Remembering Sophie Scholl 70 Years Later

Remembering Sophie Scholl Seventy Years Later

In honor of Hans and Sophie Scholl and the White Rose

Written by Dan McDonald

            It was seventy years ago this month, a story that was almost left to be forgotten.  Why was this story not forgotten while many similar stories have been lost to us at least until the end of time?  I am not sure why the story of one woman, her brother, and some friends have been remembered and others have been forgotten.  Is there anything so special about this woman, shown here probably as a schoolgirl?

  

            Maybe there is not.  I think she might have asked us to remember so many other similar stories, but we haven’t heard them and the story of this young woman, her brother, and the White Rose, is the one we have heard and cannot forget.  If you haven’t heard it, I’ll tell you a little about it.  Then maybe you will never be able to forget it either.  These are the kinds of stories we tell hoping if we tell this one enough it won’t have to be a story repeated in the future.  It is something of a story that took a short lifetime to reach but seems focused on one day in February of 1943.  It was February 22, 1943 to be exact.  I had not yet been born.  My mother, whom you probably did not know, was celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday that day, but this is not a story about her.  It is a story that focuses on a university student named Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans, and their little organization given the name the White Rose.

            Their lives, like so many other lives in that decade, were shortened by violent ends.  Some who have thought about their story have probably thought their early deaths a shame.  Some may have heard of their story and shaken their heads and thought them courageous but not wise.  Some may have heard the story and thought they had courage, but growing careless led them to pay a tragic price.  Others have thought of their courage and wondered if given a similar situation we would have had their bravery; or if instead we would have played it safe even if our consciences might have felt a tinge of shame for not making the bold choice which they made.  Maybe you haven’t heard their story and are wondering what they did. 

            On February 18, 1943, Hans and Sophie Scholl were distributing political pamphlets.  The pamphlets were designed to encourage Germans to figure out ways to withhold their support from the government of Germany and its waging of a war to enslave Europe and deprive the nations of Europe of freedom and self-determination.  They sought the people of Germany to join them in withholding their support from the government, from the Nazi Party and from the war being waged in Germany’s name.  They appealed for others to join them stating their simple goal, “This struggle is for each one and every one of us, for our future, for our freedom, and our honor under a regime that will be more conscious of its moral responsibility.”[i]  Their pamphlet ended with the words “Our people stand ready to rebel against the National Socialist enslavement of Europe in an impassioned uprising of freedom and honor.”[ii]

            They had sought to distribute the pamphlets in the wake of two events that jolted the city of Munich in the days before their publication and distribution of their last pamphlet.  There had been the national acknowledgement of Germany’s staggering defeat at Stalingrad with the loss of 330,000 men.  German forces had never suffered such a staggering defeat.  A realization that defeat was inevitable was probably taking hold throughout Germany though almost no one would allow themselves to think it.  Few Germans really wanted the war, but even fewer Germans wanted the war to end in defeat.  A few theologians and college professors had quietly told a few trusted persons that nothing could be worse than German victory.  But who wishes defeat for soldiers drawn from family members or from the sons of their neighbors?  Mostly people yearned for an end to the war, but not defeat.  They refused to imagine the consequences that a German victory under Hitler would mean for Europe, for Christian civilization, and for the world.

          In Munich, a localized incident had stirred the student body to something close to a rebellion.  A Nazi party official gave a strange speech at the University in Munich commemorating the four hundred and seventieth anniversary of the opening of the university.  Paul Geisler was an anti-intellectual who wished to do combat with the “twisted intellects” of the educated classes in Germany’s socialist society.  He compared the “twisted intellects” of falsely clever minds with “Real life is transmitted to us only by Adolf Hitler, with his light, joyful, and life-affirming teachings!”  The students began to shuffle their feet, grow restless, and disquieted.  Geisler rather than correcting his poorly selected speech accepted the challenge of putting these uppity students with their “twisted intellects” in their place.  He showed his disapproval of the female students from their high class families using the university to shirk from their responsibilities to be with their families and in the factories helping with the war effort.  When some of the women began shouting Geisler turned it on even stronger.  He declared that the women should be giving the Fuehrer a child every year and to add insult to insult he jokingly said, “And for those women students not pretty enough to catch a man, I’d be happy to lend them one of my adjutants.”  He added to that insult, “And I promise you that would be a glorious experience.”  The students responded with a sort of unity against the Party leader that had hardly ever been known in Germany against the Party.  It was the closest thing to a rebellion the Nazis had seen in Germany.[iii]  It was within that context that Hans and Sophie Scholl and their small clandestine operation described as “The White Rose” published and distributed their sixth and final pamphlet asking Germans to take a stand by withholding their vital support of party functions and to do what they could to hinder the war effort, each person to act in their own way.
 

