How Can We Expect Righteousness To Prevail
In the era of the Great Lie of a stolen presidential election, the words of Sophie Scholl should resonate through the corridors of Congress and the streets of America:
“How can we expect righteousness to prevail
when there is hardly anyone willing to
give himself up individually to a righteous cause….”
Dictators, despots and bullies all have their sycophantic tools.
There’s a problem with such demagogues and tyrants: They have a craven need for admiration and loyalty and, when that need is not met, everyone becomes an enemy who must be eliminated. At the same time, their minions and flunkies will do anything to please the tyrant – and save their own hides.
Kim Jung Un – “Dear Leader” of North Korea - had his brother assassinated by two women who sprayed him with VX nerve agent. When a choir conductor displeased him, he demanded his execution – by three AK-47 armed riflemen with 30-shot magazines; riddled by 90 rounds, the body was so heavy it could hardly be moved. He dispatched an uncle whom he described as “despicable human scum, worse than a dog” by having him and his wife stripped naked and fed to a pack of 120 starving dogs.
Pol Pot – “Grand Uncle,” “Elder Brother” and “First Brother” of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge – espoused a world of “zero for him, zero for you – that is communism” – a society in which all things were in the possession of the state, no individual owned anything and everyone would be equal. To achieve his aims, between 1975 and 1979 – just four years – he oversaw the murders of 1.5 to more than 2 million people in a cacophony of atheism, anti-intellectualism, ultranationalism, racism and xenophobia. In order to save bullets, executions were carried out with pickaxes. Prime targets for slave labor were people who wore eyeglasses and, therefore, were considered “intellectuals”
Idi Amin - “His Excellency, President for Life,” “Lord of all the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea,” “Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa,” and “King of Scotland” – was responsible for the extrajudicial murders of close to half a million Ugandans – including one Anglican archbishop.
Libya’s Mu’ammar Ghaddafi – “King of Kings,” and “Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution” - once declared, “Those who do not love me do not deserve to live.”
Germany’s Hitler – the “Fuhrer,” “leader” or “guide” - had legions of subservient henchmen, among them, wearing scarlet judicial robes in a hearing chamber bedecked with swastika-draped banners was the maniacal Judge Roland Freislerl.
On Monday, February 22, 1943, as he presided over the trial of Hans and Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst, he had already ordered the execution of more than 1,800 Germans. Freisler opened the trial by declaring:
“Being accused of treason is the worst possible allegation in the history of the German people. The chief prosecutor claims to have evidence that you three have attempted one of the worst treasonous actions that our German people have ever known. Our mission today is to determine what you have done and then according to German law, find a sentence appropriate for these crimes….”
Almost from the day the First Leaflet of The White Rose appeared in mailboxes across Germany in the late summer or early autumn of 1942, Gestapo technicians began analyzing typefaces, paper and the duplicating techniques used to produce them. At trial time, they had a mountain of seeming incontrovertible evidence. By early February 1942, the government was offering a 1,000 Reichsmark reward for information leading to the capture of those responsible for the leaflets of the German Resistance in Munich.
Chief Inspector Robert Mohr testified:
“Here there is only one thing that counts! National Socialist belief! The Fuhrer and his people are always one. To be able to obey, to win, and to die. Those are the things that are right. The only things...”
Hans and Sophie Scholl were caught in the act of tossing bundles of the Sixth Leaflet from a third-floor balcony of the Ludwig Maximillian University when they were seen by University custodian Jakob Schmied on Thursday, February 18. A potential Seventh Leaflet in the handwriting of Christoph Probst was found in Hans’ possession and led to Probst’s arrest in Innsbruck the following day; their trial began at 10:00 the morning of February 22.
At the time of her arrest, Sophie was engaged to Fritz Hartnagel, a German army officer. The two exchanged frequent letters and Fritz - beginning with a letter from Amsterdam at the end of February 1941 – gave insights into Nazi human rights abuses: “The SS shot at a group of protestors. They supposedly killed twenty. The people are extremely angry.”
On April 3, 1941 he wrote from Wissant, France, “We have a new doctor here. Arrogant and a boastful show-off… I had an awful argument with him… There have been rumors that the SS didn’t take any black prisoners, that they shot and killed those that were caught. Our doctor totally justified this – I argued that it was murder. He even supported the idea that all blacks in captivity in Germany were to be shot.”
In person and in letters, Fritz described the horrors of the war – starving refugees, the dead stares and smell of decomposing soldiers, the incessant killing. From the Western front and later the siege of Stalingrad his correspondence made the inevitable defeat of German forces – and of Germany – abundantly clear.
Although Sophie was deliberately excluded from the authoring of the Leaflets, Fritz’s insights found their way into the documents:
“Since the conquest of Poland, 300,000 Polish Jews have been murdered in the most bestial form. We are seeing the most horrible crime against the dignity of humankind, a crime that has never been copied in the history of humankind. The Jews are also human beings… Perhaps some say that the Jews have earned such a fate; this claim is monstrous arrogance.”
Fritz wrote from the Eastern (Russian) Front: “It is horrifying with the cynicism and cold-bloodedness that my commander speaks about the slaughter of all the Jews in occupied Russia” In another letter, he questioned, “How should we bear such misery that is of our own making?”
