Please reconsider cooperating with us, Miss Scholl.
We would take it into account by your punishment.
Think about your poor parents and the shame you bring on them.
Mr. Mohr, first you threaten us with high treason. And now you want me
to give away the alleged accomplices, so I can save myself?
Clarifying an act of crime is not a treason.
My brother's comrades have nothing to do with this.
Locher!
Take her away!
I am very worried about Fritz.
How could I write only his name into my notebook?
- Was he involved in this? - Absolutely not.
- And he really didn't notice anything? - Nothing at all.
Besides as a soldier he keeps his oath to Hitler.
We fought over this many times. I was against the support of the Front,
because it prolongs the war. This didn't please him.
- Is he in Stalingrad, too? - He used to be there.
Luckily, they transferred him to Lemberg in one of the last groups.
He lies in the hospital there. They cut off two of his fingers,
because he and his men lied outdoors for weeks
day and night at 5 F.
I really hope he can survive the war, and not become its victim.
What will happen, when Fritz finds out you're here?
He will understand.
I hope so.
What does he look like?
Tall, dark hair.
A free spirit.
He always made me laugh.
The unconditional love is so amazing!
And when was the last time you saw him?
Last summer. We were in Karolinen channel on North See.
We sailed out in a fishing boat early in the morning
and went to the beach in a carriage in the evening.
At night we sang and talked about freedom.
And there were no soldiers, no planes, no bombs!
Only the see, the sky,
the wind and our dreams.
Dear God, what can I do, besides confiding in you.
There is nothing I can do but to give you my heart.
You created us in your own image, and our hearts are so restless,
until we find peace in you.
Amen.
Here, drink this.
February 20
This is the real coffee.
You also wish for the happiness of the German people, Miss Scholl?
- Yes. - You didn't plant a bomb like the coward Elser
in a brewery here in Munich in 1939.
You chose the wrong slogans but fought with peaceful means.
So why do you want to punish us anyway?
Because of the law! No law, no order!
The law you're referring to used to defend people's freedom of speech
before Hitler took power in 1933. But now, under his government
free speech is punished by prison or death. Is that order?
If we don't abide by the law what else should we hold on to,
- regardless who's law it is? - On your conscience.
What?
Here is the law, here are the people.
And as a criminalist, I have a duty to check whether people's behavior
matches the law and if not,
- to locate the problem. - Laws change.
- The conscience doesn't. - What if everyone decided alone,
what is right or wrong by his conscience. Even if
the criminals succeeded in overthrowing our Fuhrer, what would happen then?
Unavoidably a criminal chaos! The so-called free will,
federalism, democracy? We had all that already,
and we know where it leads to.
Without Hitler and his party finally there would be justice and order for everyone,
and protection against self-will for everyone not just collaborators.
Self-will. Collaborators.
- How come you are so contemptuous? - You are contemptuous,
when you consider my brother and me criminals because of a few flyers,
although we've done nothing else but tried to convince with words.
You and your privileges that you and your mob shamefully exploit.
We paid for your education in the middle of war.
I was allowed only to become a tailor in the damned democracy. Do you know
who made me a policeman? French who occupied Pfalz,
not the German democrats. And were it not for the movement,
I would still be a policeman in Pirmasens.
Shameful Versailles Treaty, inflation, unemployment,
economic crisis, all of this was eliminated by our Fuhrer Adolf Hitler.
And also lead Germany into a murderous war,
- in which every next victim is in vain. - In the heroic war!
You get the same food stamps as we, the people
that you despise and fight against.
You're better off anyway.
You had no need to do this. How do you there to rebel against this?
Our Fuhrer and German people are protecting you!
Here inside the Wittelsbacher Palace, or my family in complicity!
Our German soldiers are liberating Europe from plutocracy
from bolshevism, and are fighting for a great free Germany.
Germany's territory will not be occupied again, you have my word!
