The White Rose

As a teacher, I was asked difficult questions more than once. Confused students learning about the horrors of the second world war and the evil maniac that was Adolf Hitler would ask me if the German people tried to organize a resistance movement. "If we launch a search," they would tell me, "we find a list that includes 33,800,000 sites." The first sites in that list gave them facts on the Greek resistance, the Dutch, the French, the Jewish, the Czech ... the list wenton and on, but they began to notice in short order that there was a paucity of reference to organized resistance in der vaterland. One site will give you a list of names of those who tried to resist the tide of Nazism, but the fact that the total number falls short of sixty has always been a cause for puzzlement to me. How could so many of the people quietly, complacently accept the monster claiming leadership of their nation?
Maybe because my family numbered a resistance fighter among its own members, a man who fought the evil threatening to overwhelm his beloved Italy and died doing so, I have difficulty understanding the widespread complacency the German people indulged in.
Recently I encountered a slim little volume titled, "The White Rose", that addresses the question of those that took up the cause in Germany. I devoured it in a couple of hours, eager to read about Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans, and their valiant fight against the spreading savagery of Hitler's insanity.
The original German edition of the book was titled "Die Weisse Rose" and was published in 1952. Written by Sophie's sister Inge, it details the brief existence of the movement started by the students and some friends, including one Professor Huber.
At only 160 pages, the book is not long enough to satisfy. The story is too short. The personal resistance campaign launched by the brother and sister was joined by some others but not in great numbers. Their moment on the stage of history was all too brief, and reading of it left a vague dissatisfaction. The question remains, why weren't there more standing up to be counted?
Taking action when it could cost you personally is never easy to do. In fact, it is incredibly easy not to do, and there are always overwhelming numbers of people who count themselves more important than anything and anyone else. I think the populace of Germany was top-heavy with such individuals. That has to be part of why Hitler succeeded as much as he did in making his twisted dreams into reality.
The young university student, Sophie Scholl, was able to see that his dreams were really nightmares. She knew that there was wrong being perpetrated and she could not stand idly by. She understood the fundamental truth that if you are not part of the solution, then you are indeed part of the problem. She wanted her name written in the lists of those who cared, and she gave her life to make sure it happened.
She and her brother distributed four leaflets at the University of Munich, in 1942 and 1943, calling for people to speak out against the Fuhrer, to offer resistance to the Nazi war machine. They cautioned their readers against the folly of everyone waiting "until the other man makes a start", and declared their conviction that "today every honest German (must be) ashamed of his government." They questioned if the German people were already "so corrupted and so spiritually crushed that they do not raise a hand (against the) irresponsible clique that had yielded to base instinct".
These incredibly brave people risked their lives to defend the rights of all Germans "to choose his manner of life and to live in freedom". Knowing they would pay a horrendous price, they still made their declaration that Nazism was a cancerous growth upon the nation. While they were tossing copies of one of their leaflets from a balcony in the university, down into the great hall, they were seen and retribution descended on them quickly. Within days they were brought to trial, declared traitors and sentenced to death. The sentence was carried out short hours later on the same day and they were guillotined.
It is said that the best reason to study history is so that we will not be doomed to repeat it. Perhaps this little known book is one that should be made part of every high school's curriculum, required study for every student who wants to graduate. It might help to answer some of the questions about why people let horrendous situations arise and do little to end them. Such an action might be one of our few hopes left against the irresponsible cliques of today dragging all of us down into an inferno formed by their base instincts.
Transcripts of the four leaflets are included in the book, and they each bear repeated reading. Some of the words thunder off the pages. Some of them can be and should be applied to more than one of today's leaders. Hitler himself is quoted as having said, "It is unbelievable, to what extent one must betray a people in order to rule it." Shadowy outlines of some of those involved in the war in Iraq lurk behind those lines.
The foreword to this book was written by Dorothee Solle, the German theologian who penned "Creative Disobedience". She details her post-war despair as a young person who grew up in Nazi Germany, her fear that the German blood flowing in her veins made her somehow a monster, one not worthy of life. She asks plaintively, how could the German experience of World War II have been allowed to happen; why weren't there more "white roses"? There are those who would answer by mouthing the excuse that the general populace did not know. This is an answer that should be turned aside by all who hear it, an answer that should be feared as the monster-maker that it is. It allows for complacency to pave the way for horror. Solle speaks of this easy way-out at the end of her foreword, bringing the reader to see the relevance of Sophie and her colleagues-in-resistance to today's world and the unquestioning acceptance of government decisions. "No matter what, I would not be able to say that I (do) not know. All of us know. We do know, and we have to act in one way or another." Strong words. Words that need to be said, but who is listening?
Let me end my sojourn into this look at resistance with a quote from Inge Scholl. In it she speaks to the urgency of all of us taking a stand on matters more important than who got kicked off the island, even if it does demand more of our time and commitment than a one-hour TV show does. Referring to Sophie and her brother, she says, "They wanted to make it possible for people like you and me to live in a humane society. Perhaps their greatness lies in the fact that they committed themselves for the sake of such a simple matter, that they were strong enough to give their lives in defense of the elementary right. It is perhaps more difficult to stand up for a worthy cause when there is no general enthusiasm, no great idealistic upsurge, no high goal, no supporting organization ... on one's own and in lonely isolation. Perhaps genuine heroism lies in deciding stubbornly to defend the everyday things, the trivial and the immediate, after having been bombarded with so much oratory about great deeds."