Bestial Execution of Sophie Scholl
- Cruel Fate for Defying Nazi Germany - The White Rose - WW2

26 October 2022

Category: Nazi Victims

Sophia Magdalena Scholl was born on the 9th of May 1921 in Forchtenberg and was the fourth of six children of Robert and Magdalena Scholl. On the 30th of January 1933 Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany by the German President Paul von Hindenburg. However, there were also critics of the Nazi regime and Sophie’s father Robert was one of them. He was horrified when in 1933 like many other youngsters, his son Hans, joined the party's Hitler Youth movement and Sophie its sister organization, the League of German Girls.

In 1937, Sophie’s brother Hans and other friends were arrested for participating in the German Youth Movement which. During the trial, Hans was also charged under “Paragraph 175” which was the statute of the German criminal code that banned sexual relations between men. Following the Kristallnacht, commonly known as “The Night of Broken Glass”, Nazi legislation barred Jews from all public schools and universities, as well as from cinemas, theaters, and sports facilities. In many cities, Jews were forbidden to enter designated “Aryan” zones. World War 2 started on the 1st of September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. In May 1942, Sophie enrolled at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich as a student of biology and philosophy. Her brother Hans was studying medicine at the same institution. That same year, Sophie’s father Robert was sentenced to four months in prison for calling Adolf Hitler the "scourge of God” at his workplace.

Around this time, Hans, Sophie’s brother, met Willi Graf, another university student. Together with their fellow students Alexander Schmorell and Christoph Probst they discussed what Graf had experienced in Serbia and Poland where he had worked as a medic . From the end of June until mid-July 1942, they wrote the first four leaflets. Each leaflet was more critical of Hitler and the German people than the last. They encouraged citizens to resist the Nazi regime, denounce the murder of hundreds of thousands of Poles and demanded an end to the war. In the summer of 1942, male students at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich were required to deploy to the Eastern Front. Among them were Sophie’s brother Hans and his friends Alexander Schmorell and Willi Graf. This experience strengthened their determination to fight against Nazism. During this time, White Rose activities ceased, and were not continued until the medics came home from the deployment.

They continued determinedly

Sometimes in the fall 1942, Sophie learned about her brother's activities and immediately joined the movement. The last one to join was Kurt Huber, a university professor at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, where the rest of the movement studied. In January 1943, the fifth leaflet, "Appeal to all Germans! was produced in 6,000–9,000 copies, using a hand-operated duplicating machine. Soon after on the 2nd of February 1943, after months of fierce fighting and heavy casualties, the surviving German forces—only about 91,000 soldiers—surrendered Stalingrad on the Volga. The Battle of Stalingrad ended with the capitulation and near-total loss of the Wehrmacht's Sixth Army.

On the 3rd, 8th, and 15th of February, Alexander Schmorell, Hans Scholl, and Willi Graf graffitied public buildings with slogans such as "Hitler the Mass murderer!", "Down with Hitler" and "Freedom" on the walls of the university and other buildings in Munich. The group also produced their sixth pamphlet which was to be their last.

On the 18th of February 1943, while Hans and Sophie were distributing leaflets at the Ludwig Maximilian University, Sophie flung the last remaining leaflets from the top floor down into the atrium. However, she was seen by Jakob Schmid, the university maintenance man and avowed Nazi, who reported it to the official secret police of Nazi Germany - the Gestapo. She was 21 years old when she was guillotined on the 22nd of February 1943 at 5 pm. Her last words were “The sun still shines”. Her brother Hans and Christoph Probst were executed by guillotine a few minutes later. While Sophie and Christoph were silent as they died, Hans yelled " long live freedom”.

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