SCHOLL, Sophie

Sophie Scholl would have been 100 today. Instead she was guillotined along with her brother Hans and Christopher Probst in Munich's Stadelheim Prison on Feb.22nd 1943.

Sophie and her brother were core members of "The White Rose" an anti-Nazi student resistance group centered at the Ludwig Maximilien University in Munich, where Sophie a former kindergarten teacher, was studying Biology and Philosophy. They succeeded in distributing a series of 5 leaflets both there and in cities as far north as Hamburg, as well as as taking them into Austria.

Members of the group who had served as medics on the eastern front including Sophie's fiance Fritz Hartnagel had been appalled by the atrocities they had seen committed by the Wehrmacht and in their second leaflet informed their fellow citizens of the slaughter of 300,000 Jews in Poland.

Sophie, a committed Lutheran, and the others would also leave their literature in telephone boxes as well as post them to members of the intelligentsia. The latter would then immediately take them to the Gestapo. This settles one controversy, namely whether Sophie's fellow citizens knew or could have known at the time of the Nazi's genocide of the Jews.

While distributing copies of a 6th leaflet, Sophie and Hans were caught in the early morning of February 18th, 1943 at the university by the janitor. Jakob Schmid who was a brownshirt turned them over to the Gestapo.

Shortly after her execution students at the university held a pro-Nazi rally and Schmid received a round of applause.

The other Scholl family members were shunned by the public, with people crossing to the other side of the street whenever they saw them.

Sophie's last recorded words on the way to her execution were "....what does my death matter if through us thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action."

A copy of the 6th leaflet was smuggled out of the country and at the end of the war millions of copies of it were dropped over Germany by Allied aircraft.

Today in Germany numerous squares, streets and schools are named after Sophie and Hans, including the square in front of the university.

There is also now an annual Scholl-Sibllings Literary Prize which is presented at the university.

Fritz Hartnagel went on to marry Sophie's sister. He died in 2001 while Elizabeth who later became active in the peace movement, died in 2020.