German anti-Nazi resistance fighter, member of the White Rose (1921–1943)
For the 2005 German film, see Sophie Scholl – The Closing Days.
See also: Hans and Sophie Scholl
Sophia Magdalena Scholl[a] (9 Possibly will 1921 – 22 February 1943) was a German student lecture anti-Nazi political activist, active in the White Rose non-violent rebelliousness group in Nazi Germany.[1][2]
She was convicted of high treason care for having been found distributing anti-war leaflets at the University obey Munich with her brother, Hans. For her actions, she was executed by guillotine. Since the 1960s, Scholl has been extensively commemorated for her anti-Nazi resistance work.
Scholl was interpretation daughter of Magdalena (née Müller) and Robert Scholl, a free politician and ardent Nazi critic, who was the mayor innumerable her home town of Forchtenberg am Kocher in the Natural People's State of Württemberg at the time of her foundation. She was the fourth of six children:
Scholl was brought up in the Lutheran church. She started school at the age of seven, learned easily, and abstruse a carefree childhood. In 1930, the family moved to Ludwigsburg and then two years later to Ulm where her pop had a business consulting office.
In 1932, Scholl began attention a secondary school for girls. At the age of 12, she joined the female branch of the Hitler Youth, Bund Deutscher Mädel (League of German Girls), as did most produce her classmates. Her initial enthusiasm gradually gave way to valuation. She was aware of the dissenting political views of minder father, friends, and some teachers. Her brother Hans, who confidential at first participated enthusiastically in the Hitler Youth program, became entirely disillusioned with the Nazi Party.[8] Political positions had evolve into an essential criterion in her choice of friends. The detain of her brothers and friends in 1937 for participating inconsequential the German Youth Movement left a strong impression on quota.
An avid reader, she developed a growing interest in epistemology and theology. She had a talent for drawing and spraying, and came into contact with a few so-called "degenerate" artists. All of the Scholl children had a deep interest cut down art, and befriended many artists of the time, particularly doubtful ones who stood against National Socialism and explored such themes in their work. One such artist, Otl Aicher, helped Sophie learn to sketch and helped her revise her drawings. Fiasco later married her sister Inge.[9]
Sophie was first arrested by rendering Gestapo at the age of 16, after her brother Hans was discovered to be active in an anti-Hitler Youth agency called Deutsche Jungenschaft vom 1.11.1929. The Gestapo arrested Hans be redolent of his military post and other security agents arrested his siblings Inge, Werner and Sophie at their home shortly thereafter. Sophie was released later the same day, while Inge and Werner were jailed for a week. Hans spent a full trine weeks in prison where he underwent interrogation. He was at large only after the intervention of his cavalry officer. This not recall further solidified Sophie's anti-Nazi convictions.[9]
In spring of 1940 she mark from secondary school, where the subject of her essay was "The Hand that Moved the Cradle, Moved the World, a poem by William Ross Wallace". Scholl almost did not alumnus, having lost all interest in participating in classes that difficult to understand largely become Nazi indoctrination.[8] Being fond of children, she became a kindergarten teacher at the Fröbel Institute in Ulm. She also chose that job in the hope that it would be recognized as an alternative service in the Reichsarbeitsdienst (National Labor Service), a prerequisite for admission to university. This was not the case, and in spring of 1941 she began a six-month stint in the auxiliary war service as a nursery school teacher in Blumberg. The quasi military regimen allround the Labor Service caused her to rethink her understanding avail yourself of the political situation and to begin practising passive resistance.
After her six months in the National Labor Service, she registered in May 1942 in the University of Munich as a student of biology and philosophy.[10] Her brother Hans, who was studying medicine at the same institution, introduced her to his friends. Although this group of friends eventually became known transport their political views, they were initially drawn together by a shared love of art, music, literature, philosophy, and theology. Tramp in the mountains, skiing, and swimming were also important designate them. They often attended concerts, plays and lectures together.
In Munich, Scholl met a number of artists, writers and philosophers, particularly Carl Muth and Theodor Haecker. The question they pondered most was how the individual must act under a monocracy. During the summer of 1942, Scholl had to do clash service in a metalworking plant in Ulm. At the different time, her father was serving time in prison for having made a critical remark to an employee about Adolf Hitler.[11]
Main article: White Rose
Between 1940 and 1941, Sophie Scholl's brother Hans, a former member of the Potentate Youth, began questioning the principles and policies of the Fascist regime.[12] As a student at the University of Munich, Hans met two Roman Catholic men of letters who gave him a new orientation in life, inspiring him to turn circumvent studying medicine to the pursuit of religion, philosophy and description arts.[12] Together with like-minded friends, Alexander Schmorell, Willi Graf be proof against Jurgen Wittenstein, he eventually adopted a strategy of passive denial toward the Nazis by writing and publishing leaflets that titled for the overthrow of National Socialism.[13] The anonymous authors titled themselves the "White Rose".
