home introduction task resources acquire information use of information presentation evaluation assessment teacher
The White Rose
Resources
Source 13
Source 14
Source 15
Source 16
Source 17
Source 18
Source 19
Source 20
Source 21
Source 22
Source 23
Source
13
The members of the White Rose distributed six leaflets.
This was the last one.
Fellow Fighters in the Resistance!
Shaken and broken, our people behold the loss of the men
of Stalingrad. Three hundred and thirty thousand German
men have been senselessly and irresponsibly driven to
death and destruction by the inspired strategy of our
World War I Private First Class. Fuhrer, we thank you!
The German people are in ferment. Will we continue to
entrust the fate of our armies to a dilettante? Do we
want to sacrifice the rest of German youth to the base
ambitions of a Party clique? No, never!
The day of reckoning has come - the reckoning of German
youth with the most abominable tyrant our people have
ever been forced to endure. In the name of German youth
we demand restitution by Adolf Hitler's state of our
personal freedom, the most precious treasure we have,
out of which he has swindled us in the most miserable
way.
We grew up in a state in which all free expression of
opinion is unscrupulously suppressed. The Hitler Youth,
the SA, the SS have tried to drug us, to revolutionize
us, to regiment us in the most promising young years of
our lives. "Philosophical training" is the name given to
the despicable method by which our budding intellectual
development is muffled in a fog of empty phrases. A
system of selection of leaders at once unimaginably
devilish and narrow-minded trains up its future party
bigwigs in the "Castles of the Knightly Order" to become
Godless, impudent, and conscienceless exploiters and
executioners - blind, stupid hangers-on of the Fuhrer.
We "Intellectual Workers" are the ones who should put
obstacles in the path of this caste of overlords.
Soldiers at the front are regimented like schoolboys by
student leaders and trainees for the post of Gauleiter,
and the lewd jokes of the Gauleiters insult the honor of
the women students.
German women students at the university in Munich have given a dignified reply to the besmirching of their honor, and German students have defended the women in the universities and have stood firm.... That is a beginning of the struggle for our free self- determination - without which intellectual and spiritual values cannot be created. We thank the brave comrades, both men and women, who have set us brilliant examples.
For us there is but one slogan: fight against the party! Get out of the party organization, which are used to keep our mouths sealed and hold us in political bondage! Get out of the lecture rooms of the SS corporals and sergeants and the party bootlickers! We want genuine learning and real freedom of opinion. No threat can terrorize us, not even the shutting down of the institutions of higher learning. This is the struggle of each and every one of us for our future, our freedom, and our honor under a regime conscious of its moral responsibility.
Freedom and honor! For ten long years Hitler and his
coadjutor have manhandled, squeezed, twisted, and
debased these two splendid German words to the point of
nausea, as only dilettantes can, casting the highest
values of a nation before swine. They have sufficiently
demonstrated in the ten years of destruction of all
material and intellectual freedom, of all moral
substance among the German people, what they understand
by freedom and honor. The frightful bloodbath has opened
the eyes of even the stupidest German - it is a
slaughter which they arranged in the name of "freedom
and honor of the German nation" throughout Europe, and
which they daily start anew. The name of Germany is
dishonored for all time if German youth does not finally
rise, take revenge, and atone, smash its tormentors, and
set up a new Europe of the spirit.
Students! The German people look to us. As in 1813 the
people expected us to shake off the Napoleonic yoke, so
in 1943 they look to us to break the National Socialist
terror through the power of the spirit. Beresina and
Stalingrad are burning in the East. The dead of
Stalingrad implore us to take action. "Up, up, my
people, let smoke and flame be our sign!"
Our people stand ready to rebel against the Nationals
Socialist enslavement of Europe in a fervent new
breakthrough of freedom and honor.
Source
14
One morning I heard a girl tell another on the steps of
the school, “Now Hitler has taken over the government.”
The radio and newspapers promised, “Now there will be
better times in Germany. Hitler is at the helm.”
For the first time politics had come into our lives.
