On February 18th, 1942, the Gestapo rounded up the leaders of the White Rose resistance movement, four of them young students, and one a professor, at the University of Munich – Willi Graf, Kurt Huber, Christoph Probst, Alexander Schmorell, Hans Scholl and Sophie Scholl. All had become disillusioned with the Nazi movement, and when they discovered its true evil, this turned to resistance. They did not take up arms – they simply wrote stirring pamphlets, pointing out the atrocities, and urging the German people to resist.
They were spiritually motivated, especially by Catholicism, in the writings of Saint Augustine, Etienne Gilson, Saint John Henry Newman, and the anti-Nazi German bishop Clemens von Galen. They were also stirred by prayer, poetry and mysticism, in this spirits and souls. They had courage and conviction, to face even the prospect of martyrdom. As Hans Scholl put it simply:
The members of the White Rose were fully aware of the risks they incurred by their acts of resistance: I knew what I took upon myself and I was prepared to lose my life by so doing.
Quite impressive for a young medical student in his early twenties, at the very dawn of life.
At first, like so many of their generation, they were taken in by the initial enthusiasm Hitler and his elixir of patriotic propaganda:
But there was something else that drew us with mysterious power and swept us along: the closed ranks of marching youth with banners waving, eyes fixed straight ahead, keeping time to drumbeat and song. Was not this sense of fellowship overpowering? It is not surprising that all of us, Hans and Sophie and the others, joined the Hitler Youth? We entered into it with body and soul, and we could not understand why our father did not approve, why he was not happy and proud. On the contrary, he was quite displeased with us.
Soon, however, their young consciences were awakened, and they could not rest in the face of the grave and abiding evil that confronted them, to which too many wanted to close their eyes in blind conformity.
Here is the White Rose from their first leaflet:
Isn’t it true that every honest German is ashamed of his government these days? Who among us has any conception of the dimensions of shame that will befall us and our children when one day the veil has fallen from our eyes and the most horrible of crimes—crimes that infinitely outdistance every human measure—reach the light of day?
Which they followed up in their second:
Since the conquest of Poland, 300,000 Jews have been murdered in this country in the most bestial way … The German people slumber on in dull, stupid sleep and encourage the fascist criminals. Each wants to be exonerated of guilt, each one continues on his way with the most placid, calm conscience. But he cannot be exonerated; he is guilty, guilty, guilty!
These words should stir our own consciences, as too many of us live in ‘dull, stupid sleep’, in the face of the evils of our own day, many of which eerily mimic those of yesteryear.
The brave students were betrayed by – of all people – the university janitor, Jakob Schmid[1], who noticed their suspicious behaviour, and called the Gestapo. He might have taken to heart the words of Sophie Scholl:
And I could weep at how mean people are and how they betray their fellow creatures, perhaps for the sake of personal advantage. It is enough to make a person lose heart sometimes. I often wish I lived on a Robinson Crusoe island.
I sympathize.
All were put through interrogation, then a brief show trial, before being publicly guillotined. Sophie Scholl went quietly, likely with the words in her heart which she had written, God, you are my refuge into eternity. Only her brother Hans said anything as his head went under the blade, crying out es lebe die Freiheit! – Long live freedom!, which may be taken as a response to the Nazi lie over the gates of Auschwitz, ‘Arbeit macht frei – work will make you free. Not so. Only the truth will, and the White Rose died for the truth, amongst the many martyred by the Nazis, and other corrupt regimes. May we gain but an ounce of their spirit and thumos. Ironically, the victims were denounced by the Gestapo in their official newspaper – the only one allowed – as ‘degenerate rogues’. But who are seen as the degenerates now, Gauleiters? The White Rose are honoured as heroes, including a monument to them in the very auditorium in which they were caught.
As an addendum: Vice-President JD Vance offered a stirring speech at the EU, in large part in defense of freedom, and freedom of expression and speech especially, under grave threat across Europe (and here in Canada), and which Trump administration is trying to protect.
Some have criticized the Vice-President, including this woefully misinformed CBS anchorwoman, Margaret Brennan, in the midst of an interview with Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Ms. Brennan seems to think that it was ‘freedom of speech’ that led to the Nazi atrocities! Such is the product of our modern ‘educational’ system. Few regimes in history have had the brutal censorship enforced by the Nazis. And, by the way, so did the Weimer Republic which preceded them. As one of the survivors of the White Rose movement put it back in 1997:
The government—or rather, the party—controlled everything: the news media, arms, police, the armed forces, the judiciary system, communications, travel, all levels of education from kindergarten to universities, all cultural and religious institutions. Political indoctrination started at a very early age, and continued by means of the Hitler Youth with the ultimate goal of complete mind control. Children were exhorted in school to denounce even their own parents for derogatory remarks about Hitler or Nazi ideology.
Censorship has a small place in some extreme cases, but is generally bad, for three reasons:
First, such laws are almost always misused by corrupt regimes, such as the Nazis and Communists and, we may add, current governments that have adopted some of their totalitarian, socialist policies.
Second, it’s only by such resistance by the power of truth that such regimes can be brought to an end. Even good governments get things wrong at times, and need correction from the people they are meant to serve.
Finally, it’s almost always best to get stupid, or even evil, opinions out into the bright light of day, where they can be seen as such, and exposed and refuted with the truth, rather than festering in the dark regions of people’s basements, minds and hearts.
Long live freedom, indeed.
[1] Jakod Schmid was charged after the war. His defense that he reported the students since “distributing pamphlets was technically against university policy”. He spent five years in prison and lost his pension, dying in 1964.
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