Sophie Scholl was born on May 9, 1921. He father was a liberal politician who was mayor of her home town. They were a middle-class family and she was well-educated. She and her siblings were seduced by Nazism. Her brother Hans joined the Hitler Youth and she joined the League of German Girls. Hans became disillusioned with Nazi indoctrination and quit. Sophie graduated from high school and became a kindergarten teacher. She was forced into National Labor Service and she hated the military oppressiveness of the organization. After her six months, she went to college and became a liberal and an intellectual and traveled in those circles. In 1937, her father (who had warned his children of the evilness of Nazism) was arrested for criticizing Hitler at work. Her brother was arrested for anti-Nazi activities. He and his friends formed the White Rose to encourage passive resistance. Sophie was not originally in it. Her boyfriend wrote letters from the Eastern Front where he witnessed the executions of Soviet prisoners and Jews. When she learned of Hans group, she insisted on joining. The White Rose distributed leaflets and did some graffiti (“Down with Hitler”). The leaflets would be left at Munich University. On Feb. 18, 1943 they left leaflets at the university during classes. This was the sixth set of leaflets and they began: “Our current ‘state’ is the dictatorship of evil.” They questioned students whether they wanted to accept “the machinery of state, under the command of criminals and drunkards?” Hans and Sophie were safely away when they realized they still had some leaflets in a suitcase. They went back in to hurriedly place them. Sophie threw some from a balcony and she was seen by the janitor who happened to be a fanatical Nazi. Hans and Sophie were arrested. Hans confessed under torture and Sophie decided to admit her involvement to shelter others. She, Hans, and Christoph Probst were guillotined on Feb. 22, 1943. Before her death she proclaimed: “Somebody, after all, had to make a statement. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just don’t dare express themselves as we did.” Millions of copies of the sixth leaflet were printed by the British and dropped over Germany. Sophie became the most famous female anti-Nazi figure in the war.
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/sophie-scholl-and-white-rose
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Scholl
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