they carried a heavy suitcase to a building at the University of Munich. Its contents: flyers. They managed to distribute 1,700 of them before Sophie - intentionally or accidentally - knocked a stack off the gallery. Like doves of peace, the flyers fluttered to the atrium.

That was the Scholls' undoing. "Stop! You're under arrest!" shouted a janitor who had witnessed the scene.

Four days later, on February 22, White Rose members Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst were sentenced to death. Sophie was the first to be executed by guillotine. Reportedly she remained brave, determined and upright to the last - her executioner later said that he had never seen a person die so bravely.

For Sophie Scholl, it was a matter of morality and politics, of thought and action.
To find out more about Sophie Scholl, check out the Instagram account set up by public broadcasters SWR and BR, which imagines what she would have posted on the social media platform if it existed at the time. This article has been translated from the German

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The story of Nazi resistance fighter Sophie Scholl | DW | 08.05.2021

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We want to be Jungmädel. / We want to have clear eyes / and busy hands. / We want to become strong and proud: (...) too defiant to be cowards. In 1934 in the German city of Ulm, a group of girls made that solemn pledge to the Jungmädelbund (Young Girls' League), a branch of Adolf Hitler's youth movement for girls aged 10 to 14.