Until soon the war is over and again foreign troops will march in
and all the nations will point at us saying we didn't fight against Hitler.
And what will you say when we win and
after all the blood and sorrow, prosperity and freedom come to Germany,
of which you yourself dreamed of, when you joined the German Girl's League.
All the German people lost that belief under Hitler's rule.
And what if all happens the way I said anyway?
- You are a protestant? - Yes.
Even the Church is asking the disciples to follow their lead,
- even in doubt. - In Church, everyone is free.
But Hitler and Nazis don't allow any other choices!
Why does a young person like you take such risk for the wrong ideas?
Because of my conscience.
I don't understand, that you with your talent
don't think and feel like a National Socialist German.
Freedom, honor, prosperity,
a morally responsible country, that is our ideology!
So the horrible massacre, that the National Socialists
caused throughout Europe in the name of freedom and honor,
didn't open your eyes?
The German name will remain shameful forever, unless finally
the German youth brings Hitler down and helps build a new, spiritual Europe.
The new Europe can only be National Socialistic.
And if your Fuhrer is a lunatic?
Think about racial hatred! We had a Jewish teacher
who was put in front of us by SA group,
and everyone was ordered to walk in front of him and spit in his face.
And that night he disappeared like thousands of others since 1941.
Supposedly to do work in the East.
You believe this nonsense? The Jews moved away themselves.
Soldiers from the Eastern Front talk about massacres in concentration camps.
Hitler wants to exterminate all the Jews in Europe!
He was preaching this madness 20 years ago already. How could you believe,
that Jews are a different race from us?
Those people brought us only misery. But you belong
to confused youths, who understand nothing. Bad upbringing.
Probably it's our own fault. I pictured a young girl like you differently.
What do you think, how terrified I was, when I learned
that the Nazis were killing mentally impaired children with poison gas?
My mom's friends described to me how the children from Church Welfare program
were taken away by trucks.
The kids were asking, where the trucks were going to.
"They're driving to heaven," answered nurses.
So the kids got into the trucks singing.
Do you think my upbringing was bad, because I fell for those people?
These are lives unworthy of living. You should know as a nurse,
you have seen the mentally ill.
Yes, and that's why I know precisely, that no man, under any circumstances,
has a right to pass judgment, that's God's right.
Nobody knows, what is happening in a soul of a mentally ill patient.
Nobody knows, what secret inner maturity can come from grief.
Every life is valuable.
You must get used to the fact that the new age is dawning.
What you're saying, has nothing to do with reality.
What I'm saying has to do with the facts, with habits,
- with moral and God. - There is no God...
Then it wasn't so, that you had relied on your brother,
that he'd been doing the right thing, and that you merely followed him?
Should we write it in the protocol like that?
No, Mr. Mohr, because it's not the truth.
You known, I have a son, who is a year younger than you.
He also had foolish ideas sometimes, but now he's on the Eastern Front,
because he realized, that he must perform his duty.
Mr. Mohr, do you still believe in our final victory?
Miss Scholl, if you had thought about everything,
you wouldn't be involved in these activities.
It's about your life.
Here... For the record I ask you this:
"After our discussions, did you come to the conclusion,
that your and your brother's acts
in this moment of the war, are seen as a crime against community,
and especially because of our tough fighting army on the Eastern Front,
you must face the severest punishment?"
No, in my eyes that's not so.
Admitting a mistake doesn't mean betraying your brother.
But betraying the idea. I would do it again, because not I,
but you have the wrong world view.
I still think I did the best for my people.
I have no regrets and I will take the responsibility for the consequences.
- Call the notekeeper. - Yes.
Tell the boss that we have finished.
Mohr built a golden bridge for me, if I renounced our idea.
- And? - I didn't take it.
Why not?
Sophie, you are so young, you have to live for your ideas and for yourself.
And for your family. For God's sake, take his offer.
There is no way back.
Air-raid alert.
Get down, away from the window! Down here is the safest.
Get down!
