Northwest Center for Holocaust, Genocide and Ethnocide Education

Review

Students Against Tyranny: The Resistance of the White Rose, Munich, 1942-1943 By Inge Scholl with references to the Marc Rothemund film Sophie Scholl: The Final Days
Overview written by AJ Barse

A Family Perspective

Inge Scholl, sister of Hans and Sophie authored this account of her family’s struggle as well as the establishment of the White Rose Society in Nazi control Germany. Inge shares her brother’s perspective. “In my brother’s opinion, the intellectuals, because of their knowledge, had a greater responsibility, but at the same time they were more confused and more at a loss than, say the workers or the clergy” (p. 101).

Robert Scholl, their father,  said to his children that “In a time of great troubles...all sorts come to the surface. Just recall the bad times we had to live through: first the war, then difficulties postwar years, inflation, and great poverty. Then came unemployment. If a man’s bare existence is undermined and his future is nothing but a gray, impenetrable wall, he will listen to promises and temptations and not ask who offers them” (p. 12). Germany had undergone drastic reform in the government, the education system and the economy. Nazi propaganda took different forms. One, pointed out by Scholl, was the youth movement to indoctrinate the young into the Nazi philosophy. Growing up in Ulm, Hans and his youngest brother Werner, were participants in the German Youth Movement (Die deutsche Jugendbewegung). However, Inge recalls how Hans’ natural creative or free thinking within one of these groups was immediately stifled. This constant stifling and persuasion to conform fueled Hans’ search for understanding of why and what was going on in his town, in his country and with his people. These children were kept busy and active in these groups; feeding the youth of Germany with a single-minded doctrine as well as keeping them busy so as not to question.

The Society of the White Rose

The founders of the White Rose Society’s goal was to “encourage passive resistance among wide circles of the populace” (p. 95). Membership of this society included “intellectual”college students originally from the University of Munich who desired to remove the blinders and fear the German public had of the Nazi Party. Founding members of the society included five students and one professor from the University at Munich: Hans Scholl (medical student), Alexander Schmorell (medical student), Christoph ‘Christl’ Probst (medical student), Wili Graf (medical student), Sophie Scholl (biology and philosophy student), and Professor of Psychology and Philosophy, Dr. Kurt Huber. Censorship was prevalent and the public press was controlled by the Nazi party. Any anti-Nazi propaganda was easily stifled, and any persons who were responsible for writing against the Nazi government was reported and punished. The White Rose Society knew that in order to meet their goal, they would have to have a way of producing and distributing their leaflets. It took some time but the White Rose was able to covertly acquire and hide a printing duplication machine. With the acquisition of this duplication machine, they began their passive resistance against the national socialism that had removed so many freedoms. Using their collection of life experiences and education, they published a total of six leaflets that spoke to the continuing immoral, unethical, and inhuman actions of the Nazi party running the country. These leaflets told of the true actions and policies of this new government, and asked the German people to open their eyes and to take a stand against what was happening. To take a stand against; the killing of the Jewish population, against the injustices that the German people chose to be silent because of fear, and to not stand for a government that was forcing fear for loyalty.     

Hans and Sophie were apprehended by the Gestapo with the complicity of the University’s building superintendent on February 18, 1943 while they were distributing the 6^th issue of leaflets in the corridors of the University of Munich. They were held and interrogated in Wittelsbach Palace. Later Christl Probst was also apprehended and was imprisoned there as well. The three of them were tried by the People’s Court on February 22, 1943 and were issued a death sentence by guillotine. Their executions were carried out the next day. In a second trial weeks after, imprisonments and death sentences were issued to Professor Huber, Wili Graf, and Alexander Schomorell. All six intellectual individuals were condemned for committing treason. It was rumored that some 80 or so more persons and relatives were taken into “kinship custody” because the authorities wished to “stamp out at the root any impulse toward independent political action” (pg. 65-66). However, the authorities were unsuccessful in the stamping out this passive resistance campaign. On December 1943, another leaflet was published by a new Hamberg branch of the White Rose. This group of students and intellectuals were inspired to continue the passive resistance campaign created by the original Munich White Rose leaflets.

For The Educator

Scholl’s book “was written in 1947 for use in schools, for adolescents from the age of thirteen to eighteen” (p. 94). Its purpose was to address “the young people who had grown up in the Hitler Youth and had experienced the great disappointment of their lives as a result or the Second World War-” (p. 94). To have today’s students better understand the historical context of this book within contemporary times, discussions could be challenging and of high interest. Ask yourself what you would want to have your students take from this book?

Consider some of the points listed below as jumping off points for further discussion:.

• Power in having a voice. Cultural comparison of freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

• Taking things at face value: What did the children see versus what the Nazi party was trying to do with the German Youth Movement (Die deutsche Jugendbewegung)

• Did the entire population conform to the ideology of the Nazi dictatorship? Why was intellectual thought or any kind of free thinking stifled by the Nazi Party?

Classroom discussion could be augmented with the following activities:

• Have students create a leaflet similar to the White Rose: could address topics relating to the students life in which they would like to see changed. This could be correlated to other conflicts and genocides happening today

• Have students research Nazi controlled newspaper/propaganda
  • What did the Nazi party do to control what the German people heard and read?
  • What was used to implant fear and hate within the population?

• Viewing the movie Sophie Scholl: The Final Days film with guided activity questions. This would be an activity after students have background knowledge of this period of time as well as in the resistance of the White Rose. The last part of this overview provides additional information on the film as well as a resource for educators.

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days

This film, by the German director Marc Rothemund, focuses on the final six days of Sophie Scholl’s life and is in German with English subtitles. The film and the book do strongly correlate in the depiction of the final days and accounts of Sophie and Hans. Obviously, the Inge Scholl’s book provides greater scope because it includes information about both Hans and Sophie from childhood on to University. The film starts with the White Rose’s core group printing off what would be their final leaflet and then follows Sophie and how her final days unfolded.

A Guide for Educators

Vicky Knickerbocker, Outreach Coordinator at the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota has created a document to help educators with the film:

http://www.chgs.umn.edu/educational/pdf/sophieScholl.pdf

This document is a “teacher’s guide [that] has been designed to promote the educational merit of this film” (p. 2). As the guide points out, the focus of the movie is on the final six days of Sophie’s life, and in order for student to have understanding on why these students took action as they did, the teacher will have to give additional background and information on Germany and the politics during this time. There are several good online resources and links provided that educators can use inside their classroom. Beyond using this guide as a resource for gaining information, it also has sample questions with time code references to the film. The film is  subtitled in English and deeply depicts the story of Sophie and Hans. Because of this, I would recommend that the film be broken up in to several days with discussion. In giving time for students to take in what the film is depicting as well as process it would provide for better understanding, questioning and learning.

References

Knickerbocker, V. (2006). Publications: Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Retrieved March 21, 2008, from University of Minnisoda Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies Web site: http://www.chgs.umn.edu/educational/pdf/sophieScholl.pdf

Scholl, Inge (1970). Students against tyranny; the resistance of the White Rose. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press.

Sophie Scholl [videorecording] : die letzten Tage (The Final Days. Hamburg : Warner Home Video Germany, 2005

 

 

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