Hans was fifteen at the time, Sophie was twelve. We
heard much oratory about the fatherland, comradeship,
unity of the Volk, and love of country. This was
impressive, and we listened closely when we heard such
talk in school and on the street. For we loved our land
dearly—the woods, the river, the old gray stone fences
running along the steep slopes between orchards and
vineyards. We sniffed the odor of moss, damp earth, and
sweet appies whenever we thought of our homeland. Every
inch of it was familiar and dear. Our fatherland—what
was it but the extended home of all those who shared a
language and belonged to one people. We loved it, though
we couldn’t say why. After all, up to now we hadn’t
talked very much about it. But now these things were
being written across the sky in flaming letters. And
Hitler—so we heard on all sides— Hitler would help this
fatherland to achieve greatness, fortune, and
prosperity. He would see to it that everyone had work
and bread. He would not rest until every German was
mdependent, free, and happy in his fatherland. We found
this good, and we were willing to do all we could to
contribute to the common effort. 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 Iixed 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.
Source
15
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'at times he would say,
"Don't belive them - they are wolves and deceivers
and they are misusing the German people shamefully".
Sometimes he would
compare Hitler to the Pied Piper of Hamelin, who with his flute
led the children to destruction.
But Father's words were spoken to the wind, and his
attempts to restrain us were of no avail against our
youthful enthusiasm.
Source
16
We went on trips with our
comrades in the Hitler Youth and took long hikes through
our new land, the Swabian Jura. No matter how long and
strenuous a march we made, we were too enthusiastic to
admit that we were tired. After all, it was spiendid
suddenly to find common interests and allegiances with
young people whom we might otherwise not have gotten to
know at all. We attended evening gatherings in our
various homes, listened to re ings, sang, played games,
or worked at handcrafts. T told us that we must dedicate
our lives to a great eau We were taken seriously—taken
seriously in a remarka way— and that aroused our
enthusiasm. We felt we belong to a large, weil-organized
body that honored and embraced.everyone, from the
ten-year-old to the grown man.
We
sensed that there was a role for us in a historic
process, in a movement that was transforming the rnasses
into a Volk. We believed that whatever bored us or gave us
a feeling of distaste would disappear of itself. One night,
as we lay und the wide starry sky after a long cycling
tour, a friend - a fifteen-year-old girl—said quite suddenly
and out of the blue “Everything would be fine, but this
thing about the Jews is something I just can’t swallow.”
The troop leader assured us that Hitler knew what he was
doing and that for the sake of the greater good we would
have to accept certain difficult and incomprehensible
things. But the girl was not satisfied with this answer.
Others took her side, and suddenly the attitudes in our
varying home backgrounds we reflected in the
conversation. We spent a restless night in that tent, but
afterwards we were just too tired, and the next day was
inexpressibly spiendid and filled with new experiences.
The conversation of the night before was for the moment
forgotten. In our groups there developed a sense of
belonging that carried us safely through the difficulties and loneliness of adolescence, or at least gave
us that illusion.
Source
17
Hans had learned a
repertory of songs, and his troop enjoyed hearing him
sing to his own guitar accompaniment. He sang not only
the songs of the Hitler Youth but als folksongs of many
countries and peoples. What a magic effect the singing
of a Russian or Norwegian song coul produce with its
gloomy, impelling melancholy. How much it told about
these peoples and their lands.
But after a time Hans underwent a remarkable change; he
became a different person. Some disturbing element had
entered his being. This had nothing to do with Father’s
objections; he was able to close his ears to those. It
was something else. The leaders had told him that his
songs were not allowed, and when he made light of this
prohibition, they threatened punishment. Why should he
be for- bidden to sing these songs that were so full of
beauty? Merely because they had been created by other
races? He could see no sense in it; he was depressed,
and his light hearted manner disappeared.
Source
18
At this time lie was honored with a very special
assignment. He was chosen to be the flagbearer when his
troop attended the Party Rally in Nuremberg. His joy was
great. But when he returned, we could not believe our
eyes. He looked tired and showed signs of a great
disappointment. We did not expect any explanation from
him, but gradually we found out that the image and model
of the Hitler Youth which had been impressed upon him
there was totally different from his own ideal. The
official view demanded discipline and conformity down to
the last detail, inciuding personal life, while he would
have wanted every boy to follow his own bent and give
free play to his talents. The individual should enrich
the life of the group with his own contribution of
imagination and ideas. In Nuremberg, however, everything
was directed according to a set pattern. Day and night
the talk was about Treue—loyalty. But what was the
foundation of Treue, after all, but being true to
oneself? Rebellion was stirring in Hans’s mind.
Source
19
Soon afterward a new prohibition upset him. One of the
leaders snatched out of his hands a book by his favorite
author, Sternstunden der Meschheit by Stefan Zweig. It
was banned, he was told. But why? There was no answer. A
similar judgment was pronounced against another German
author whom Hans liked very much.This man had had to
flee Germany because he had defended the idea of peace.
