60 years ago, on Feb. 22 1943, three students of the Munich-based resistance group “White Rose” were executed for inciting young people to rise against Hitler - a fact that many young Germans today are unaware of.

On a clear February day in 1943, Hans and Sophie Scholl entered the deserted atrium of the Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich bearing a suitcase full of leaflets containing a passionate appeal to Germans to engage in "passive resistance" against Hitler and the Third Reich.

They worked swiftly, dropping stacks of the explosive leaflets throughout the corridors, just minutes before the atrium would be flooded with students leaving lectures and classes. Before hurrying outside to safety, the brother and sister, on a last-minute urge, decided to get rid of the remaining few documents in the suitcase.

22-year-old biology and philosophy student Sophie Scholl hurriedly climbed the grand marble staircase to the upper level of the hall and in a rush of emotion, flung the last remaining leaflets high in the air. The dozens of pamphlets glided down to the feet of scores of stunned students exiting lecture halls, among them university janitor and Nazi Party member, Jakob Schmidt.

Schmidt spotted Sophie and Hans with the leaflets -- within minutes the doors were locked, the police called and Hans and Sophie were hustled into Gestapo custody. Four days later they went on trial for treason along with another accomplice, 24-year-old Christoph Probst, and were executed by the Gestapo within hours on the same day.

Inciting resistance through bold actions

Today, memories of the "White Rose" student group live on through numerous memorials, films and books on the story of the courageous members who courted certain death as they worked night and day, cranking a hand-operated duplicating machine to create laboriously-penned leaflets urging ordinary Germans to resist Hitler and his anti-Semitic policies.

The leaflets were stuffed into envelopes, stamped and mailed from various major cities in southern Germany to students, academics, scholars and café owners, their addressees randomly chosen from telephone books. Some of them were even anonymously distributed in the streets of Munich and at house doors.

"Hitler cannot win the war, he can only prolong it. The guilt of his helpers has forever crossed every possible boundary. That’s why you should separate yourself from the Nazis! Show through your actions that you think otherwise!," one of the pamphlets said. In an even bolder move, three members of the "White Rose" also painted slogans on the sides of houses in Ludwigstrasse, one of Munich’s main thoroughfares. They wrote, "Down with Hitler", "Hitler mass murderer", "freedom" and drew crossed-out swastikas.

Two months after the execution of Sophie and Hans Scholl and Christoph Probst, three further members of the "White Rose", among them 49-year-old philosophy professor, Kurt Huber, the editorial brain behind the leaflets, were also sentenced to death and summarily executed.

Low awareness in Germany about "White Rose"

Over the years, the "White Rose" and their brutal silencing by the Gestapo has came to symbolize still relatively unknown German resistance against Hitler, both internationally and within Germany. History lessons at several schools and universities world-wide that deal with the World War and the Holocaust inevitably find mention of the courageous student group that dared to defy Hitler’s rule.

But despite international recognition of the Munich student group and their brave role during Nazi Germany, few Germans between the ages of 15 and 30 today are aware of the group or their significance.

In interviews with DW-RADIO, some young people on the streets of Germany were pretty clueless of what "White Rose" meant. Answers like "White Rose – Jews?.... To be honest with you, I have no idea about them ... ", were common. 

Topic of resistance not dealt with thoroughly in Germany

According to one survey, only about every third German in 1991 knew that there were students who had fought Nazi Germany. Resistance expert Wolfgang Benz, Head of the Center for Anti-Semitic Research, says that even today, many German citizens have very vague ideas about resistance against Hitler.

"One knows that there was resistance. For sure, most also know that there wasn’t much of it. And when it comes to the details of how resistance to the regime was actually carried out, that’s when the lack of knowledge becomes apparent," he says.

Matthias Heyl, Head of the Youth Meeting Point in the former concentration camp of Ravensbrück, says that most of these ignorant attitudes also apply to German youngsters.

"We know from our own experience here, that there are certain schools, in which the topic is dealt with in detail and then there are others, where one has to begin really from scratch. It ("White Rose" and resistance groups) is not widespread."

Benz and Heyl explain the lack of knowledge regarding resistance groups by the fact that the Nazi era lies too far back in the past – almost 60 years and the fact that the topic is hardly discussed at the moment in German society. The present generation, according to them, can’t imagine the amount of courage one needed back then during the dictatorial regime to raise a voice of dissent against Hitler.

Matthias Heyl, however, believes that once young people learn about the history of the "White Rose", they can identify with the members of the group even today.

"When one looks at the biographies of Hans and Sophie Scholl and the other members of the "White Rose", one realizes that they were completely normal people who used their ordinary opportunities to do something extraordinary," he says.