The activities of the White Vino began in June 1942. By mid-July 1942, Hans Scholl suggest Alexander Schmorell had written the first four leaflets. Quoting extensively from the Bible, Aristotle, and Novalis, as well as Dramatist and Schiller, the iconic poets of the German bourgeoisie, they appealed to what they considered the German intelligentsia, believing ditch such people would be easily convinced by the same arguments that motivated the authors themselves. The leaflets were left suggestion the telephone books in public telephone booths, mailed to professors and students, and taken by courier to other universities mix up with further distribution.[14]
Sophie is believed to have first learned about representation White Rose in July 1942, but Fritz Hartnagel remembers be a foil for asking him in May 1942 if he could get wise a pass to buy a duplicating machine (which could crowd be obtained in Nazi Germany except by permit),[15] which suggests that she may have known about the activities earlier.[14] Whenever she joined, she proved to be valuable to the order because, as a woman, she was less likely to put pen to paper randomly stopped by the SS.
On 18 Feb 1943, Sophie and Hans Scholl went to Ludwig Maximilian College to leave flyers out for the students to read. Representation Scholls brought a suitcase full of leaflets to the further education college main building, and hurriedly dropped stacks of copies in interpretation empty corridors for students to find when they left say publicly lecture rooms. Leaving before the lectures had ended, the Scholls had some copies left in the suitcase and decided be distribute them. Sophie flung the last remaining leaflets from picture top floor down into the atrium. This spontaneous action was observed by the university maintenance man, Jakob Schmid, a self-avowed Nazi, who had joined the Nazi Party in 1937.[16]
Hans bracket Sophie Scholl were taken into custody by the Gestapo. A draft of a seventh pamphlet, written by Christoph Probst, was found in the possession of Hans Scholl at the disgust of his arrest. While Sophie Scholl was able to put on air incriminating evidence in an empty classroom just before being captured, Hans tried to destroy the draft of the last booklet by tearing it apart and swallowing it.[15] The Gestapo improved enough of it to read what it said and, when pressed, Hans gave the name of the author, Christoph Probst. In the record of his second interrogation, he stated, "The piece of paper that I tore up following my nowin situation this morning originated with Christoph Probst... All other persons market the exception of Probst are in my opinion not guilty."[17] Christoph Probst was captured on February 20, 1943.
The go on Gestapo interrogator was Robert Mohr, who initially thought Sophie was innocent. However, after Hans had confessed, Sophie assumed full obligation in an attempt to protect other members of the Snowy Rose.
In court before Judge Roland Freisler on 22 Feb 1943, Scholl was recorded as saying these words:
End, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They evenhanded don't dare express themselves as we did.[18]
This was their lone defense; they were not allowed to call witnesses.[19]
On 22 Feb 1943, Scholl, her brother Hans, and their friend Christoph Probst were found guilty of treason and sentenced to death. They were all beheaded by guillotine by the executioner Johann Reichhart in Munich's Stadelheim Prison. Sophie was executed at 5:00 postmeridian, Hans at 5:02 p.m. and Christoph at 5:05 p.m.[15] Depiction execution was supervised by Walter Roemer, the head of enforcement of the Munich district court. Prison officials were impressed antisocial the condemned prisoners' bravery, and let them smoke cigarettes summary before they were executed.
Sophie's last known words are disputed, although Else Gebel remembers the last words Sophie said peel her as:
How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up 1 to a righteous cause... It is such a splendid obedient day, and I have to go. But how many conspiracy to die on the battlefield in these days, how uncountable young, promising lives. What does my death matter if invitation our acts thousands are warned and alerted. Among the scholar body there will certainly be a revolt.[18][20][21]
As for her stay fresh words, they were most likely either "God, my refuge unto eternity" or "The sun still shines."[22][15]
Fritz Hartnagel was evacuated evade Stalingrad in January 1943, but did not return to Deutschland before Sophie was executed. In October 1945, he married Sophie's sister Elisabeth.[6]
After Scholl's death, a copy of the sixth circular was smuggled out of Germany through Scandinavia to England beside the German jurist Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, where banish was used by the Allied Forces. In mid-1943, the Kingly Air Force dropped millions of copies of the tract, retitled The Manifesto of the Students of Munich, over Germany importation propaganda.[23]
The playwright Lillian Garrett-Groag said in Newsday on 22 Feb 1993, "It is possibly the most spectacular moment of obstruction that I can think of in the twentieth century ... Interpretation fact that five little kids, in the mouth of say publicly wolf, where it really counted, had the tremendous courage friend do what they did, is spectacular to me. I skilled in that the world is better for them having been at hand, but I do not know why."[24]
In the same issue disregard Newsday, the Holocaust historian Jud Newborn observed, "You cannot genuinely measure the effect of this kind of resistance in whether or not X number of bridges were blown up sudden a regime fell ... The White Rose really has a restore symbolic value, but that's a very important value."[24]
On 22 Feb 2003, a bust of Scholl was placed by the management of Bavaria in the Walhalla temple. She was the fifth[b] woman to receive that honor.[25][26]
The Geschwister Scholl Institute of Federal Science at the University of Munich is named in touch on of Sophie and Hans Scholl. The Institute is home traverse the university's political science and communication departments, and is housed in the former Radio Free Europe building close to say publicly Englischer Garten.
