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Speaker 1: Today's Saturday Classic is a special audience request. Lots of

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Speaker 1: listeners have written in over the past few years to

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Speaker 1: ask us to do an episode about the student movement

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Speaker 1: known as the White Rose or on Sophie Shoal, who

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Speaker 1: was one of its most well known members. This was

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Speaker 1: an organization at the University of Munich that was part

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Speaker 1: of the resistance in Nazi Germany. And this is one

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Speaker 1: of those cases where the episode that we're getting all

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Speaker 1: those requests for actually already exists. It's episode by past

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Speaker 1: hosts Katie and Sarah and its original title was did

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Speaker 1: any Germans Resist Hitler? Which makes it a little bit

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Speaker 1: of a tricky episode defined in our archive you kind

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Speaker 1: of have to know the name to go looking for it. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Listener Damon and a couple of other folks specifically asked

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Speaker 1: us to please rerelease this as a Saturday Classic as well,

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Speaker 1: So that is what we're gonna do today. Welcome to

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Speaker 1: stuff Few, Mr History class dot Com. Hello, and welcome

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Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Dowdy.

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Speaker 1: A few months ago, we talked about Hanna Snish, a

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Speaker 1: Hungarian who opposed the Nazis by parachuting into Yugoslavia and

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Speaker 1: an attempt to save fellow Jews. She was arrested, tortured,

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Speaker 1: and executed. And this heroic story left many of you

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Speaker 1: wanting to hear more about resistance to the Nazis during

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Speaker 1: World War Two. These stories are usually tragic, you know,

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Speaker 1: how could they end well, but they're also pretty inspirational.

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Speaker 1: One of the most surprising of these heroic stories comes

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Speaker 1: out of Germany, of all places, where the Gestapo in

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Speaker 1: the ss that kept such a close eye on the population.

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Speaker 1: Listening in to a broadcast of Radio London could be

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Speaker 1: enough to get you executed. And it's in Germany, in Munich, actually,

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Speaker 1: that this group of students decided to protest the atrocities

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Speaker 1: of their government and stir up their apathetic countrymen at

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Speaker 1: a great risk to their own lives, and they call

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Speaker 1: themselves the White Rose. But before we get into the

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Speaker 1: student movement in Munich, we need to give some background

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Speaker 1: on what life was like for someone who was trying

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Speaker 1: to resist the Nazi government. And some sources that Sarah

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Speaker 1: was reading kept saying that you can't understand unless you've

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Speaker 1: lived under a totalitarian regime. But we hope this will

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Speaker 1: help a little bit. So this is what you're up against.

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Speaker 1: Nazi indoctrinations started in preschool. Children were encouraged to denounce

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Speaker 1: their parents for making derogatory comments about Hitler or about

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Speaker 1: the Reich, and at age ten, boys would register to

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Speaker 1: join the German Young People after being investigated for racial purity.

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Speaker 1: At thirteen they could join the Hitler you and at

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Speaker 1: eighteen they'd be a member of the Nazi Party. Uh.

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Speaker 1: It was mandatory to serve either in the armed forces

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Speaker 1: or in labor details until age girls did the same thing,

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Speaker 1: participating in leagues that taught comradeship and motherhood. So that's

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Speaker 1: what you're up against in terms of this early indoctrination.

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Speaker 1: But in addition to the Gestapo, every block also has

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Speaker 1: a spy who would note down conversations going on, keep

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Speaker 1: track of who was saying what. So maybe you make

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Speaker 1: a joke to your wife about Hitler, and your neighbor

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Speaker 1: overhears it. Uh, next thing you know, you've got police

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Speaker 1: knocking on your door. So dangerous times. Consequently, it's pretty

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Speaker 1: difficult for all but the smallest groups to actually protest

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Speaker 1: the government because organized resistance usually involves a lot of people.

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Speaker 1: Socialists communists and trade unionists published underground literature, and even

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Speaker 1: though the Catholic Church is officially silent on what's happening,

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Speaker 1: some clergymen do work to protect Jews, and the church

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Speaker 1: denounces quote unquote euthanasia of the handicapped. We also have

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Speaker 1: the occasional assassination attempt. After the defeat at Stalingrad, German

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Speaker 1: officers attempt to blow up Hitler with a bomb. He

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Speaker 1: was injured and they were immediately executed. But really the

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Speaker 1: military is about the only group that could be so bold,

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Speaker 1: because most people who protest against the government have to

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Speaker 1: do it passively, just small measures of non compliance with

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Speaker 1: Nazi rules. So it's pretty easy to imagine that at

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Speaker 1: least a few teenagers were ticked off by the idea

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Speaker 1: of having to enroll with the Nazi youth in work

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Speaker 1: to fight against that without getting themselves into terrible trouble.

