Core Members of the White Rose - Munich 1942 - (l to r) Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst.  Arrested by the Gestapo on February 18 and guillotined  on February 23, 1943.

Would you follow your conscience and actively resist evil if you knew it meant certain death if you were caught? Or would you, like most of us, turn your back, look away and just keep walking?

On February 23, 1943 Hans and Sophie Scholl, brother and sister students at the University of Munich and Christoph Probst were guillotined by the Gestapo in Stadelheim Prison on the same day they were found guilty of treason by the notorious Nazi Judge Roland Freisler.

They were convicted of being members of the Society of the White Rose, a small tightly knit group of university students who published a series of leaflets urging the German people to actively resist Adolph Hitler and Nazi oppression. Six leaflets were published between June 1942 and the arrest of the students in February 1943.

Hans Scholl was a member of the Hitler Youth until 1937, and Sophie was a member of the Bund Deutsche Madel. Membership in both groups was compulsory for young Germans.  By 1941 the small group of friends that would constitute the White Rose had rejected fascism and militarism and believed in a federated Europe that adhered to principles of tolerance and justice. 

Monument on the floor of the University - stone leaflets

From the first leaflet of the White Rose:

"Isn’t it true that every honest German is ashamed of his government these days? Who among us has any conception of the dimensions of 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 that infinitely outdistance every human measure—reach the light of day? "

The Scholls were surruptitiously distributing the seventh leaflet of the "White Rose" at the university when they were spotted by a janitor and turned in to the Gestapo. Evidence on their persons implicated Probst, a married member of White Rose and father of three small kids.

From the second leaflet of the White Rose:

"Since the conquest of Poland three hundred thousand Jews have been murdered in this country in the most bestial way.  The German people slumber on in their dull, stupid sleep and encourage these fascist criminals.  Each man wants to be exonerated of a guilt of this kind, each one continues on his way with the most placid, the calmest conscience. But he cannot be exonerated;  he is guilty"

One of the White Rose students, Willi Graf,  had spent his Summer in Poland working as a medical aide and saw the Warsaw and Lodz ghettos with his own eyes.  He returned to school and told his friends what he saw.  He continued his work for the White Rose and spent evenings painting "Freedom!" and "Down with Hitler!" grafitti on walls.  He too was beheaded on October 12, 1943.

The White Rose distributed thousands of anti-Nazi leaflets across Germany and as far as Vienna, printing them on a manual duplicating machine and risking their lives carrying them to various cities.

How many of us would do as they did  in the face of monstrous evil?

The fifth leaflet was composed by Hans Scholl. These leaflets warned that Hitler was leading Germany into the abyss; with the gathering might of the Allies, defeat was now certain. The reader was urged to "Support the resistance movement!" in the struggle for "Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and protection of the individual citizen from the arbitrary action of criminal dictator-states". These were the principles that would form "the foundations of the new Europe".

The leaflets had caused a sensation, and the Gestapo was in a frenzied  search for the publishers when the tip came from the school janitor.  The arrests came on the same day as Joseph Goebbels called on the German people to embrace total war.  Within four days the three were brought to trial, found guilty and executed immediately afterwards.

Sophie Scholl

Sophie remained firm and very brave at trial.  When a seething Freisler called her a traitor Sophie replied "Well someone has to be first.  You know as well as we do that the war is lost. Why are you too cowardly to admit it?"

Immediately after trial, Hans and Sophie had one last meeting with their parents.  The guards then allowed Hans, Sophie and Christoph a few moments together before Sophie was led to her death, followed by Christoph and finally Hans.  One observer described Sophie; "She walked to her death without flinching a hair".

At his execution Hans said  "Let freedom live!" as the blade fell.

Christoph Probst was baptised a Catholic before he died.

The White Rose had the last word. Their final leaflet was smuggled to the Allies by Helmut James Graf von Moltke thru Scandinavia to London. Millions of copies were air dropped over Germany entitled "The Manifesto of the Students of Munich".   Von Moltke was the great grandnephew of Von Moltke the Elder, the victorious German commander of the Franco-Prussian and Austro-Prussian Wars,  He was a founding member of the Kreisau Circle Resistance Group and he too was executed by the Gestapo  on January 23, 1945. 

Black granite memorial to the White Rose in the Hofgarten in Munich next to the Bavarian State Chancellery.

The members of the White Rose, especially Sophie, became icons of the new Germany representing selfless opposition to tyranny.   They are memorialized and remembered with public monuments, squares and streets named after them across Germany and at their old school.

Let all who value and struggle for human rights and dignity think of  them on February 23.

 Remember them if it comes our time to resist.  Their memories will make us brave.