Source
20
Finally the open break came. Some time before, Hans had
been promoted to the rank of Fahnleinführer— troop
leader. He and his boys had sewn a handsome banner,
bearing in its design a great mythical beast. This flag
was something special; it was dedicated to the Führer,
and the boys had pledged their loyalty to the banner
because it was the symbol of their fellowship. One
evening, however, when they had come into formation with
their banner and stood in review before a higher-echelon
leader, the unheard-of happened. The leader suddenly and
without warning ordered the little flagbearer, a
cheerful twelve-year-old, to hand over the banner.
“You don’t need a banner of your own. Use the one
prescribed for everyone.”
Hans was deeply disturbed. Since when this rule? Didn't
the cadre leader know what this particular flag meant to
the troop? After all, it was not just another piece of
cloth that could be changed at will.
The order to hand over the banner was repeated. The boy
stood rigid, and Hans knew how he feit and that he would
refuse. When the order was given for the third time, in
a threatening voice, Hans noticed that the flag was
trembling. At that he lost control. He quietly stepped
from his place in the ranks and slapped the cadre
leader.
That put an end to Hans’ career as Fühnleinführer.
Source
21
The spark of tormenting doubt which was kindled in Hans
spread to the rest of us.
In those days we heard a story about a young teacher who
had unaccountably disappeared. He had been ordered to
stand before an SA squad, and each man was ordered to
pass by the teacher and to spit in his face. After that
incident no one saw him him again. He had disappeared
into a concentration camp. “What did he do?” we asked
his mother in bewilderment. “Nothing. Nothing,” she
cried out in despair. “He just wasn’t a Nazi, it was
impossible for him to belong. That was his crime.”
Source
22
Oh God, at that the doubts which had arisen soon turned
to deep sadness and then burst into a flame of
rebellion. Within us the world of purity and faith was
crumbling, bit by bit. What was reaily happening to our
fatherland? No freedom, no flourishing life, no
prosperity or happiness for anyone who lived in it.
Gradually one bond after another was clamped around
Germany, until finaily all were imprisoned in a great
dungeon.
“Father, what is a concentration camp?”
He told us what he knew and suspected and added:
“That is war. War in the midst of peace and within our
own people. War against the defenseless individual. War
against human happiness and the freedom of its children.
It is a frightful crime.”
But perhaps the tormenting disappointment was only a bad
dream, from which we would awaken in the morning. In our
hearts arose a violent struggie. We tried to defend our
old ideals against everything we had seen and heard.
“But does the Führer have any idea of the concentration
camps?”
“How could he not know, since they’ve existed for years
and were set up by his closest friends? And why didn’t
he use his power to do away with them at once? Why are
those who are released from them forbidden on pain of
death to tel1 anything about what they went through?”
There awoke in us a feeling of living in a bouse once
beautiful and clean but in whose cellars behind locked
doors frightfui, evil, and fearsome things were
happening. And as doubt had slowly taken hold of us, so
now there grew within us a horror and a fear, the first
germ of unbounded uncertainty. “
Source
23
"But how is it possible that in our country a thing like
this could take over the government?”
“In a time of great troubles,” explained Father, “all
sorts come to the surface. Just recall the bad times we
had to live through: first the war, then the difficult
postwar years, infiation, and great poverty. Then came
unemployment. 1f a man’s bare existence is undermined
and his future is nothing but a gray, impenetrable wall,
he will listen to prornises and temptations and not ask
who offers them.”
“But after all, Hitler did keep his promise to do away
with unemployment.”
“No one denies that. But don’t ask about his methods! He
started up the munitions industry, he’s building
barracks. Do you know where that will lead? He could
have eliminated unemployment by means of peacetime
industries—in a dictatorship that can easily be managed.
But surely we are not like cattle, satisfied if we have
fodder for our bellies. Material security alone will
never be enough to make us happy. After all, we’re human
beings, with free opinions and our own beliefs. A regime
which would tam- per with these things has lost every
spark of respect for man. Yet that is the first thing
which we must demand from it.”
This talk between Father and ourselves occurred on a
long hike in the spring. Once again we had thoroughly
talked out our questions and doubts.
Die Weisse Rose
Sophie Scholl
Hans Scholl
Copyright: Albert van der Kaap, 2010