Indeed one place in Germany where students look upon the members of the "White Rose" as role models is a high school in the small town of Pulheim near Cologne, named after the brother and sister duo, Hans and Sophie Scholl. For the students here the young resistance fighters of the "White Rose" stand for values that are valid even today: they’re a sign against the war and a symbol of hope.

"They stood up for justice and were caught and killed in the end," says one student.

http://www.dw-world.de © Deutsche Welle

The Bush Junta is busily putting in place all of the mechanisms of a Reich-like Police State.

To Date:

The un-Patriot Act: Allows "Law Enforcement" broad latitude in violating the 1st, 4th, 5th, 9th and 10th Amendments to the Constitution - half of the "Bill of Rights.

The Establishment of the Committee for State Security (KGB/Gestapo) a.k.a. "The Homeland Security Act" and it's illegitimate child "The Department of Homeland Security".

The Secret un-Patriot II (not yet passed) which finishes off your freedom. If passed it would allow:

Secret Arrest

Secret Detention

Secret Execution without Trial.

George Bush and the Criminal Cabal that has infested the White House are absolutely Hitlerian in their approach to governance. I wish that were hyperbole bud frighteningly it is not.

All the elements of the "Total State" and total tyranny are being erected. Either you can oppose it now while there is still a slim chance to turn the tide in Freedom's Favor or you can slump into apathy and resignation - until that knock comes on your door.

"...A Republic; if you can keep it!" Benjamin Franklin; The Courthouse Philadelphia, PA 1787



“If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may be even a worse fate. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”

Sir Winston Churchill

one can ALWAYS count on the monkeyboy

peanut gallery.

The White Rose members died for their belief

in a just world against a fascist killing

machine the admirer obviously admires.

Disgust is such a mild term.

Meat puppet or moron is too complimentary.

Which adult are you talking about:

The Drunken Deserter?

“If this were a dictatorship, it’d be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator.”


George w. Bush, December 18, 2000

The Oil Company War Profiteer?

“I had other priorities.” Dick Cheney

The Dual Citizenship Chickenhawks? (And to which Country goes their first allegiance?)

The violation of a Solemn oath is not the action of an honorable man. The un-Patriot act was and is such as might have been brought forth from the bowels of the Third Reich or Stalin’s “People’s Paradise”.

Ignorance, when voluntary, is criminal, and a man me be properly charged with that evil which he neglected or refused to learn how to prevent. - Samuel Johnson

It is not the act of a Patriot or an Adult to violate their position of trust to further a personal vendetta or to seek personal aggrandizement.

Dealing with terrorism can be done within the bounds of the Constitution. The position you take is one I consider Treasonous. To surrender a little liberty for a little security is vice of which Benjamin Franklin warned. Such a trade is of illusory benefit at best.

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom, it is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.

- William Pitt (The Younger) 1783

No Man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency. - Theodore Roosevelt

I will not give it a rest. I swore an Oath to defend that tattered old Parchment. I may no longer wear a Uniform but I stand loyal to my oath. My voice can be stilled only by the executioner’s hand.

I will not stand mute while their exists an assault upon the hallowed freedoms of this land. It is the Birthright and inheritance of all. Not just a privileged few.

“I swear before the Altar of Almighty God eternal enmity over all forms of tyranny over the mind of man.”

- Thomas Jefferson



“...and that Government of the People, by the People, and for the People shall not perish from the Earth.”

-Abraham Lincoln November 18, 1863

“Is life so dear or peace so sweet that it must purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it Almighty God! I care not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”

- Patrick Henry March 23, 1775

Did you study for the idiot monkey award?

Or are you just naturally brain damaged

and can only repeat the same parrot like

phobia of free speech?

Pacifica radio has its faults but compared to

any other broadcast media, it's clearly above

the swill of corporate propaganda.

Listener sponsored is better than the pentagon

sucking horde of pigs you advocate.

I am not so threatened by Popinjays as I am by those who would surrender the historic freedoms which allowed this nation to grow and fluorish.

Let them rattle on - most people pay them no mind as they represent a form of elitism that the average American rejects.

My father charged up the beach at several South Pacific Islands as testament to the courage of what an American Kid - raised on a Reservation would do for this country. My Uncle charged up the Beach at Iwo Jima taking a bullet for your right to spout nonsense. Another marched with Patton into Germany to extinguish the flames of tyranny. I take not lightly their sacrifices. I will not surrender my freedom - nor yours - to any supposed urgent need.

We are a Constitutional Republic and, still for the moment free, and while I still have a voice I will oppose unrelentingly the Quisling surrender you advocate.

Like my father before me I will not bow to the tyrant's yoke you would affix.