“God, you are my refuge into eternity.” Those words were allegedly the last spoken by 21-year-old university student Sophie Scholl before her beheading Feb. 22, 1943. That same day her 24-year-old brother Hans said, “Let freedom live,” even as the guillotine blade fell.
They and four others had been convicted of treason by the National Socialist government of Germany. Their nonviolent resistance group, the White Rose, had distributed anonymous leaflets arguing against the Nazi regime.
Members Hans, Alexander Schmorell, and Willi Graf also painted the slogans “Down with Hitler” and “Freedom” on the walls of buildings in Munich, Germany, repeatedly that same month. Their handiwork inspired copycat graffiti by others.
Ultimately more than 100 Germans would be prosecuted in a series of White Rose trials, which ended only because of the fall of Adolf Hitler...