Written by Alyssa Sonnenburg
“We are Christian and we are German. Therefore, we are responsible for Germany.” ~ Sophie Scholl
In January of 1933, Hitler’s Third Reich rose to power in Germany. Being a good citizen of Germany, Sophie Scholl, along with her siblings, was excited to be a follower of the National Socialist cult of youth.
Eventually, Sophie joined the Bund Deutscher Mädel (League of German Girls), quickly rising through the ranks due to her zeal for the ideals of Nazism.
A critic of Nazism from the very beginning, Sophie’s father, Robert Scholl, viewed his children’s interest and zeal for Nazism with greater and greater horror. Lively debates, a rarity at this time in Germany, became commonplace in the Scholl household during family dinners.
On September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland. Subsequently, France and Great Britain declared war on Germany, which caused Hans, the eldest of the Scholl brothers, to join the German forces.
For Sophie’s part, she was forced to join the National Labor Service in 1941, which caused her to rethink the ideals of the Third Reich. Embedded in the strict military regimen of the Labor Service, Sophie found solace in the pursuit of spirituality, which led her to the writings of theologian Augustine of Hippo.
Hans Scholl’s service in the war had led him to see firsthand the crimes committed by the Third Reich in Poland and Russia. He, along with his friends, knew they could not support Nazi Germany anymore and could not remain quiet.
In June 1942, Hans, along with his friends, started the White Rose Resistance, a small group of German youth who wrote and distributed leaflets questioning the nature of the war and the ideals of Hitler’s Germany.
Sophie, who had already begun questioning Hitler’s regime, stumbled upon a leaflet that had been distributed in Munich and found herself agreeing with the call for Christians to stand against the evils of eugenics and the Nazis. Sophie was struck by one question posed by the leaflet:
“If you know, why do you not act?”
When Sophie found out her brother was part of the Resistance, she demanded that she be allowed to join.
She was not going to be passive anymore.
What started as a small endeavor of distributing leaflets to friends and professors quickly grew to massive proportions in which the leaflets were reaching thousands of families across Germany.
On February 18, 1943, Hans and Sophie were distributing leaflets at the University of Munich. Sophie, in an attempt to finish distributing the flyers before class was dismissed, ran to the top tier of the university and pushed her remaining stack off the edge of the balcony.
One hundred leaflets cascaded down three stories to the atrium of the University of Munich.
Unfortunately, Hans and Sophie did not make it out of the university in time. A janitor, a staunch supporter of Nazism, saw the leaflets in the hallway and immediately called the Gestapo.
On February 22, 1943, Sophie and her brother Hans were executed by guillotine.
Sophie’s last known words have been recorded as follows:
“How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause… It is such a splendid sunny day, and I have to go… What does my death matter if by our acts thousands are warned and alerted.”
At the end of her life, Sophie Scholl did not blame Nazi Germany for the horrors that had taken place in the Third Reich.
Sophie, along with other members of the White Rose Resistance, knew that the true blame lay at the feet of the Christian church in Germany.
“The real damage is done by those millions who want to ‘survive.’ The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don’t like to make waves—or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honor, truth, and principles are only literature.
Those who live small, mate small, die small. It’s the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it under control. If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you. But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe.
Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does.
I choose my own way to burn.”
May the American church, like these brave members of the White Rose Resistance, be alerted and awakened to action against the horrors of abortion in the United States of America today.
May Christians be bold like Sophie, unafraid to make enemies and unafraid to make noise.
Christ is calling His Church to action.
Will you answer the call?
Matthew 16:18 – “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
In honor of Sophie’s sacrifice and the cause of the White Rose Resistance in Nazi Germany, Seth Gruber founded the White Rose Resistance in America, a nationwide movement with the sole mission of saving the preborn.
To learn more about America’s White Rose Resistance, click here.
