As someone who mostly blogs about women in history and art, I’m often asked which famous female figures from the past I find the most inspirational. It’s a tough question really as my answer can vary wildly depending on what sort of mood I’m in, the colour of my hair or just what sort of day I happen to be having. However, there are some constants and at the top of the list there is pretty much always Sophie Scholl.
I’ve tried to write this post so many times but always end up deleting it as I just don’t think that I can do Sophie and her associates in the White Rose group justice with mere words alone. However, on this day, the 69th anniversary of her execution by the Nazis on the 22nd of February 1943, I am going to take a moment to remember her here and recall her to the minds of everyone else who reads this.
Sophie Scholl was just twenty two years old when she was guillotined in the Stadelheim Prison in Munich and yet in the course of her short life she taught us all a lesson about having the courage to take action and show resistance in the face of an oppressive regime and having the resolution to stand up and try to make a difference despite having the odds stacked against you. As Sophie herself said at her trial: ‘Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just don’t dare express themselves as we did.‘
Sophie was arrested with her brother, Hans, their friend Christoph Probst and other members of the White Rose movement after she was seen distributing anti-Nazi leaflets, suggesting a passive and intellectual resistance to Hitler at the University of Munich, even climbing to the top of the atrium and throwing them into the air.
‘I ask you, you as a Christian wrestling for the preservation of your greatest treasure, whether you hesitate, whether you incline toward intrigue, calculation, or procrastination in the hope that someone else will raise his arm in your defence? Has God not given you the strength, the will to fight? We must attack evil where it is strongest, and it is strongest in the power of Hitler.‘ — text from the fourth White Rose pamphlet.
After the execution of the key members of the White Rose, their sixth and final pamphlet was smuggled out of Germany, copied by the Allies and then dropped in their millions by plane all over Germany where they would be read by and give hope to thousands of their fellow Germans, the forgotten silent majority who recognised the intrinsic vileness and evil of Hitler and the Nazis and were too afraid to stand up against it.
‘The German people are in ferment. Will we continue to entrust the fate of our armies to a dilettante? Do we want to sacrifice the rest of German youth to the base ambitions of a Party clique? No, never! The day of reckoning has come – the reckoning of German youth with the most abominable tyrant our people have ever been forced to endure. In the name of German youth we demand restitution by Adolf Hitler’s state of our personal freedom, the most precious treasure we have, out of which he has swindled us in the most miserable way.‘ — text from the sixth White Rose pamphlet, the rest of which can be read here.
I’ve thought a lot about Sophie Scholl lately as my own country ferments in protest against a government who seem intent on increasing the divide between rich and poor and striking at the weakest and most vulnerable members of our society. I think about her when I find myself muttering impotently on Twitter or rolling my eyes over dinner about how awful it all is and how frightened we all are about the future and I wonder, what would Sophie Scholl do?
‘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?‘ — Sophie Scholl’s last words before her execution.
Thank you for introducing me to a wonderful young woman.
You’re welcome! :)
What an incredible story. I only knew very little and that in passing, about the White Rose Society, I need to learn more.
Rest easy Sophie, Hans, Christoph, members of the White Rose group and others by many names. You were so young and you saw so clearly. Brave, brave, brave. Never to be forgotten.
Thankyou Mel for this post.
Agree with you…
Thanks for introducing the life of this remarkable woman. We all have grown soft on the ideas of progress, liberal principles and freedom of speech we cherish in the west. Only a few dare to stick their necks out for having it in reality and others turn their heads away when these are shortchanged by governments. May her soul rest in peace.
I have shared this on my facebook page – thank you for introducing me to this very brave young woman x
I genuinely love her, she is the most inspirational historical figure. She was a wonderful human being.
I’m ashamed to say that I hadn’t heard of her before, but I’ve just had a good cry at her story and I hope that many of us will be inspired by her. What a wonderful example of a human being. Many thanks for posting this.
Sophie’s is an amazing story that brought tears to my eyes. I had not heard of her before, and I thank you for introducing me to this amazing heroine. I, too, live in an increasingly divided and divisive country (just yesterday that lunatic Rick Santorum compared Obama to Hitler, although HE is the demagogue whose fringe propaganda is corrupting the minds of countless ignorant Americans who don’t want to think for themselves and who evidently prefer to live in a theocracy rather than a democracy, regardless of the content and context of America’s Constitution and all that our patriots and heroes over the years — from George Washington and John Adams to Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Susan B. Anthony and Margaret Sanger — ever fought for.)
That was brilliant. I have been reading about the White Rose movement for a children’s book I’m writing, but I didn’t realise it was the anniversary of Sophie’s death. I watched a film about her today too :http://t.co/1g3jIvFG whihc was really interesting. Thanks so much for writing about her and showing such great photos – she looks so alive and passionate.
That was very touching -I had not heard of her either, but after reading your blog, I read the wikipedia entry on her. What an amazingly brave young woman. I’m glad I know who she is now.
For any who had never heard of her, there was a brilliant movie made some years back, that I’d recommend. Netflix has it streaming: http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Sophie_Scholl_The_Final_Days/70045696?trkid=2361637
Remarkable-as my knowledge of WWII is limited, I had never heard of Sophie or the White Rose group. Please continue to share details about interesting modern women to mix with those from further back in history.
While I cannot speak to the UK’s political climate, and find comparisons of either Santorum or Obama to Hitler to be ludicrous, I do think we as a society need to be reminded of the importance of a few brave voices!
Does anybody know a good book (hf or nonfiction) about Sophie and/or her associates?
we should have ALL known about this amazing and brave young woman. Rewrite the history books and ADD the names of the many women that are forgotten…
thank you for posting about a brave german woman and the anti hitler movement. i’m a german living in america and i get asked about wwII all the time, unfortunately most people only know about all the horrible things that happened back then and not that there was in fact a resistance movement and that the majority of the german people were not evil, but very afraid to speak up. so happy someone knows there where good germans out there that that where brave enough to oppose the regime!
I had never heard of her. A martyr … for truth! May she rest in peace…!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijGro9TGdSg&version=3&hl=ru_RU
Thank you thank you Mme Guillotine for telling this story. It never ceases to amaze me that there are still such stories of bravery and strength from that period. I had never heard of Sophie Scholl before now but will be sure to remember her and the White Rose Group when I think of Germany during that time
Hi, I am the first time on your blog. (Sorry my english isn´t very good)
I enjoyed to read the story, because I now them very good. I grown up in a little town near Ulm, the city in which Hans and Sophie Scholl was born (and also Albert Einstein). I read that you like to write about womans in history, so there is another big woman in the near, her name is Margarete Steiff, I don´t know if you know her, but she is the founder of Steiff Teddybears. She had have polio and was sitting in a wheel chair. She was born in 1847 and was also an admirable person.
i cried to listen to the story.