The White Rose

Set in Nazi Germany, The White Rose is a true and glorious story about a group of student soldiers at Munich's Ludwig Maximilian University who chose to defy Adolf Hitler. Led by the siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl, their courageous acts of dissidence were ones of conscience and were motivated by morality, by their deep Christian faith, and by their sincere belief in the sanctity and the inalienable worth of every human life.

Hans and Sophie stood for a principled, action-oriented resistance to tyranny. And although they preached and practiced nonviolence, they were anything but passive.

And they were effective. Indeed, their multiple leaflet and graffiti efforts struck at the heart of the regime, shook it, and threatened it to its very core. No less than the Fuhrer himself knew of their actions and demanded their arrest and execution.

As reservists in medical companies, Hans and his comrades served in numerous campaigns, including deployment on the Russian Front. There they witnessed firsthand the terrible destruction and barbarous atrocities committed by, and in the name of, their beloved Fatherland. They saw with their own eyes the horrors of the Warsaw Ghetto.

They refused to abide the callous extermination of innocents and rebelled against the apathy of their fellow Germans. Confronted by evil, they would not remain silent. In the face of lies, they stood for truth.

Hans was their helmsman. Fighting enslavement, he struggled for liberty. Against the cult of darkness, he offered light. And combatting the brutes who called themselves Nazis, in simplicity and grace, Hans christened their group the White Rose.

For eight extraordinary months, all the while building his network throughout the Reich, he outfoxed the Gestapo. Alas, in February 1943, Hans, Sophie, and four others were caught, tried for treason, and sent to the guillotine. Even then, Hans's resolve didn't fade, as just seconds before his death, in a voice calm and clear, he boomed out, "Es lebe die Freiheit!" Let freedom live!

So it must be.

Es lebe die Freiheit. Let freedom live.

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