Non­fic­tion

Sophie Scholl and the White Rose

Annette Dum­b­ach and Jud Newborn
  • Review
By – November 16, 2011

Sophie Scholl and the White Rose was first pub­lished as Shat­ter­ing the Ger­man Night (1986). This revised and expand­ed edi­tion includes appen­dices which reprint the incen­di­ary leaflets dis­trib­uted by the White Rose, as well as the charges in the tri­al indict­ments of these hero­ic Ger­man stu­dents who opposed the Hitler regime. All told, there were five tri­als between Feb­ru­ary 22, 1943 and Octo­ber 13, 1944 which led to most­ly death sen­tences for the twen­ty- nine defendants. 

Dum­b­ach and New­born have writ­ten a com­pre­hen­sive his­to­ry of the stu­dents at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Munich who, along with a few fac­ul­ty, issued pam­phlets that called on the Ger­man peo­ple to defy a regime that was bogged down fight­ing a los­ing bat­tle at Stal­in­grad, an event that was the turn­ing point in the his­to­ry of the Ger­man war effort. The authors place the White Rose with­in the con­text of the oth­er Ger­many,” the over one mil­lion Ger­mans who opposed Hitler and passed through the con­cen­tra­tion camps and pris­ons for their polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion to the Third Reich. This oppo­si­tion reached its cli­max in 1944 with the failed attempt to assas­si­nate Hitler by polit­i­cal and mil­i­tary per­son­al­i­ties in the upper ech­e­lon of the Third Reich. 

Led by Hans Scholl, his sis­ter Sophie, and Christoph Prob­st, the White Rose group con­sist­ed of ide­al­is­tic stu­dents and fac­ul­ty who oper­at­ed in a clan­des­tine man­ner to dis­trib­ute anti-Nazi leaflets which attacked the poli­cies of the Third Reich. With­in a mat­ter of months, how­ev­er, from Novem­ber 1942 to ear­ly Jan­u­ary 1943, the White Rose oper­a­tion had expand­ed into a net­work that was spread through south­west Ger­many, up to the Saar­land, and was mak­ing inroads into the north, includ­ing Berlin, when the Gestapo arrest­ed its lead­ers and broke up the orga­ni­za­tion. The Scholls were both sen­tenced to death and sub­se­quent­ly guillotined. 

Hans Scholl, among oth­ers in the White Rose who interned as med­ical stu­dents on the Russ­ian front, viewed the hor­rors of the war. Aware of the atroc­i­ties com­mit­ted against the Jews, and oth­er Nazi vic­tims, they con­veyed their out­rage at the poli­cies of their gov­ern­ment in the dis­sem­i­na­tion of leaflets which decried the evils of the Hitler Germany.

Today, Ger­many is com­plete­ly encir­cled just as Stal­in­grad was. Will all Ger­mans be sac­ri­ficed to the forces of hatred and destruc­tion? Sac­ri­ficed to the man who per­se­cut­ed the Jews, who erad­i­cat­ed half the Poles, and who want­ed to anni­hi­late Rus­sia? Sac­ri­ficed to the man who took away your free­dom, peace, domes­tic hap­pi­ness, hope and joy…this must not hap­pen! Hitler must fall so that Ger­many may live…” 

The per­se­cu­tion of the Jews was one of the many griev­ances that led the White Rose to open­ly defy their gov­ern­ment, a coura­geous act at any time in a dic­ta­tor­ship, but espe­cial­ly hero­ic dur­ing wartime. The price they paid was death and for a while they were shunned as trai­tors to Ger­many. Today, the White Rose holds a spe­cial place in the new Ger­many. This well­writ­ten and infor­ma­tive his­to­ry of the group brings them back to life.

Jack Fis­chel is pro­fes­sor emer­i­tus of his­to­ry at Millersville Uni­ver­si­ty, Millersville, PA and author of The Holo­caust (Green­wood Press) and His­tor­i­cal Dic­tio­nary of the Holo­caust (Row­man and Littlefield).

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