            Hans and Sophie Scholl were caught and arrested distributing the pamphlets on February 18, 1943.  What the Nazis called justice, was swift.  Within four days, they were interrogated at the Gestapo headquarters in Munich, were indicted, given their show trial, found guilty and sentenced to die by the guillotine.  Both the trial and execution was done on February 22, 1943.

Hans Scholl, his sister Sophie Scholl, and friend Christoph Probst;

They were all members and participants in the White Rose.

 

            Their story is a story worthy of being remembered.  There were others whose names have been forgotten by history who made similar stands as their own in history.  We celebrate their names and their story only because somehow providence has allowed them to be remembered even if countless others have been forgotten.  I am sure each of them would wish that others might receive the recognition of bravery and nobility with which we will remember these.  I am sure they would try to insist upon others being remembered.  But we must be content to show their photographs and tell their story not so much to single them out but to ask them to represent to us the souls of those who have not been remembered for their courageous stands against evil regimes and tyrannies.  In some of their most famous pamphlets they identified themselves by their chosen name of the White Rose, with these words added to their pamphlets, “We will not be silent.  We are your bad conscience.  The White Rose will not leave you in peace!”

            As we look back to the seventieth anniversary of their executions, let us try to do them honor by trying to make sure that our nations, whatever nations in which we live are not taken over by a regime intent on being tyrants which make war for profit and resources, or controlling others; or creating scapegoats of one people while encouraging a wholly inappropriate arrogance to be encouraged among those within the nation governed by such tyrants pretending to be our protectors.  Let us be on the lookout for the signs that such evil has placed itself in power.  History shows us that the nations take turns at one time providing havens of peace and rest to people of good will, and later the same nation being led by rulers who are purveyors of war and tyranny.  I want to share just a little more of the story of how Hans and Sophie Scholl and the White Rose came to make the stand they did which brought them into harm’s way where their lives were taken from them on February 22, 1943.  Their stories start earlier.

            Annette Dumbach and Jed Newborn, in their book Sophie Scholl and the White Rose, reviewed a number of the published incidents of people who took a stand against Nazism throughout Germany in the Hitler era.  They set forth their determination of what it was that led most of these people to cross the line from quietly thinking thoughts against Hitler to publicly taking a stand despite the possibility of retribution.  I think what they suggest may very well be close to the truth of what lead many of the anti-Hitler activists to become active in their opposition to Hitler.  They write:

            The movement of crossing that line – the line separating private (if outwardly conforming) rejection of National Socialism (Nazism) from active resistance – is a hard moment to seize, not only in the case of the White Rose but in countless recorded instances of workers, housewives, and other “ordinary Germans” who resisted the Third Reich.  It is as if there was no single discrete, conscious moment of decision when someone said, “yes, I will act,” but rather an accumulating force of rage, of incredulity, of desperation that came together inexorably, gathering its strength over months and years until it crested – and drowned personal fear and doubt.  One gets the impression from the accounts of these men and women all over Germany, who did cross the line, that thoughts about “courage” or “protest,” or even asserting one’s rights as a human being, played an insignificant role in the process.”[iv]

                The story told in their book, Sophie Scholl and the White Rose describes how both Hans and Sophie Scholl came gradually to be disillusioned with Nazism to the point that they grew disgusted with Nazism and finally could no longer live with their own consciences if they did not resist the power it had sought to bear over them.  A few glimpses from their early encounters with Nazism to their determination to risk their lives in opposition to it may help show that to be the case.

            Following the rise of Hitler and Nazism, both Hans and Sophie Scholl eagerly joined Hitler youth groups.  These groups were made to appeal to the young.  Those involved would go camping, enjoy camaraderie and adventure with peers and do enjoyable things while learning the values of sacrifice and patriotism.  The typical German, whether or not he agreed with Hitler when Hitler came to power, did not see any necessary evil in the lessons of life being taught to Germany’s children through the Hitler youth groups.