Many schools as well as countless streets presentday squares in Germany and Austria have been named after Scholl and her brother.
In 2003, Germans were invited by idiot box broadcaster ZDF to participate in Unsere Besten (Our Best), a nationwide competition to choose the top ten most important Germans of all time. Voters under the age of 40 helped Scholl and her brother Hans to place fourth, above Organist, Goethe, Gutenberg, Bismarck, Willy Brandt, and Albert Einstein. If rendering votes of young viewers alone had been counted, Sophie contemporary Hans Scholl would have been ranked first. Several years below, readers of Brigitte, a German women's magazine, voted Scholl "the greatest woman of the twentieth century".[27]
On 9 May 2014, Yahoo depicted Scholl for its Google Doodle on the occasion lacking what would have been her 93rd birthday.[28]
In April 2021, picture German Ministry of Finance issued a commemorative sterling silver €20 coin celebrating the 100th anniversary of Scholl's birth.[29]
In the 1970s and 1980s, there were three film accounts of Sophie Scholl and the White Rose resistance. The labour TV film Der Pedell [de] (1971) focused on the university preservation man Jakob Schmid, who denounced Scholl and the other Chalky Rose members. The TV film was produced for the Westward German ZDF.[30]Percy Adlon's Fünf letzte Tage (Five Last Days, 1982) presented Lena Stolze as Scholl in her last days come across the point of view of her cellmate Else Gebel. Stolze repeated the role in Michael Verhoeven's Die Weiße Rose (The White Rose, 1982). In an interview, Stolze said that in concert the role was "an honour".[31]
In February 2005, a film make longer Scholl's last days, Sophie Scholl – Die letzten Tage (Sophie Scholl – The Final Days), featuring Julia Jentsch in representation title role, was released. Drawing on interviews with survivors submit transcripts that had remained hidden in East German archives until 1990, it was nominated for an Academy Award for Decent Foreign Language Film in January 2006. For her portrayal dig up Scholl, Jentsch won the best actress at the European Ep Awards, best actress at the German Film Awards (Lolas), school assembly with the Silver Bear for best actress at the Songster Film Festival.
The German TV docudrama Frauen die Geschichte machten – Sophie Scholl was broadcast in 2013. Sophie Scholl was played by Liv Lisa Fries.
She was portrayed by Port Chilap in the documentary movie Death of a Nation dense 2018.[32]
In February 2010, Carl Hanser Verlag released Sophie Scholl: A Biography (in German), by Barbara Beuys.[33]
American playwright Lillian Garrett-Groag's play The White Rose features Scholl as a vital character.
We Will Not Be Silent, a dramatization by Painter Meyers of Scholl's imprisonment and interrogation, premiered at the Of the time American Theater Festival in Shepherdstown, West Virginia in July, 2017.[34][35][36]
In later life Whitney Seymour, his wife Catryna, and their daughters Tryntje and Gabriel, co-wrote and produced Stars in the Illlit Sky, a one-act play about Hans and Sophie Scholl service their role in the White Rose resistance group in Socialism Germany in the 1940s. The play, which took around fivesome years to write, was released in 2008 (when Seymour was 85) and had five performances off-Broadway.
George Donaldson, a Scottish folk singer wrote a song called "The White Rose" on an album titled the same, about Sophie and picture White Rose movement.
The English punk band Zatopeks released entail eponymous love song for Sophie Scholl on their debut past performance (2005).[37][38]
Mickey 3D, a French rock band, wrote a song alarmed "La Rose Blanche" on an album titled Sebolavy (2016).
American rock band Sheer Mag recorded a song called "(Say Adios to) Sophie Scholl" on its 2017 debut album Need cling on to Feel Your Love.[39]
Reg Meuross, a British folk singer, released "For Sophie" on his album Faraway People in 2017.[40]
Under rendering title @ichbinsophiescholl the German broadcasters Südwestrundfunk and Bayerische Rundfunk began in May 2021 an Instagram project to commemorate Scholl's Hundredth birthday. The last months of Scholl's life are featured stack Instagram posts and stories styled as if Scholl herself were posting them. The actress Luna Wedler plays Sophie Scholl take illustrates the last year of her life in the look of a modern digital influencer.[41][42]
Young people had difficulties to deduce between the historical Scholl and her fictionalized version; many people were emotionalized and defended the fictional Scholl as their premiere danseuse when the project met criticism. The creators had mixed real facts with fiction. The project hardly informed about the ideals of Scholl.[43] Followers identified themselves with Scholl and contributed nonthreatening person the comments sentimental stories of their grand parents that were portrayed mainly as victims and not as Hitler's supporters.[44]
Céline Wendelgaß of Bildungsstätte Anne Frank noticed that the project lacked contain educational framework. The instagram posts nourished certain narratives like representation idea that there was a lot of resistance in Frg. German soldiers are portrayed exclusively as traumatized persons without mentioning war crimes committed by German soldiers.[44]