It won't take long until we are free!
February 21
The one they just brought is not Schmorell,
but Christoph Probst.
Also because of treason.
I am really sorry. I thought...
He has 3 children.
The youngest was just born
and his wife has puerperal fever.
Miss Scholl, you must go see your prosecutor now.
Hurry.
Here are the indictments.
Your trial is tomorrow in front of the first senate of the Munich People's Court.
I enclosed the written invitation.
- Tomorrow already? - The matter brooks no delay.
Treason, undermining the defensive power and supporting the enemy.
And the trial is already tomorrow!
What a beautiful sunny day...
I sincerely pray to You,
I call upon You,
even if I know nothing of You than that in You alone my deliverance is,
I pray to You,
dear God, don't turn away from me, my glorious father.
Amen
My name is Klein, I am your lawyer appointed by the court.
Have you read the indictments?
- Yes. - Any questions?
What will happen to my family in Ulm?
Please!
This will be decided in another place.
I just want to know what will happen to them. You are my lawyer!
You have a tone in your voice like I was responsible for your situation.
I am entitled to know what will happen to my family. You know that!
Do you think you have a right to make requests?
Whatever my brother's sentence will be... I don't want a milder punishment.
I am just as guilty as he is from your point of view.
You have nothing more to say?
- No. - You and your brother probably think that you don't have to fit in
with the German people. But you are mistaken!
The chairman of the People's Court will come especially for this from Berlin.
He will make you forget this nonsense, Miss, and he will make you
and your brother feel so small!
Open the door!
- Any questions? - No, no, See you tomorrow in the court.
What a coward.
Freisler will present you tomorrow as vile criminals.
He used to be a soviet commissar. He must beware of his home front.
Our father used to say: I wish you got through life honestly and freely,
however difficult it may be.
Will there be public audience tomorrow?
Yes, surely. This will be a show, to make example for the others.
Then Freisler will surely talk openly about our flyers.
And everyone will hear, what we think. The students will certainly
start riots, when they find out, what happened just because of a few flyers.
After the trial you will be imprisoned first, and in the worst case:
Everyone has a right to 99 days before the execution.
My brother used to say: "Hard spirit, soft heart."
I had a dream that
in my arms I was holding a child in a long white dress.
I could feel her warmth... Suddenly, the earth moved
and right under me the ice cracked.
I started slipping. I looked at the child
and had just enough time to put her gently to safety...
I fell, yet I felt liberated and relaxed...
The child in white is our idea and it survived.
- Scholl, prepare for the transport! - She must dress properly first!
Thank you.
February 22
- God be with you, Sophie! - God be with you, Else!
Thank you so much.
10:00 a.m.
- How are you? - And you?
Quiet now! Speak only when asked!
- You must fight for yourself now. - Quiet now!
- Heil Hitler. - Heil Hitler!
I hereby open the trial before the first senate of the People's Court
against Hans Fritz Scholl, Sophia Magdalena Scholl from Munich,
and Christoph Hermann Probst from Aldrans charged with high treason,
undermining our defensive power and supporting the enemy.
Probst, Christoph!
You are married with three children?
Yes, 2 and a half, 1 and 3 months and 4 weeks old.
And how can you, a selfish washout, raise
- three children to be real Germans? - I am a good father and...
And what?
And totally apolitical.
He calls himself apolitical... Don't make me laugh.
This is your handwriting, right?
- Yes. - Neither the care of the the National Socialist state
for your education nor the fact
that the National Socialist politics gave you a chance
to have a family as a student, didn't stop you
from completing this manuscript when Scholl asked you to,
in which the heroic battle in Stalingrad is used
to call our Fuhrer a war opportunist
and to call for capitulation. Do you admit it?
Yes. But it was only a draft...
There is no "only" in the German people's battle for survival.
I wanted to say that I was suffering from a psychotic depression when I wrote this...
Really? You were depressed at the time,
and that was the reason?