            But it was not very long until Hans and Sophie Scholl began to see things that did not settle well with them.  Hans Scholl began to notice that the Hitler youth group allowed for nearly no individuality.  Sophie Scholl had perhaps an even more disturbing experience.  Sophie was a dark-haired, brown-eyed girl.  She had a best friend who was blue-eyed with beautiful blonde hair.  But when the girls could join a Hitler youth group, only Sophie was allowed to be a member.  Her blue-eyed blonde-haired friend was Jewish.  Sophie’s doubts about participation in a Hitler youth group took root in that experience.  On another occasion, Sophie was with her Hitler youth group on a camping expedition when the girls in the Hitler youth group noticed some boys also camping.  The girls, wearing their Hitler youth group uniforms, decided to go over and try to meet the boys.  The boys, who wore no uniforms on their outing became quiet and even seemed fearful of the girls in their Hitler youth uniforms.  The girls found the boys’ behavior odd.  Sophie quietly concluded something without saying anything to her friends in the Hitler youth group.  She concluded that the boys were Jewish.  They were already living in fear of Hitler’s influence upon Germany.  The girls’ wearing their symbols of Hitler’s youth group brought fear to the boys, as the Jewish portion of Germany’s population was learning that one had to be extremely careful when living in Hitler’s Germany.

            The Scholl children, once eager to participate in the Hitler youth groups became disillusioned with that experience.  I think sometimes that we fail to appreciate what a wonderful word “disillusioned” actually is.  We think of being “disillusioned” primarily as a feeling that is both negative and dangerous.  Hans and Sophie Scholl even confirm that description.  They acted radically against the German government, courting their own executions.  But let us take apart this word “disillusioned” and describe it for what it truly is.

            To be disillusioned, is in modern talk to have our illusions “dissed.”  The process of becoming disillusioned in its purest sense is the process of being stripped of our illusions and set free from our illusions.  Hans and Sophie had joined their Hitler youth groups because they had imagined that these groups would provide fun, camaraderie, and lead them to doing wonderful things for their nation.  But as they got involved, even with young eyes, they saw that such seemingly good traits supposedly set forth in the youth groups were illusions.

            The Christian, and for that matter any intellectually honest human being will recognize that being set free from our illusions in life is essential to setting us on the pathway to our highest potential for choosing the good, true, and honorable life.  We may be happy living under an illusion.  The process of becoming stripped of our illusions, is painful.  But can anyone disagree that such a process is necessary if we are to be set free from our captivity to something false, so that we may be pointed towards something true?  For the Christian, and any intellectually honest human being, disillusionment must perform its essential part in our process of coming to better understand life.

            Sophie Scholl, in a letter to a friend seems to describe how she understood that her disillusionment with Germany’s war and her understanding of her own faith were on a collision course.  She seems to have understood in these words written to a friend how having become disillusioned, set her free from her illusions, and meant that she had to throw herself fully behind what she described as the winning side.  She writes to her friend of the beauty of nature and of life.  Here are Sophia Magdalena Scholl’s words written to a friend:

            “Isn’t it a riddle – and awe-inspiring, that everything is so beautiful?  Despite the horror.  Lately, I’ve noticed something grand and mysterious peering through my sheer joy in all that is beautiful; a sense of its creator . . . only man can be truly ugly, because he has the free will to estrange himself from this song of praise.  It often seems that he’ll manage to drown out this hymn with his cannon thunder, curses, and blasphemy.  But during this past spring it has dawned upon me that he won’t be able to do this.  And so I want to try and throw myself on the side of the victor.”[v]

            As a Christian, I find such a statement such a beautiful description of one who has begun to feel that she has been set free from an illusion and pointed towards the reality of truth.  She had struggled with doubt that creation’s hymn to its Creator would triumph over man’s ability to estrange himself from God.  But she had come again to believe in the triumph of creation’s natural song of praise.  She was contemplating the way ahead, and that way ahead was to throw herself on the side of the victor; not the Allies or the Germans, but on God whom she recognized in her Christian faith.  We know that in her last moments before she was taken to the guillotine that Sophie had a moment to talk with her mother.  Her mother encouraged her, saying, “Remember Jesus.”  Sophie Scholl then asked her mother to do this also.  This was Sophie Scholl’s way of casting herself on the victor’s side.  She was facing death but she was concerned that her mother who would be grieving the loss of her daughter (and also a son moments after Sophie's death) would need the same consolation that her mother extended to her in their shared Christian faith, “Remember Jesus.”

