75 years since the White Rose siblings were killed for resisting Hitler

75 years since the White Rose siblings were killed for resisting Hitler
Hans and Sophie Scholl. Photo: DPA
Thursday marks a quarter century since three members of the White Rose resistance group were executed by the Nazis. The young students showed bravery few others in Germany were capable of.

“In the movie theatres, the film was usually preceded by a weekly news show, and in most of these weekly shows the newsreader gives a brief speech,” Dr. George Wittenstein told students at Oregon State University in a 2013 talk about his time resisting the Nazis.

“Suddenly two rows ahead of me, a man appeared and picked somebody in the audience and took him away to the Gestapo. This man had said something derogatory against Hitler. Somebody in the audience heard him say this, called the secret police, and he was carted away.

“Now I want you all to think. What would you do to get rid of this elected government?” said Wittenstein, a member of the White Rose, an anti-Nazi student group at Munich’s Ludwig Maximilian University.

“Don’t forget, telephones are all tapped, the press is not free, and the radio is controlled and censored by the government. What can you do? Please raise your hands with any good ideas,” he continued.

One man in the Oregon audience put his hand up and suggested that he would have prayed.

“Pray? Will it get you anywhere? It may be good for your heart, but not for the community and for the country.”

There was very little you could do, Wittenstein emphasized – the Nazis controlled all aspects of society to the extent that sons would denounce their fathers, condemning them to a concentration camp.

But the White Rose, founded by siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl, did have ideas.

They formed the group to try to undermine the Nazi party, but particularly the hold it had over Germany’s universities. It was a secret organisation of students at the University of Munich, that committed to writing, printing and distributing anti-Nazi leaflets around the campus. On occasionthey also wrote graffiti on city buildings saying “Freedom!” and “Down with Hitler!”

On February 22nd 1943, after less than a year of resistance, the White Rose was crushed by the Nazis.

The Scholl siblings had been discovered by a janitor four days earlier distributing their anti-Nazi leaflets in the main university building just north of the city centre. They realized they had a few leaflets left over, and so Sophie threw the leaflets over a balcony into the main atrium.

Tragically, the janitor saw the 21-year-old Sophie and took them to the rector where they were handed over to the Gestapo.

Wittenstein said of the act that “it was probably the most foolish thing they ever did… Sophie and Hans did this in a moment of joy and Übermut [wantonness], not thinking of the consequences.”

The memorial to the Scholl siblings and Christoph Probst in Munich. Photo: Amrei-Marie/Wikimedia Commons.

Hans and Sophie were taken to the Gestapo headquarters in Munich, and were joined the next day by another member of the group, Christoph Probst. He was arrested on February 19th, after a draft of a leaflet was found in Hans Scholl’s pocket. The draft was analysed and the handwriting was identified as that of Probst. Hans, 24, had tried to protect his friend by ripping up the sheet and swallowing it, but just enough was recovered to identify the handwriting.

The three underwent two days of intensive questioning before being put on trial on the morning of February 22nd, charged with committing “treasonable acts likely to advance the enemy cause”. The judge sentenced them to death, and all three were guillotined at 5pm that same day.

Just before the blade fell, Hans cried out: “Long live freedom!”

Three other members of the group – Alexander Schmorell, Willi Graf, and Professor Kurt Huber – were arrested and guillotined later that year.  Another, Hans Conrad Leipelt, was executed in 1945 for distributing copied White Rose leaflets in Hamburg. The leaflets were called: “And their spirit lives on.”

The Gestapo had been aware of the group from the summer of 1942, when the first of six leaflets was circulated around the campus and city of Munich. The leaflets were placed in phone booths and on windowsills, and later also sent to contacts at other universities where they were then distributed.

All of the leaflets were highly critical of the Nazis, and openly detailed Nazi atrocities. The murder of Jews in concentration camps was described as “the most appalling crime against the dignity of man, a crime to which nothing similar in the entire history of the human race can be likened.”