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Speaker 1: The student heroes of our story grew up in the

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Speaker 1: world of the Reich. They were raised in the thirties,

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Speaker 1: so they're fully indoctrinated. Some were even leaders of Hitler

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Speaker 1: youth groups. So how did they turn against the regime,

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Speaker 1: and more importantly, why did they decide to risk their

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Speaker 1: lives to denounce it. A lot of the eventual members

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Speaker 1: of the White Rose meet in the winter of nine

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Speaker 1: thirty nine when they're all finishing up their compulsory two

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Speaker 1: years of army service as part of this medic program. Basically,

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Speaker 1: if you had intended to go to medical school eventually,

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Speaker 1: you could finish up your army service training as a

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Speaker 1: medic to get a little hands on work before you

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Speaker 1: start your studies. So most of these kids end up

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Speaker 1: enrolling at the University of Munich the following spring. And

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Speaker 1: we know that students are the most protesting group of

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Speaker 1: the population and well and it's no different at Munich too.

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Speaker 1: Even though these students really have to watch their backs,

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Speaker 1: they have a lot more pressure than most student protesters

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Speaker 1: would have. Still though, when, for instance, one of their

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Speaker 1: Nazis student leaders tell them that they'll have to spend

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Speaker 1: their first summer break harvesting the crops in Bavaria, they

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Speaker 1: are very upset. Stink bombs go off in the chemistry building,

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Speaker 1: so you can imagine just these acts of protests, still

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Speaker 1: very dangerous in these times, but trying to to make

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Speaker 1: their opinions heard. Later in nineteen thirty nine, when most

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Speaker 1: of the male med students are drafted into the army,

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Speaker 1: they would steal as much freedom as they could skipping

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Speaker 1: out on roll call or on drill, according to White

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Speaker 1: Rose survivor George Fittenstein, and by early nineteen forty two

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Speaker 1: to med students Alex Schmorell and Hans Shoal have started

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Speaker 1: writing leaflets, copying them on a typewriter and distributing them.

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Speaker 1: And Sarah's got the first line from the first leaflet.

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Speaker 1: Nothing is so unworthy of a civilized nation as allowing

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Speaker 1: itself to be governed without opposition by an irresponsible clique

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Speaker 1: that has yielded to base instinct. It is certain that

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Speaker 1: today every honest German is ashamed of his government. So

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Speaker 1: of the first one hundred of these flyers that they

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Speaker 1: distribute in mail, thirty five are returned to the Gestapo.

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Speaker 1: So this means two things. Spies and people who get

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Speaker 1: this very incriminating flyer in the mail get very nervous

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Speaker 1: and send it right back to the Gestapo. And writing

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Speaker 1: leaflets and copying them might not sound like a big deal,

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Speaker 1: it is paper is in very short supply, so buying

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Speaker 1: huge packs of it is very suspicious, and so is

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Speaker 1: buying lots of postage, and think about how dangerous it

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Speaker 1: is to carry such a pamphlet around with you, because

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Speaker 1: if you're stopped and searched, you're done for. But the

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Speaker 1: students that Munich are amazed to see these pamphlets. Who's

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Speaker 1: doing this? They're wondering what's going on. The Gestapo are

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Speaker 1: not pleased, and so the White Rose membership starts to grow.

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Speaker 1: And it's interesting that the discipline and order that some

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Speaker 1: of the members might have picked up in the Hitler

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Speaker 1: youth serves to make them pretty disciplined and ordered when

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Speaker 1: they're fighting the German government. They would graffiti the streets

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Speaker 1: of Munich with slogans like down with Hitler, Hitler the

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Speaker 1: mass murderer, or freedom Freedom, and the initial Munich group

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Speaker 1: expands to students in Hamburg, Freiburg, Berlin and Vienna. They

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Speaker 1: would mail each other these mimiographed leaflets, and sometimes they

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Speaker 1: would even carry them on trains, which was a task

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Speaker 1: usually left up to the girls. They were less likely

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Speaker 1: to be searched, but they could leave these suitcases full

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Speaker 1: of these pamphlets in different cars. Well, they'd carry them

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Speaker 1: in another compartment. Because you didn't want to be found.

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Speaker 1: You wanted to be separate from the suitcase for as

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Speaker 1: much of the journey as possible. But of course we

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Speaker 1: also have to talk about what the White Rose movement

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Speaker 1: was even all about, and was it really true that

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Speaker 1: Germans didn't know what was going on, what atrocities were

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Speaker 1: being committed. As you so often here, that's usually the

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Speaker 1: excuse for such enormous inaction that happened. Well, these kids

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Speaker 1: know what's going on, and when a lot of the

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Speaker 1: male population of the White Rose movement goes to serve

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Speaker 1: on the Eastern Front as medical aids in the summer

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Speaker 1: of ninety two, they actually see some of the atrocities firsthand.

