page_title: White Rose
section_title: Commemoration
hierarchical_section_title: White Rose / Commemoration
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Denkmal "Die Weiße Rose", Hofgarten München
context_page_description: The White Rose was a non-violent, intellectual resistance group in the Third Reich led by a group of students including Hans and Sophie Scholl. They attended the University of Munich. The group conducted an anonymous leaflet and graffiti campaign that called for active opposition to the Nazi regime. Their activities started in Munich on 27 June 1942, and ended with the arrest of the core group by the Gestapo on 18 February 1943. They, as well as other members and supporters of the group who carried on distributing the pamphlets, faced show trials by the Nazi People's Court, and many of them were sentenced to death or imprisonment.
  Hans, Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst were executed by guillotine four days after their arrest, on February 22, 1943. During the trial, Sophie interrupted the judge multiple times. No defendants were given any opportunity to speak.
  The group wrote, printed and initially distributed their pamphlets in the greater Munich region. Later on, secret carriers brought copies to other cities, mostly in the southern parts of Germany. In total, the White Rose authored six leaflets, which were multiplied and spread, in a total of about 15,000 copies.
context_section_description: With the fall of Nazi Germany, the White Rose came to represent opposition to tyranny in the German psyche and was lauded for acting without interest in personal power or self-aggrandizement. Their story became so well known that the composer Carl Orff claimed (falsely by some accounts) to his Allied interrogators that he was a founding member of the White Rose and was released. He was personally acquainted with Huber, but there is no evidence that Orff was ever involved in the movement.
  On 5 February 2012 Alexander Schmorell was canonized as a New Martyr by the Orthodox Church.
  The square where the central hall of Munich University is located has been named "Geschwister-Scholl-Platz" after Hans and Sophie Scholl; the square opposite to it is "Professor-Huber-Platz". Two large fountains are in front of the university, one on either side of Ludwigstraße. The fountain in front of the university is dedicated to Hans and Sophie Scholl. The other, across the street, is dedicated to Professor Huber. Many schools, streets, and other places across Germany are named in memory of the members of the White Rose.
  One of Germany's leading literary prizes is called the Geschwister-Scholl-Preis (the "Scholl Siblings" prize). Likewise, the asteroid 7571 Weisse Rose is named after the group.
  The White Rose has also received artistic treatments, including the acclaimed opera Weiße Rose by Udo Zimmermann, In memoriam: die weisse Rose by Hans Werner Henze, Kommilitonen!, an opera by Peter Maxwell Davies, and a 2017 organ piece by Carlotta Ferrari.
caption: A black granite memorial to the White Rose Movement in the Hofgarten in Munich.
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