            In recent years this story concerning Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans, and the White Rose has come to have a place in my heart of hearts.  Perhaps it is partly because Sophie Scholl’s execution took place on the same date as my mother celebrated her birthday.  But there is another reason.  I was a history major in college.  I do not accept any nation as being exceptional or beyond the boundaries of being tempted by collective sin or led by evil in governments.  Lord Acton warned that “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”  I have watched in recent years as my own nation has taken pride increasingly not in its liberties and freedoms, but in its power.  I watched one morning as Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State, during the Clinton presidency spoke of how the United States was the indispensable nation in human affairs.  I felt a chill run down my spine for I remembered how Erik Liddell stepped out of a race in the 1924 Olympics because he held to a strict view of the Sabbath and the race was being run on Sunday, which for Liddell was the Christian Sabbath.  He delivered a sermon on that day instead of running in the Olympics.  He preached on the text, “All nations are as a drop in the bucket.”  Which is the illusion?  Is the illusion that “all nations are as a drop in the bucket?” or that America is the indispensable nation in our moment of time?  I shuddered to think what God in the heavens was thinking as he heard that.  Later in the interview she was asked if American sanctions against Iraq were proper if as claimed those sanctions, which included medical supplies, had killed as many as 100,000 or more Iraqis.  She answered that while she doubted that high of a number, that yes the sanctions were worth that cost.  Muslims seeing that interview concluded that Americans had decided that Muslim lives were regarded as disposable by the United States.  Many Americans were being led to believe that a war with Islam was a foregone conclusion long before 9-11.  What nation had established a scapegoat in the form of a detested minority religion?  In the year 2000, candidate George W. Bush promised a humbler foreign policy.  But once he set his sight on war, he made the claim for the United States that Jesus made for himself when he declared himself the Messiah.  Both of them said, “Whoever is not for us is against us.”  I can understand a non-Christian viewing Christ’s statement to be an audacious claim.  As a Christian, believing Christ is the Messiah it is an article of my faith.  But Jesus also declared that his kingdom is not of this world.  But for George Bush to claim an equality of the United States with a messianic claim of Jesus Christ is akin to claiming America’s equality with God.  Perhaps it was a simple case of foolish rhetoric not meant to be taken seriously, but if it were delivered seriously then which is the illusion, America’s claim or Christ’s?  We now have President Obama.  We have now been told that the President of the United States can order drones to attack and kill an American citizen without a trial, or a writ of habeas corpus.  The president simply has that sort of power to protect Americans.  How far are we from being a nation where Americans will have to decide what side they are going to throw ourselves?  I hope I am wrong in these concerns.  But I look up to heaven and ask God if he will help me if the time should come to first understand that the time has come, and secondly to help me to throw myself on the victor’s side.  For I do fear that a time is coming when Americans will be asked to swear their allegiance either to God for all the nations are as a drop in the bucket; or to America the indispensable nation.  Lord, help me make the right choice should that day come.  Lord, help me until that day to be kept from any hurtful way.”

            I ask my Christian friends to ponder these things.  I ask my non-Christian friends to consider these things and to recognize that even if you do not see the Christian faith as I do, I would appeal to you to seek with all your strength to be freed from any illusion to which you may tend.

            Let the White Rose appeal to us one last time, “We will not be silent.  We are your bad conscience.  The White Rose will not leave you in peace!”

            As a common saying has said, “Though dead, their words still speak.”

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[i] A translation of the last published pamphlet of the White Rose; Sophie Scholl and the White Rose, by authors Annette Dumbach and Jed Newborn.  Oneworld Oxford Press.  P.202.

[ii] Ibid. p. 203

[iii] Ibid. p. 130-133.   These pages are the source for both direct quotations and my summarization in this paragraph.

[iv] Ibid. p.20.

[v] Ibid. pp. 18-19