White Rose

The **White Rose** was a German group that opposed the Nazis in World War II. They distributed pamphlets denouncing Adolf Hitler's regime from June 1942 until February 1943. The group consisted of students from the University of Munich along with a professor. 

## Beginning of the White Rose, June-July 1942 
In June 1942, Alexander Schmorell and Hans Scholl, who were University students at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, began writing and distributing leaflets that spoke out against Hitler and Nazi Germany. They wrote four leaflets from June-July 1942.  The leaflets called for passive resistance to the Nazi regime, and told of the horrors of the War against the Jews (in the second pamphlet, they talk about how “since the conquest of Poland, three hundred thousand Jews have been murdered in this country in the most bestial way.”) 

A couple hundred copies were made of each leaflet. Hans and Alexander then mailed them out to random addresses  from phone books:

*“To set you at rest, we add that the addresses of the readers of the White Rose are not recorded in writing. They were picked at random from directories.”*

*-*Exerpt from fourth leaflet

## The White Rose, November 1942-February 1943 
In July 1942, Alex and Hans, as well as their friend Willi Graf, were ordered to go to the Russian front over the Summer to serve as medics.  These members made up the core of the White Rose group, although there were multiple other members who were in charge of distribution and recruiting for the White Rose.

On February 18, 1943, Hans and Sophie carried two briefcases stuffed with pamphlets into the University. Hurriedly placing leaflets in the halls, they were about to leave when Sophie realized she still had leaflets lert in her briefcase. Hurrying up to the third floor, she began to place them along the hallways. What happened next is unclear, but something caused Sophie to grab the rest of the leaflets and throw them off the balcony and into the atrium. This spontaneous action was observed by Jakob Schmid, the university custodian who was also a Nazi Party fanatic. He alerted the Gestapo, who stormed the university and captured Sophie and Hans.

Over the next four days, the Gestapo interrogated Sophie and Hans. The two of them gave up no names, but Hans had a handwritten draft for a new leaflet on him when he was captured. The draft of the leaflet was written by Christoph Probst, who was captured on February 20.

## Legacy 
Today, the White Rose members, especially Hans and Sophie Scholl, are well known in Germany. 

Three movies have been created about the White Rose:

***Fünf Letzten Tage (Five last days), released in 1982***

***Die Weisse Rose (The White Rose), released in 1982***

***Sophie Scholl:Die Letzen Tage (Sophie Scholl: The Final Days), released in 2005***

## Members 
The core of the White Rose was comprised of five students: Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans Scholl, Alexander Schmorell, Willi Graf, and Christoph Probst. All were between the ages of 21-25 years old. Kurt Huber, Sophie’s Philosophy teacher, was the sixth main member of the White Rose.

There were also other members who were on the fringe of the inner circle of the White Rose. Some of these member include:

Hans Hirzel

Suzanne Hirzel

Franz Joseph Muller

Heinrich Guter

Eugen Grimminger

Dr. Heinrich Phillip Bollinger

Helmut Karl Theodore August Bauer

Dr. Falk Erich Walter Harnack

Gisela Schertling

Katherina Schüddekopf

Traute Lafrenz

These names came from the second trial of the White Rose members, held on April 19, 1943. Over the course of the war, a total of 29 people were captured and accused of aiding the White Rose. 13 were given prison sentences, and 16 were executed.*

## References