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What made college students risk their lives to resist Hitler? Personal letters and diaries provide an intimate view into the hearts and minds of a brother and sister who became martyrs in the anti-Nazi resistance during World War II.
Idealistic, serious, and sensible, Hans and Sophie Scholl joined the Hitler Youth with youthful and romantic enthusiasm. But as Hitler’s grip throttled Germany and Nazi atrocities mounted, Hans and Sophie emerged from their adolescence with the conviction that at all costs they must raise their voices against the murderous Nazi regime.
In May of 1942, with Germany still winning the war, an improbable little band of students at Munich University began distributing the leaflets of the White Rose. In the very city where the Nazis got their start, they demanded resistance to Germany’s war efforts and confronted their readers with what they had learned of Hitler’s “final solution”: “Here we see the most terrible crime committed against the dignity of humankind, a crime that has no counterpart in human history.”
These broadsides were secretly drafted and printed in a Munich basement by Hans Scholl, by now a young medical student and military conscript, and a handful of young co-conspirators that included his twenty-one-year-old sister Sophie. The leaflets placed the Scholls and their friends in mortal danger, and it wasn’t long before they were captured and executed.
As their letters and diaries reveal, the Scholls were not primarily motivated by political beliefs, but rather came to their convictions through personal spiritual search that eventually led them to sacrifice their lives for what they believed was right. Interwoven with commentary on the progress of Hitler’s campaign, the letters and diary entries range from veiled messages about the course of a war they wanted their country to lose, to descriptions of hikes and skiing trips and meditations on Goethe, Dostoyevsky, Rilke, and Verlaine; from entreaties to their parents for books and sweets hard to get in wartime, to deeply humbled and troubled entreaties to God for an understanding of the presence of such great evil in the world. There are alarms when Hans is taken into military custody, when their father is jailed, and when their friends are wounded on the eastern front. But throughout – even to the end, when the Scholls’ sense of peril is most oppressive – there appear in their writings spontaneous outbursts of joy and gratitude for the gifts of nature, music, poetry, and art. In the midst of evil and degradation, theirs is a celebration of the spiritual and the humane.
Illustrated with photographs of Hans and Sophie Scholl and their friends and co-conspirators.
At the Heart of the White Rose is a compilation of letters and diary entries shared between a brother and sister during the infamous reign of Adolf Hitler. Hans and Sophie Scholl, born in Germany, are young people on a mission. Together, they participate in a non-violent, intellectual resistance group in Nazi Germany called the White Rose. These are two very intelligent people with hearts set on helping thwart the enemy. Through their efforts, they manage to form a vital resistance movement among their peers. Although they were both martyred for their efforts, they impacted many lives and will be remembered for their stand against horrendous evil.
The first half was a very slow read, but I devoured the second half in a few hours. These quotes from Sophie are incredibly poignant: "Isn’t it mysterious – and frightening, too, when one doesn’t know the reason – that everything should be so beautiful in spite of the terrible things that are happening? My sheer delight in all things beautiful has been invaded by a great unknown, an inkling of the creator whom his creatures glorify with their beauty. —That’s why man alone can be ugly, because he has the free will to disassociate himself from this song of praise. Nowadays one is often tempted to believe that he’ll drown the song with gunfire and curses and blasphemy. But it dawned on me last spring that he can’t, and I’ll try to take the winning side." "I’m still so remote from God that I don’t even sense his presence when I pray. Sometimes when I utter God’s name, in fact, I feel like sinking into a void. It isn’t a frightening or dizzy-making sensation, it’s nothing at all – and that’s far more terrible. But prayer is the only remedy for it, and however many little devils scurry around inside me, I shall cling to the rope God has thrown me in Jesus Christ, even if my numb hands can no long feel it."
Hans’s words are striking and impressive, anchored to an intellectual tradition, firm in conviction, articulate in expression. Yet it is Sophie, wittier than Hans, plainer in appearance, highly artistic, deeply spiritual, and consumed by the beauty of nature despite the ugliness that intrudes upon her, who truly captivates the reader. As Richard Gilman observes in the Preface: ‘Although one’s admiration for Hans never falters, it’s Sophie who breaks your heart.’
The hours I spent alone with Hans and Sophie made me so very grateful that I read this collection. It is often painful to read, because we know how the story ends. But Hans and Sophie's twin stories are no less beautiful to experience through this collection of letters and random diary entries that cover several years leading up to their untimely deaths.
I’d never heard of Hans and Sophie Scholl or the White Rose before. In one way I’m glad to be just learning their story now against the backdrop of our current political and cultural climate. May God raise up many more Hans and Sophie Scholls in our day. May we, like these young idealists, be willing to allow all our wish-dreams to be shattered by Jesus.
