- For the symbol of the House of York, see White Rose of York. For the film about the White Rose group,
see Die Weiße Rose (film).
The White Rose (German: Die Weiße Rose)
formed a resistance movement calling for passive resistance against the Nazi German regime. The group of Munich students released six leaflets from June 1942 to February 1943. A seventh leaflet, which may have been prepared, was never released because the group was
captured by the Gestapo.
The group consisted of five students: Hans Scholl, his sister Sophie Scholl, Christoph Probst, Alexander Schmorell, and Willi Graf — all in their early twenties. They were joined by a professor, Kurt Huber, who drafted the final two leaflets. Though the members of the White Rose
were all students at Munich University, the men had also
participated in World War II on the French and Russian fronts, were
witness to the atrocities being committed against Jews, and sensed that the reversal of
fortunes that the Wehrmacht suffered at Stalingrad would eventually lead to Germany's
defeat. They rejected the Prussian militarism of Adolf Hitler's Germany and believed in
a federated Europe that adhered to Christian principles of tolerance and justice. Quoting extensively
from the Bible, Lao Zi, Aristotle and Novalis, as well as Goethe and Schiller, they appealed to what they considered the German intelligentsia, believing that they would be intrinsically opposed to Nazism. At first, the leaflets were sent out in mass mailings from different cities in Bavaria and
Austria, since the members believed that southern Germany would be more receptive to
their anti-militarist message.
Following an extended lull in activities after mid-July 1942, the White Rose took a more vigorous stance against Hitler in
February 1943, issuing the final two leaflets and painting anti-Nazi slogans throughout Munich, most notably on the gates of the
university. The shift in their position is obvious from the heading of their new leaflets, which now read, "The Resistance
Movement in Germany". The sixth leaflet was distributed in the university on February 18, 1943 to coincide with students leaving their lectures. With
almost all of the leaflets distributed in prominent places, Sophie Scholl made the headstrong decision of climbing the stairs to
the top of the atrium and dropping the final leaflets onto the students below. She was spotted by a caretaker, who was a member
of the Nazi party, and arrested together with her brother. The other active members were soon rounded up and the group and
everyone associated with them were brought in for questioning.
The Scholls and Probst were the first to stand trial, on February 22,
1943. They were found guilty of treason and
executed by guillotine that same day. The other key members of the group were
also beheaded later that summer. Friends and colleagues of the White Rose, who helped in the preparation and distribution of
leaflets and in collecting money for the widow and young children of Probst, were sentenced to prison terms ranging from six
months to ten years.
With the fall of Nazi Germany, the White Rose came to represent opposition to tyranny in the German psyche, seen to have been
without interest in personal power or self-aggrandizement. Their story became so well-known that the composer Carl Orff, claimed (by some accounts [1] falsely) to his Allied interrogators that he was a founding member of the White Rose and was released. While he was personally
acquainted with Huber, there is a lack of other evidence (other than Orff's word) that Orff was involved in the movement, and he
may well have made his claim to escape imprisonment.
The square where the central hall of Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich is located has been named "Geschwister-Scholl-Platz"
after Hans and Sophie Scholl, the square next to it "Professor-Huber-Platz". Many schools, streets and places all over Germany
were named in memory of the members of the White Rose.
The group's activities were the subject of a German movie, directed by Michael Verhoeven, Die
Weiße Rose, released in the United States (subtitled) as The White Rose.
See also
- Widerstand
- List of nonviolence
scholars and leaders
External links
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