[Because he was an officer, Fritz’s mail was not subject to censorship. After service in Belgium, Holland and France, he was twice assigned to the Eastern Front, first in Moscow and, in late summer of 1942, to the Battle of Stalingrad. Having sustained a battle injury that resulted in the partial amputation of one hand, starving and suffering from frostbite, he was taken aboard the last German flight out of the besieged city.]
Other Leaflets continued to give expression to Fritz’s experience:
Our ‘State’ is a ‘dictatorship of evil’ and we’ve known this for a long time, but why do we allow it? Why do we allow ourselves to be commandeered by criminals and drunks? Don’t we know that it is not only our right, but our moral duty, to remove this system? Don’t hide your cowardice with the coat of intelligence. Every day that you don’t act, your guilt grows… With the united effort of convinced and active people, we can achieve our goal. Our medium: passive resistance. We must ask ourselves, how can I fight against the present ‘State’?...”
When, in late 1941, Fritz attempted to persuade Sophie to help provide warm clothes for soldiers on the Russian front, she responded:
“It doesn't matter if it's German soldiers who are freezing to death or Russians, the case is equally terrible. But we must lose the war. If we contribute warm clothes, we'll be extending it."
It is possible that The White Rose sprang specifically from the Spring 1942 execution of a number of Communists. According to Elisabeth Scholl, “My brother said, ‘In the name of civic and Christian courage something must be done.’”
Because a small number of the First Leaflet were scattered around the University of Munich campus, authorities suspected students. Gestapo and Munich police had an additional reason - desperation – for finding the traitorous students. Hans, and other members of The White Rose had begun a late-night graffiti campaign, painting perhaps more than fifty buildings, including some at the University, with “Freedom,” “Down With Hitler!” and the swastika symbol of the Reich with a line through it.
The opening paragraph of the First Leaflet declared:
"Nothing is so unworthy of a civilized nation as allowing itself to be ‘governed’ without opposition by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct. It is certain that today every honest German is ashamed of his government. Who among us has any conception of the dimensions of shame that will befall us and our children when one day the veil has fallen from our eyes and the most horrible of crimes - crimes that infinitely outdistance every human measure - reach the light of day?”
Resistance historian Joachim Fest, described this new development in the struggle against Hitler:
"A small group of Munich students were the only protesters who managed to break out of the vicious circle of tactical considerations and other inhibitions. They spoke out vehemently, not only against the regime but also against the moral indolence and numbness of the German people."
Inge Scholl described her sibling’s and Christoph’s defense counsel as “little more than a helpless puppet.” Sophie told him: "If my brother is sentenced to die, you mustn't let them give me a lighter sentence, for I am exactly as guilty as he."
Sophie was interrogated all night long. She told her cell-mate, Else Gebel, that she denied her "complicity for a long time". But when she was told that the Gestapo had found evidence in her brother's room that proved she was guilty of drafting the leaflet, she determined “We will take the blame for everything, so that no other person is put in danger." Sophie made a confession about her own activities but refused to give information about the rest of the group.
Hans told his interrogators, “I knew what I took upon myself and I was prepared to lose my life by so doing.”
In the morning, brother and sister and Christoph Probst were brought before the bloodthirsty Judge Freisler, who told the court:
"The accused have by means of leaflets in a time of war called for the sabotage of the war effort and armaments and for the overthrow of the National Socialist way of life of our people, have propagated defeatist ideas, and have most vulgarly defamed the Führer… On this account they are to be punished by death. Their honor and rights as citizens are forfeited for all time."
Hans challenged the members of the tribunal, asserting of the German people and those who had received their Leaflets:
“They did listen to us, and they would have acted very soon as we instructed them if we hadn’t been caught by your henchmen... You will pay the price for not standing up to men like [Hitler]. You will all pay the price for not standing up to men like him. Your conscience will never leave you alone, long after the war is over.”
When Christoph briefly reminded the court that his wife had given birth to their third child just days earlier, the murderous judge denounced the three defendants as “traitors” and declared the revocation of their German citizenship:
“You are no longer German!... They will not be hanged! You don’t even deserve a German death; your wife and children don’t deserve a traitor, either. By the order of all the National Socialists in this room, you are to be beheaded… This session of the People’s Court is over.”
As she was being led from the courtroom, Sophie defiantly shouted,
“Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is what you all think too! Only you don’t have the courage to say it out loud! You know the war is lost. Why don’t you have the courage to face it?”
Else Gebel shared Sophie Scholl's cell and recorded her last words before being taken away to be executed:
"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. But how many have to die on the battlefield in these days, how many young, promising lives. What does my death matter if by our acts thousands are warned and alerted?”
A prison guard in Stadelheim Prison reported that in the few hours between Freisler’s judgment and their execution:
"They bore themselves with marvelous bravery. The whole prison was impressed by them. That is why we risked bringing the three of them together once more-at the last moment before the execution. If our action had become known, the consequences for us would have been serious. We wanted to let them have a cigarette together before the end. It was just a few minutes that they had, but I believe that it meant a great deal to them."
Within minutes, the three were dead – condemned by Hitler’s bloodthirsty lackey Roland Freisler, beheaded by guillotine by Johann Reichart, the tyrant’s minion, who took 3,165 lives as the headhunter of “the leader” and “guide.”
In an era when political lackeys and minions repeat the Great Lie of a stolen election
“How can we expect righteousness to prevail
when there is hardly anyone willing to
give himself up individually to a righteous cause….”
Sophie Scholl