BTW, just to be clear, the White Rose are NOT in my current (first) book, although I do hope you’ll still be interested in that book.

But I’ve got another surprising follow-up post on the White Rose in the works. So stay tuned.

All best.

I haven’t read the book yet, but I’m very eager to read it.

Thanks again for the post Andreas. Hope you’re well.

I am Polish, living for the past 30 years in the US. Up until yesterday I had a lot of anger towards German people and the German nation. I know that such anger is irrational, but it was sitting very deep inside of me, and until last night I could not do anything about it. My family and my wife’s family had suffered tremendously in their lives in the hand of German Nazis, and now myself, my wife, and our kids are tainted with that hate, and unwanted chip on our shoulders.

I do have to admit, that this movie has made me think a lot about that anger. It made me closer to German people. For the first time I was listening to the German language without disgust or unexplained fear. I though that Sophie’s words were flowing very beautifully. She was almost like a saint, a super-human, a goddess that died for all German sins. I felt so strange, for I fell in love with her courage, strong committment to the right cause. I cried at the end, marking the end of my hate for her nation. I recognized there are wonderful, courages, heroic and beautiful Germans.

I do hope there are more Sophies in today’s Germany than 67 years ago. She, her brother, the professor and the White Rose gang are my heros.

Thank you!
Michael

This is not to belittle their courage and nobility, which is truly inspiring. But would we look at their heroism in a different way had their methods been different, they not marched towards their early deaths seemingly aware of how futile they were? Would it have made a difference had they worked for their cause and delayed or avoided the ultimate sacrifice, or was this sacrifice and its timing necessary to bring attention to all that they stood for?

Non c’è di che, figurati

What a lovely group of people I see around this blog – Germany, UK, USA and wonder what else. To me, the best of the best, to quench my thirst for variety.

Salute a tutti voi signori!

I went to Regensburg (Castra Regina) 2 years ago, in Oberpfalz, north-eastern Bavaria, on a sort of pilgrimage along the Roman Limes. The population though Protestant has inherited this sort of Italian merry character, with people sitting in open-air cafés etc.“We are the last Italian city”, they also say, which angered our Munich friends who objected *they* were the real last Italians, for their Catholic faith but also for their even merrier festas with people dancing on tables in Oktober Fest.

They certainly said this to please us, but there is some truth I believe: their elegance, their incredible love for Opera (more than us) and good wine (like us.)

Reminds of a girl who once investigated what Dresdner Bank (I believe) did during the war, the twist being that her dad was its boss when she did so.

Ancestors: yes, all German. Me: German parents, born in US, raised in Germany, US, then UK etc….

Nationality: Confused.

By the way, have you got any German ancestors? It is just curiosity. German has sort of defeated me, but I have a passive knowledge of it, can understand and read it a bit and I adore the culture.

As you may gather, I’ve become quite the fan of Rome (the older version of it, mainly) in the course of reasearching my book.

Will be perusing your posts.

Having great admiration for the German culture this whole Nazi thing is so horrifying it pains me deeply. I have entertained a lot of discussions with my South-German friends, who were so deep and honest in dealing with their past (more than the Italians or the French ever did.)

Off-topic, I both love and envy your style of writing. Being Italian mother-tongue, the English I know I have learned toiling on books.

My best regards

I do not know if it is so very different from ancient views on heroism. Were they not also tales of sacrifice for the greater good?

I am still trying to grasp the concept of freedom as it was held in ancient times.

*see also A Tale of Two Cities.

Perhaps what we find heroic about them was precisely the futility of it, the way they did what was right despite having no hope of making a difference.

very different from the ancient views of heroism….

Er, I’ve written a story about Hannibal of Carthage, and I don’t speak Punic.

Since I am looking/waiting for the right topic to nudge me (for my book), thanks for this link. I don’t think I can write about a story from France or Germany because I don’t speak either language.

Now, what happened in South America?

As far as I can make out, they were called the Edelweißpiraten (Edelweis Pirates), and might have been the precursors of the hippies of the ‘sixties, for they dressed in colourful clothes which were the antithesis of the drab uniforms of the omnipresent Hitler Youth, whose brainwashed conformity the Edelweis Pirates were in rebellion against. Their emblem was the Edelweis, which they wore so to recognise, and be recognised by fellow members.

They (the Edelweis Pirates) spent whatever free time they had, going on hikes in the forests, and singing songs, playing guitars and whatnot, and otherwise strove to be spiritually free. They eventually had to live as outlaws.

When caught by the Gestapo they were thrown into youth concentration camps. The Spiegel piece describes the hanging by the Gestapo of 13 Edelweis Pirates in late 1944, which took place without trial. Some of those hanged were as young as sixteen.

I hadn’t before heard of the Edelweis Pirates, and I would guess that they are even lesser known outside Germany than the White Rose.

Raul Wallenberg is another great example.

Thw White Rose is a very important chapter like many other examples of courage and perseverence-Raul Wallenberg comes to mind.

Thank you for the excellent post. Their story evokes a lot of emotion for me.

SB

This posting is firmly within the theme of your blog: the imperceptible shifting from the disaster of evil to the triumph of good. “If” is an anodyne for inadequates like myself, but of no relevance in the case of the White Rose. Indeed, worked to their ultimate, triumph and disaster may provide that elusive understanding of what is good and what is evil and a means to examine our own hearts.

“…the real heroes in any society. They are the ones with true courage….”
I reckon they had a bit of that unbending individualism of Socrates, no?

It takes courage and nobility to say that.

I find their story pure, a distillation of the best of humanity.

Incidentally, a film called, “Sophie Scholl”, was shown in North American theatres two or three years ago. It was also, as far as I know, reviewed widely in the North American media. So the story of the White Rose may be more widely known here than at first supposed.

I recommend another film, called “The “Wannsee Conference”, made in the early 1980s, and based on a transcript of a 90 minute meeting of bureaucrats, at which the plans for carrying out the Final Solution were agreed to. It was all very impersonal, and layered over with bureaucratic jargon. The people at the meeting were the sorts of ordinary people you meet at any business or government meeting, and otherwise meet anywhere. The only difference was that at the Wannsee meeting, they wore uniforms, not business suits.

The White Rose reminds us that it is the dissenters and conscientious objectors, who are ostracised, jailed, tortured, and killed for their principled stands against war and tyranny, who are the real heroes in any society. They are the ones with true courage.

It is a burden that Germans do not deserve to carry since no people can be assured that they would have reacted differently, or worse, as a people, under the same circumstances. Nor can they be assured that in their midst would appear individuals of surpassing bravery, prepared to lay down their lives in the cause of freedom and justice. The White Swan is a beacon to us all and a constant reminder of the need for untiring vigilance against encroachment of those fundamentals. I am quite certain that I would not have had the tiniest part of their courage. Indeed, I would probably have been one of those who played along with the atrocities through sheer weakness.

Let the memory of The White Swan spread far and wide and as to Germany’s tragedy, let us all declare: There, but for the grace of God go we.