ia_2009_b_laura

=B. Summary of Evidence (500-600 words) Tips]=

The ‘White Rose’ was a nonviolent resistance group, which attempted to oppose Adolf Hitler’s regime from June 1942 until February 1943 by "attacking the Nazi's slaughter of the Jews and Poles". The core of the group consisted of Sophie Scholl, Hans Scholl, Alex Schmorell, Willi Graf, and Christoph Probst. Other participants of the ‘White Rose’ were Inge Scholl, sister of Sophie and Hans Scholl, as well as a philosophy professor from the University of Munich.

The ‘White Rose’, a name, which was "intended to represent purity and innocence in the face of evil", was well known for its anonymous leaflets, which believed in “freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and protection of the individual citizen from the arbitrary action of criminal dictator-states”. The members of the ‘White Rose’ had distributed six leaflets and the draft of the seventh leaflet, written by Christoph Probst, was in possession of Hans Scholl, as the Gestapo captured him. In all of the leaflets the members had included quotes from Aristotle and Novalis, the Bible, and German poets such as Goethe and Schiller, who inspired them just as the atrocities they had seen on the battlefield contributed to their beliefs.

The first leaflets were sent to various citizens in Austria and Bavaria, as the group believed these to be more amenable than those in the North. As the male members of the ‘White Rose’ were obliged to go to the Eastern Front for military service at the end of July 1942, the group ceased and then resumed their convictions in January 1943 when the male members returned from the Front. The ‘White Rose’ immensely increased the number of leaflets sent away once production of leaflets was resumed, which were written using a hand-operated duplicating machine, as they produced between 6000 and 9000 copies of their fifth leaflet, which was distributed to cities such as Cologne, Stuttgart, Vienna, Freiburg, Chemnitz, Hamburg, and Berlin via courier runs. On the nights of the third, eighth, and fifteenth of February 1943 Alexander Schmorell, Hans Scholl, and Willi Graf had written slogans such as “down with Hitler” and “freedom” on the walls of the University of Munich as well as other buildings in Munich.

Despite the fact that the Gestapo greatly searched for the publishers of the leaflets, which caused great sensation, the members of the ‘White Rose’ nevertheless distributed the sixth leaflet, explaining that the “day of reckoning” had come for “the most contemptible tyrant our people has ever endured”, in the University of Munich whilst students were in lectures. However, just before exiting the building Sophie Scholl and Hans Scholl, the distributors, had noticed that they hadn’t distributed all the leaflets and hence went back to the top floor where Sophie flung the remaining leaflets into the air. Alas, the custodian John-Jakob Schmid was an observer and consequently called the police, resulting in the arrest of Sophie and Hans Scholl. They were taken in for interrogation and soon after the first to stand trial before the ‘Volksgerichtshof’ together with Christoph Probstl. Despite the fact that they were found guilty of treason and sentenced to death, Sophie Scholl stood for what she believed until the end when she said to Roland Freisler “You know as well as we do that the war is lost. Why are you so cowardly that you won’t admit it?”. Other members such as Alexander Schmorell and Kurt Huber were also beheaded soon after in July 1943 and others who helped distribute and prepare the leaflets were sentenced to prison terms.

Nevertheless, the ‘White Rose’ survived as the text of the sixth leaflet was smuggled out of Germany, to England over Scandinavia and in July 1943 copies of the leaflet were dropped over Germany by allied planes, re-titled “The Manifesto of the Students of Munich”.

In 2005 a film, which was based upon the story of the White Rose, was released. The film was called "Sophie Scholl - The Final Days" and was written by Fred Breinersdorfer and directed by Marc Rothemunde. The movie was nominated for Oscar, won the Bavarian Film Award, German Film critics award and many others. Many believe that "the film's claustrophobic intensity and emotional punch certainly deserve[d] to be cheered." whereas others believe that "there's too little sense of what sort of person Scholl was. We can only grasp at air and guess what it was inside her that drove her to forsake her life in favor of a higher purpose".