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Speaker 1: Hans Shoal sees Jewish labors being beat bound for death camps, mistreated.

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Speaker 1: He hears about how the polls are being deported into

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Speaker 1: concentration camps, and others like Hans's sister Sophie, here's about

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Speaker 1: some of the other policies at church in sermons. So

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Speaker 1: these kids know what's going on, we can assume that

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Speaker 1: a lot of other people knew. Must have to exactly,

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Speaker 1: Sophie against permission to reprint a sermon against these murders

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Speaker 1: and distributes it to the students she joins the White

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Speaker 1: Rose after enrolling at Munich and begging her brother to

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Speaker 1: let her in, And many of these members also had

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Speaker 1: Jewish friends who had since been deported. We have to

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Speaker 1: make it clear they thought that what was happening was

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Speaker 1: very wrong. This wasn't just a political protest. This was

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Speaker 1: a very personal thing, definitely. And so by November ninety two,

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Speaker 1: the students who were on the Eastern Front serving as

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Speaker 1: medical aids are back, and the White Rose members are

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Speaker 1: more dedicated than ever to their cause, and they bring

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Speaker 1: in one of their professors, Kurt Hoober, who helps them

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Speaker 1: edit the drafts, rejecting one is to communists. I can

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Speaker 1: sort of imagine this mentor relationship between these students who

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Speaker 1: are probably writing radical things like students do, and this

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Speaker 1: older fellow sort of toning it down, making it more powerful,

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Speaker 1: making it a better way to speak to their audience.

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Speaker 1: And they're not naive enough to think that their pamphlets

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Speaker 1: will help topple the government. That's not what they're trying

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Speaker 1: to do. They understand that it's only military action that

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Speaker 1: will end the regime. Although they do specifically distance themselves

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Speaker 1: as independent thinkers fighting for Germany, they they're very patriotic,

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Speaker 1: and they want to make it clear that they're not

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Speaker 1: puppets under Allied control. But while they do advocate sabotage

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Speaker 1: of the armaments industry, their goal is to improve resistance

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Speaker 1: morale and stir these apathetic Germans into standing up for

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Speaker 1: what is right, letting them know that there are other

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Speaker 1: people who think that way. Yeah, giving people encouragement, and

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Speaker 1: ultimately they publish six leaflets between nineteen two and three

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Speaker 1: with that little break while a lot of the guys

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Speaker 1: are away on the Eastern Front. Four published as the

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Speaker 1: White Rose and two are published under the name Leaflets

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Speaker 1: of the Resistance. And it's that sixth pamphlet that really

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Speaker 1: destroys some of the major members of the movement. It's

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Speaker 1: just after the defeat at Stalingrad when the White Rose

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Speaker 1: publishes its sixth leaflet, and here's an excerpt, Shaken and

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Speaker 1: broken are people behold the loss of the men of Stalingrad.

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Speaker 1: Three hundred and thirty thousand German men have been senselessly

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Speaker 1: and irresponsibly driven to death and destruction by the inspired

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Speaker 1: strategy of our World War one private first class Feurer,

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Speaker 1: we thank you, and another repeated through the leaflet for us.

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Speaker 1: There is but one slogan fight against the party. It

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Speaker 1: says that over an for a goad, something to try

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Speaker 1: to get get it stuck in the reader's head. And

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Speaker 1: the Shoals go to this campus building at their university

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Speaker 1: and they leave stacks of these leaflets outside of the

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Speaker 1: doors of the classroom. They're carrying the whole, the whole

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Speaker 1: shipang in this suitcase. When they realize that there's still

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Speaker 1: a lot of the leaflets left in their bad Sophie

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Speaker 1: takes them up to the third floor and throws them

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Speaker 1: down a light. Well, so imagine just all these pamphlets

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Speaker 1: shower showering down. Well, it catches the attention of a

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Speaker 1: janitor and he turns them into the Gestapo. They're arrested,

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Speaker 1: and the barely involved Kristoph Propst is actually implicated because

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Speaker 1: Hans has something mentioning him in his pocket, a draft

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Speaker 1: for a later pamphlet. So the three of them are

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Speaker 1: taken into custody. They delivered that last batch of pamphlets

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Speaker 1: on February nine, and just days later they're put on trial.

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Speaker 1: The judge is horrified that three nice German kids could

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Speaker 1: have turned to this, and is especially disgusted that Hans

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Speaker 1: is a soldier well, and that the state is paid

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Speaker 1: for his education. It just seems doubly wrong to this judge.