I was suffering from a psychotic depression when I wrote this.
The war, my wife's illness, she is still...
Oh, stop with that! That is no excuse for so disgusting treason!
I denied it in writing yesterday.
I also insist on the fact, that I didn't support the action
with financial means, nor by providing the material,
nor did I make nor distribute the scripts.
- My mental condition was... - Yes, we all heard that you
you said you were a psychopathic idiot so you would be spared.
Mr. Chairman, my children need their father.
German children don't need such a bad example.
You are unworthy, Probst!
- Defense, do you have any questions? - No, Mr. Chairman.
Take him away!
Scholl, Hans...
- You study medicine since 1939? - Yes.
And thanks to the National Socialist government
- you're in the 8th semester. - That is correct.
On country's expense! So another parasite.
In between you were in French war campaign in a military hospital
and worked in medical service on the Eastern Front July to November 1942?
That is also correct. But I want to say...
- You say nothing unless I ask you! - I want to say I am not a parasite...
Shut your mouth or I will have you removed!
...because as a soldier of a student company it was my duty to study.
So let's talk about duty.
As a student you have a duty to an exemplary collective work.
That and the care that the state provided you with,
didn't stop you in the beginning of summer 1942
from spreading four "White Rose" flyers, which
were predicting the defeat of Germany, and calling upon
passive resistance of all citizens, sabotage in the weapons production
and jumping at every opportunity to take away the National Socialist way of life
and government from German people. - That is outrageous!
- Freedom, of all things... - Traitors... of fatherland...
Scholl, do you admit that?
- Yes. - And you cowardly involved your sister.
- It was my decision. - Did I ask you, defendant?
- I must tell the truth. - Spare us your comments!
Did you write these flyers, because you think,
that the German people can only come through war by betraying the Fuhrer?
- The war cannot... - Yes or no? It's not a difficult question!
We don't stand a chance against America, England and Russia.
Look at the map for yourself!
Hitler is leading Germans to the abyss with mathematical certainty.
He can't win this war anymore, he can only extend it.
You're badly mistaken in the will to fight
and the endurance of German people!
Because of your terrorist support of the enemy
even more German soldiers will die!
Only if the war ends soon, then...
- To end the war? How? ...then this will stop...
Do you think you can decide about war and peace?
All German people want a total war!
The German people are bleeding and they want peace. Hitler and his supporters
are responsible for the unbelievable massacre in Europe,
that far exceeds every measure. Everyone here knows...
- Everyone... - What are you babbling about?
You mean dog even take the liberty
to insult in front of Fuhrer's court?
I was on the Eastern Front like many from the audience.
You were not!
I had to watch with my own eyes rivers of blood in Poland and Russia.
I had to watch how women and children
- were shot by German soldiers. - Are you so stupid,
that you think that even one of your fellow Germans will believe that?
If Hitler and you were not afraid of our opinion,
- we wouldn't stand here today. - Shut up already!
He is a rogue anyway...
You are a fool... and a weak traitor.
End of hearing.
- Any more questions? - No.
- I have no question, Mr. Chairman. - Scholl, Hans, get back to your seat.
Sophia Scholl...
Are you not ashamed, that you have spread the flyers
- with treasonable contents in the University? - No, I don't feel ashamed.
You just threw them in the hallway... was that it?
No, that wasn't all, I wanted the last flyers...
Speak louder, we can barely understand you.
I wanted to spread the last batch of leaflets,
- so, our idea could quickly... - idea? You call this filth your idea!
They both may seem similar to a complete idiot, but not to a German student.
- We fight with our words. - You actually wrote:
"So separate yourself from National Socialist lowlifes!"
Have a look at yourself and you will see a lowlife.
Where did you get the paper for the pamphlets?
- Bought and from university. - Oh, from university?
Malicious stealing of public benefits! And paper that is so scarce!
This is also high treason.
