The White Rose

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Scholl



Sophia Magdalena Scholl (9 May 1921 – 22 February 1943) was active within the White Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany. She was convicted of high treason after having been found distributing anti-war leaflets at the University of Munich with her brother Hans. As a result, they were both executed by guillotine.



Origins of The White Rose

Main article: White Rose
Based upon letters between her and her boyfriend, Fritz Hartnagel (reported and analyzed by Gunter Biemer and Jakob Knab in the journal, Newman Studien) she had given two volumes of Cardinal John Henry Newman's sermons to Hartnagel when he was deployed to the eastern front in May 1942. This discovery by Jakob Knab shows the importance of religion in Sophie's life and was highlighted in an article in the Catholic Herald in the UK and by the British biographer of Sophie Scholl, Dr. Frank McDonough, who commented on BBC Radio Merseyside, 'Knab's discovery is very important as it has highlighted how important her religious faith was in her life and as a key factor in her decision to oppose the Nazi regime.' Though she was Lutheran, the White Rose was founded after Scholl and others read a stern anti-Nazi sermon by Cardinal Clemens August Graf von Galen (the "Lion of Münster"), the Roman Catholic Bishop of Münster.



In the People's Court before the notorious Judge Roland Freisler on February 21, 1943, Scholl was recorded as saying "Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just do not dare express themselves as we did." Scholl's and her brother's defiance, in the face of terrifying consequences, gained them enormous admiration among their contemporary supporters and the post-war German public to the present.



Her last words were "How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause. Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if through us thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?"[4][5]