White Rose
The White Rose was a non-violent, intellectual resistance group in Nazi Germany which was led by five students and one University of Munich professo: Willi Graf, Kurt Huber, Christoph Probst, Alexander Schmorell, and Hans and Sophie Scholl. The group conducted an anonymous leaflet and graffiti campaign that called for active opposition to the Nazi regime, beginning in Munich on 27 June 1942. Their activities ended with the arrest of the core group by the Gestapo on 18 February 1943.
Graf, Huber, Probst, Schmorell, and the Scholl siblings, alongside other members and supporters of the group who carried on distributing the pamphlets, faced show trials by the Nazi People's Court ; many of them were imprisoned and executed. Hans Scholl and Sophie Scholl, as well as Probst, were executed by guillotine four days after their arrest, on 22 February 1943. During the trial, Sophie interrupted the judge multiple times. No defendants were given any opportunity to speak.
The group wrote, printed, and initially distributed their pamphlets in the greater Munich region. Later on, secret carriers brought copies to other cities, mostly in the southern parts of Germany. In July 1943, Allied planes dropped their sixth and final leaflet over Germany with the headline The Manifesto of the Students of Munich. In total, the White Rose authored six leaflets, which were multiplied and spread, in a total of about 15,000 copies. They denounced the Nazi regime's crimes and oppression, and called for resistance. In their second leaflet, they denounced the persecution and mass murder of the Jews. By the time of their arrest, the members of the White Rose were just about to establish contacts with other German resistance groups like the Kreisau Circle or the Schulze-Boysen/Harnack group of the Red Orchestra. In the 21st century, the White Rose is well known both within Germany and worldwide.
Members and supporters
Students from the University of Munich comprised the core of the White Rose: Hans Scholl, Alexander Schmorell, Willi Graf, Christoph Probst, and Kurt Huber, a professor of philosophy and musicology. Hans's younger sister, Sophie later came to be a core member of the White Rose. They were supported by other people, mostly in their early twenties, including Otl Aicher, , Theodor Haecker, Anneliese Graf, Traute Lafrenz, Katharina Schüddekopf, Lieselotte "Lilo" Ramdohr,, Falk Harnack, Marie-Luise Jahn,, Manfred Eickemeyer,,,,, Helmut Bauer,, Hans Conrad Leipelt, Gisela Schertling, Rudi Alt, Michael Brink, Lilo Dreyfeldt, Josef Furtmeier, Günter Ammon, Fred Thieler, and Wolfgang Jaeger.Wilhelm Geyer taught Alexander Schmorell how to make the tin templates used in the graffiti campaign. Eugen Grimminger of Stuttgart funded their operations. Grimminger was arrested on 2 March 1943, sentenced to ten years in a penal institution for high treason by the "People's Court" on 19 April 1943, and imprisoned in Ludwigsburg penal institution until April 1945. His wife Jenny was murdered in the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, presumably on 2 December 1943. Grimminger's secretary Tilly Hahn contributed her own funds to the cause, and acted as go-between for Grimminger and the group in Munich. She frequently carried supplies such as envelopes, paper, and an additional duplicating machine from Stuttgart to Munich. In addition, a group of students in the city of Ulm distributed a number of the group's leaflets and were arrested and tried with the group from Munich. Among this group were Sophie Scholl's childhood friend Susanne Hirzel and her teenage brother and Franz Josef Müller.
In Hamburg, a group of students including,,,,,,,,, Ilse Ledien, Eva von Dumreicher, Dorothea Zill, Apelles Sobeczko, and formed the White Rose Hamburg resistance group against the National Socialist regime and distributed the group's leaflets.