With these flyers my brother and I tried to open
the eyes of people and stop the bloodshed of other nations and Jews sooner,
as the Alliance will stop it anyhow.
Should we forever be outcast and hated by the whole world?
A master race is not interested in that.
What your master race really wants is peace.
And that human dignity is respected again.
It wants God, conscience and compassion.
What are you babbling about?
The total war will bring victory to German people,
and they will come out great and pure from this thunderstorm of steel.
What we said and wrote, is what many others think.
- They just don't dare say it. - Be quiet already!
- Any questions? - No.
Process finished. Take her away!
Let's hear the final words from the defendants.
- I am a father... - Remove these people from the courtroom!
I am Robert Scholl, the father of two of the defendants.
- I want to say something in defense... - I don't allow it! Remove him!
- Get out, take him out! - There is also another justice!
Silence!
Now the final words. Defendants, rise!
- Probst? - I beg you to spare me, for the sake of my children.
I am guilty of all counts.
And you, Scholl?
I beg you, your honor. Spare this man, and punish me instead.
If you have nothing to say on your own behalf, be silent!
Sophia Scholl?
Soon, you will stand where we are standing now.
Every decent human being in this room is outraged at what you said.
In the name of the German people,
in the criminal case against Hans Fritz Scholl from Munich,
Sophia Magdalena Scholl from Munich
and Christoph Hermann Probst from Aldrans,
the first senate of the People's Court on the basis of the main hearing
on February 22, 1943 came to a conclusion:
The defendants have been sending out flyers during the war, in order to sabotage
the arms production and to overthrow the National Socialist way of life of our people,
to propagate defeatist ideas and to disgrace our Fuhrer.
By doing so they helped the enemies of the state,
and demoralized our troops.
Therefore they are sentenced to death.
They are forever deprived of any rights as citizens.
They will cover the expenses of this trial.
Your terror will be over soon.
Today you hang us, and tomorrow it will be your turn.
Take them away!
- Heil Hitler! - Heil Hitler!
This way!
If you have any farewell words,
write them quickly, Miss Scholl.
It is today?
I thought everybody has 99 days...
Better start writing.
Come. Someone is here to see you.
See me?
Please don't worry.
I would do it all over again.
You did everything right. I am proud of both of you.
My little girl.
Mum...
How you stand here beside me, brave and steadfast.
You will never again come through our door.
We shall meet again in the eternity.
You know, Sophie. Jesus...
Yes, Mother, but you too...
Miss Scholl, please
I've just said goodbye to my parents.
They'll understand.
Come with me, please.
Miss Scholl, my name is Alt.
I am the prison priest.
Oh, my God, the almighty father,
transform this dust into fertile soil
so that your seed may not fall there in vain,
at least let grow out of it a great longing for you, its creator,
whom it so often avoids.
- Amen. - Amen.
I beg you to give me the blessing of God.
God the Father gives you his blessing, for you are created in his own image.
God the Son gives you his blessing,
for his suffering and death have saved you.
God the Holy Spirit gives you his blessing,
for he has prepared and consecrated you for his temple.
I pray to almighty God to have mercy in his judgment
and to protect you in eternal life.
- Amen. - Amen.
No love is greater than of those who sacrifice their life for their friends.
God is with you.
This is against the regulation, but...
Please, hurry.
Thank you.
It was not in vain.
Miss Scholl.
The sun is still shining.
Sophia Magdalena Scholl,
The Secretary of Justice has decided in his decree of 22.2.1943,
that he won't grant pardon,
but let the justice take its course.
It is 17:00. The execution is to be carried out.
Long live Freedom!
The so-called People's Court sentenced to death
the following members of "White Rose":
The following people were sentenced to prison:
The other courts also passed draconian sentences against
the members of "White Rose".
The 6th "White Rose" flyer was brought by Helmuth von Moltke
through Scandinavia to England. Millions of copies were
dropped by the allied planes over Germany in 1943.
The title is: A German flyer,
Manifest of Munich students.