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Speaker 1: Propst has a wife and three babies, and he claims

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Speaker 1: psychotic depression after the loss at Stalingrad and because of

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Speaker 1: his wife's difficult child birth. He's trying to save his life.

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Speaker 1: Sophie explains herself really boldly, though. She says somebody, after all,

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Speaker 1: had to make a start. What we wrote and said

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Speaker 1: is also believed by many others. They just don't dare

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Speaker 1: to express themselves as we did. And later she actually

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Speaker 1: tells the judge, you know the war is lost, why

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Speaker 1: don't you have the courage to face it? So she's

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Speaker 1: being incredibly brave and bold in the face of uh.

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Speaker 1: I mean, she'll definitely be charged by this judge. There's

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Speaker 1: no other way out. The Shoal's parents tried to burst

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Speaker 1: into the courtroom in the middle of the trial, and

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Speaker 1: their mother is told she should have brought them up better.

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Speaker 1: Their father forces his way in and is forcibly escorted out,

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Speaker 1: and as he's escorted out, he shouts, one day there

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Speaker 1: will be another kind of justice. One day they will

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Speaker 1: go down in history. Poor propist family, on the other hand,

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Speaker 1: doesn't even know that he's been arrested. His wife is

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Speaker 1: still in the hospital from childbirth, and he's not visited

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Speaker 1: by anyone before his execution. Unsurprisingly, the judge rules guilty.

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Speaker 1: The court finds quote that the accused have, in the

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Speaker 1: time of war, by means of leaflets, called for the

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Speaker 1: sabotage of the war effort in armaments and for the

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Speaker 1: overthrow of the national socialist way of life of our people,

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Speaker 1: have propagated defeatist ideas and have most vulgarly defamed the fur,

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Speaker 1: thereby giving aid to the enemy of the Reich and

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Speaker 1: weakening the armed security of the nation. On this account,

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Speaker 1: they are to be punished by death. They're executed by

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Speaker 1: guillotine almost immediately. The siblings meet with their parents one

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Speaker 1: last time, and the guards allow the three to meet

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Speaker 1: one last time. Sophie has killed first, then Props, then Hans,

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Speaker 1: who cries out, long live freedom, but it's not over yet,

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Speaker 1: and the Gestapo arrest three other members later in the year,

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Speaker 1: Alexander Schmorrel, who is twenty five. We should I don't

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Speaker 1: think we've mentioned their ages yet. They're all in their

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Speaker 1: very early twenties. Uh. They also arrest Willie Graff who's

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Speaker 1: twenty five, and the professor who is helping Kurt Hooper,

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Speaker 1: who is forty nine, and some of them aren't executed

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Speaker 1: until n so the second batch of trials doesn't go

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Speaker 1: as quickly as as the first with the Shoals and

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Speaker 1: Props does. Today, they're heroes in Germany for daring to

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Speaker 1: stand up during the country's darkest years. There's a square

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Speaker 1: at the University of Munich named after the Shoals, and

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Speaker 1: things all over the city that are named after other

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Speaker 1: members and will close with another quote from their leaflets, quote,

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Speaker 1: we seek the revival of the deeply owned to German spirit.

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Speaker 1: For the sake of future generations. An example must be

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Speaker 1: set after the war, so that no one will ever

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Speaker 1: have the slightest desire to try anything like this ever again.

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Speaker 1: Do not forget the minor scoundrels of this system. Note

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Speaker 1: their names, so that no one may escape. We shall

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Speaker 1: not be silent. We are your bad conscience. The White

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Speaker 1: Rose will not leave you in peace. It's especially interesting

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Speaker 1: that call to not forget even the most minor scoundrels,

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Speaker 1: to know their names so that no one will escape

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Speaker 1: that's still so pertinent even today. We have an article

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Speaker 1: on that it's called are their Nazi War criminals still

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Speaker 1: at large? And there are, and people are still actively

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Speaker 1: looking for them and looking to bring them to justice.

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Speaker 1: People have not forgotten. Thank you so much for joining

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Speaker 1: us for this Saturday classic. Since this is out of

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Speaker 1: the archive, if you heard an email address or a

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Speaker 1: Facebook U r L or something similar during the course

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Speaker 1: of the show, that may be obsolete now. So here

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Speaker 1: is our current contact information. We are at History Podcast,

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Speaker 1: but how Stuff Works dot Com, and then we're at

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Speaker 1: Missed in the History all over social media. That is

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Speaker 1: our name on Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Pinterest, and Instagram. Thanks

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Speaker 1: again for listening for more on this and thousands of

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Speaker 1: other topics. Doesn't how Stuff Works dot Com