Historical and intellectual background
Germany in 1942
White Rose survivor Jürgen Wittenstein described what it was like for ordinary Germans to live in Nazi Germany:The activities of the White Rose started in the autumn of 1942. This was a time that was particularly critical for the Nazi regime; after initial victories in World War II, the German population became increasingly aware of the losses and damages of the war. In summer 1942, the German Army was preparing a new military campaign in the southern part of the Eastern front to regain the initiative after their earlier defeat close to Moscow. This German offensive was initially very successful, but it slowed in the autumn as Army Group South approached Stalingrad and the Caucasus region. During this time, the authors of the pamphlets could neither be discovered, nor could the campaign be stopped by the Nazi authorities. When Hans and Sophie Scholl were discovered and arrested whilst distributing leaflets at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, the regime reacted brutally. The "Volksgerichtshof" was not bound by law, but its decisions were guided by Nazi ideology. Thus, its actions were declared unlawful in post-war Germany. The execution of the White Rose group members, among many others, is considered judicial murder today.
Social background
The members of the core group all shared an academic background as students at Munich University. The Scholl siblings, Christoph Probst, Willi Graf and Alexander Schmorell were all raised by independently thinking and wealthy parents. Alexander Schmorell was born in Russia, and his first language was Russian. After he and Hans Scholl had become friends at the university, Alexander invited Hans to his parents' home, where Hans also met Christoph Probst at the beginning of 1941. Alexander Schmorell and Christoph Probst had already been friends since their school days. As Christoph's father had been divorced and had married again to a Jewish wife, the effects of the Nazi Nuremberg Laws, and Nazi racial ideology had impacts on both Christoph's and Alexander's lives from early on.German Youth Movement and Hitler Youth
The ideas and thoughts of the German Youth Movement, founded in 1896, had a major impact on the German youth at the beginning of the twentieth century. The movement aimed at providing free space to develop a healthy life. A common trait of the various organizations was a romantic longing for a pristine state of things, and a return to older cultural traditions, with a strong emphasis on independent, non-conformist thinking. They propagated a return to nature, confraternity and shared adventures. The Deutsche Jungenschaft vom 1 November 1929 was part of this youth movement, founded by Eberhard Koebel in 1929. Christoph Probst was a member of the German Youth Movement, and Willi Graf was a member of Neudeutschland, and the Grauer Orden, which were illegal Catholic youth organizations.The Nazi Party's youth organizations took over some of the elements of the Youth Movement, and engaged their members in activities similar to the adventures of the Boy Scouts, but also subjected them to ideological indoctrination. Some, but not all, of the White Rose members had enthusiastically joined the youth organizations of the Nazi party: Hans Scholl had joined the Hitler Youth, and Sophie Scholl was a member of the Bund Deutscher Mädel. Membership in both party youth organizations was compulsory for young Germans, although a few—such as Willi Graf, Otl Aicher, and Heinz Brenner—refused to join. Sophie and Hans' sister Inge Scholl reported about the initial enthusiasm of the young people for the Nazi youth organization, to their parents' dismay:
Youth organizations other than those led by the Nazi party were dissolved and officially forbidden in 1936. Both Hans Scholl and Willi Graf were arrested in 1937–38 because of their membership in forbidden Youth Movement organizations. Hans Scholl had joined the Deutsche Jungenschaft 1. 11. in 1934, when he and other Hitler Youth members in Ulm considered membership in this group and the Hitler Youth to be compatible. Hans Scholl was also accused of transgressing the German anti-homosexuality law, because of a same-sex teen relationship dating back to 1934–1935, when Hans was only 16 years old. The argument was built partially on the work of Eckard Holler, a sociologist specializing in the German Youth Movement, as well as on the Gestapo interrogation transcripts from the 1937–38 arrest, and with reference to historian George Mosse's discussion of the homoerotic aspects of the German "German Youth Movement#Bündische Jugend Youth Movement. As Mosse indicated, idealized romantic attachments among male youths were not uncommon in Germany, especially among members of the "Bündische Jugend" associations. It was argued that the experience of being persecuted may have led both Hans and Sophie to identify with the victims of the Nazi state, providing another explanation for why Hans and Sophie Scholl made their way from ardent "Hitler Youth" leaders to passionate opponents of the Nazi regime.