The White Rose also pleaded with the Allied powers to impose severe punishment on all Nazis, including all the “little villains” of the party. They also called for a new democratic state in Germany within a new, peaceful Europe.

Immediately after the death of the Scholls and Probst, students in Munich held a pro-Nazi rally, at which the janitor who reported them was presented on stage and cheered by the crowd.

Despite the limited effect they had on the country engulfed in Nazism, the White Rose movement is widely celebrated around the world for their resistance to Hitler. The Scholl siblings are seen as leading figures in peaceful resistance movements around the world, remembered for their courage until the moment of their deaths.

It’s perhaps difficult for people fortunate enough to live in western democracies today to answer Wittenstein’s question of what we would have done.

But one of those executed for his resistance, the music and philosophy professor Huber, gave insight into the motivation behind their courageous, non-violent fighting. In his final letter to his son, he wrote this solemn message:

“I died for Germany’s freedom, for truth and honour. Faithfully I served these three until my very last heartbeat.”

 

By Julius Haswell


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5 Responses to 75 years since the White Rose siblings were killed for resisting Hitler

    1. here’s a song “Hitler is dead’ I wrote in the early 80s for a show called The birth of Radio’
      it’s multi-instrumentalist and composer Mike Adcock who’s playing accompanying piano

      Comment by jeff cloves on 28 February, 2018 at 3:14 pm
    2. Thanks Jeff but no song with this!

      Comment by Editor on 28 February, 2018 at 3:16 pm
    3. whoops!

      dear editors
      I didn’t forget to add the song
      but the fragile demo recording has failed to transfer
      I’ve tried again but
      it won’t transfer to this reply
      I’ll send the words
      if you’re interested

      Begin forwarded message:

      From: Jeff Cloves
      Date: 23 February 2018 19:43:21 GMT
      To: John Maslen
      Subject: another song

      dear Mazo

      here’s the Hitler song I mentioned
      to Mike Adcock
      I think he must have been recorded
      at the same time as
      A room with a view

      J

      http://www.mikeadcock.com
      http://www.lithophones.com

      tel: 01242 693015
      mob: 07751 884747

      Comment by jeff cloves on 28 February, 2018 at 3:31 pm
    4. here are the lyrics only of ‘Hitler is dead’
      transcribed by Mike Adcock, the pianist on the demo which obstinately will not transfer to IT

      When I woke up this morning dreams were still in my eyes
      Pulled back the curtains looked up at the morning skies
      Sun was just rising as the moon slipped away
      Turned on the wireless I heard the announcer say
      “Berlin has fallen the Fuehrer is dead”
      My legs turned to water I fell down on my bed
      Hitler oh Hitler oh thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
      On earth as it is in Heaven.

      I looked at your photograph there on the wall
      Looked in the mirror, saw my tears start to fall
      It’s no time for weakness it’s no time for tears
      Your day will come again, though it takes one thousand years
      Hitler oh Hitler oh why did you go?
      The power and the glory I never will know
      Hitler oh Hitler oh thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
      On earth as it is in Heaven (repeat x 2)

      Berlin has fallen the Fuehrer is dead
      The streets are swarming with yanks and with reds
      Hitler oh Hitler oh why did you go?
      The power and the glory I never will know
      Hitler oh Hitler oh thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.

      When I woke up this morning dreams were still in my eyes
      Pulled back the curtains looked up at the morning skies
      The sun was just rising as the moon slipped away
      Turned on the wireless I heard the announcer say
      “Berlin has fallen the Fuehrer is dead”
      On earth as it is in Heaven

      Comment by jeff cloves on 2 March, 2018 at 4:15 pm
    5. This echo of the Gospel in a song about Hitler, I hope comes from sheer stupefaction that he’s undead? Muddled-half-wits must beware of his legacy.

      Comment by Cy Lester on 2 March, 2018 at 4:39 pm

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