Sophia Magdalena Scholl (9 May 1921 – 22 February 1943) was a German student and anti-Nazi political activist, active in the White Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany.
Raised in a politically engaged family, Scholl initially joined the Bund Deutscher Mädel, the female branch of the Hitler Youth, but later became critical of the Nazi regime. Influenced by philosophy, theology, and the writings of Theodor Haecker, she became involved in passive resistance efforts alongside her brother, Hans, and fellow students. The White Rose distributed leaflets calling for opposition to the Nazi state, citing ethical and philosophical arguments against its policies. In February 1943, after being caught distributing leaflets at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, she and her brother Hans were arrested by the Gestapo, interrogated, and convicted of high treason in a show trial presided over by Roland Freisler. They were sentenced to death and executed by guillotine.
After her death, copies of the final White Rose leaflet were air-dropped over Germany by the Allies. In the decades following her death, numerous schools, streets, and memorials have been named in her and her brother's honor for their role in anti-Nazi resistance. Her story has been depicted in several films, books, and other media, including the Oscar nominated film Sophie Scholl – The Final Days.
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Early life
Scholl was the daughter of Magdalena (née Müller) and Robert Scholl, a liberal politician and ardent Nazi critic, who was the mayor of her home town of Forchtenberg am Kocher in the Free People's State of Württemberg at the time of her birth. She was the fourth of six children:
Inge Aicher-Scholl (1917–1998)
Hans Scholl (1918–1943)
Elisabeth Hartnagel (née Scholl) (27 February 1920 – 28 February 2020), married Sophie's long-term boyfriend, Fritz Hartnagel
Sophie Scholl (1921–1943)
Werner Scholl (1922–1944) missing in action and presumed dead in June 1944
Thilde Scholl (1925–1926)
She started school at the age of seven, learned easily, and had a carefree childhood. In 1930, the family moved to Ludwigsburg and then two years later to Ulm where her father had a business consulting office.
Scholl was brought up in the Lutheran church and remained a devout Christian the rest of her life. In 1942 she famously wrote, "I shall cling to the rope God has thrown me in Jesus Christ, even if my numb hands can no longer feel it."
In 1932, Scholl began attending a secondary school for girls. At the age of 12, she joined the female branch of the Hitler Youth, Bund Deutscher Mädel (League of German Girls), as did most of her classmates. Her initial enthusiasm gradually gave way to criticism. She was aware of the dissenting political views of her father, friends, and some teachers. Her brother Hans, who had at first participated enthusiastically in the Hitler Youth program, became entirely disillusioned with the Nazi Party. Political positions had become an essential criterion in her choice of friends. The arrest of her brothers and friends in 1937 for participating in the German Youth Movement left a strong impression on her.
Origins of the White Rose
Between 1940 and 1941, Sophie Scholl's brother Hans, a former member of the Hitler Youth, began questioning the principles and policies of the Nazi regime. As a student at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Hans met two Roman Catholic men of letters who gave him a new orientation in life, inspiring him to turn from studying medicine to the pursuit of religion, philosophy and the arts. Together with like-minded friends, Alexander Schmorell, Willi Graf and Jurgen Wittenstein, he eventually adopted a strategy of passive resistance toward the Nazis by writing and publishing leaflets that called for the overthrow of National Socialism. The anonymous authors called themselves the "White Rose".
The activities of the White Rose began in June 1942. By mid-July 1942, Hans Scholl and Alexander Schmorell had written the first four leaflets. Quoting extensively from the Bible, Aristotle, and Novalis, as well as Goethe and Schiller, the iconic poets of the German bourgeoisie, they appealed to what they considered the German intelligentsia, believing that such people would be easily convinced by the same arguments that motivated the authors themselves. The leaflets were left in the telephone books in public telephone booths, mailed to professors and students, and taken by courier to other universities for further distribution.
Sophie is believed to have first learned about the White Rose in July 1942, but Fritz Hartnagel remembers her asking him in May 1942 if he could get her a pass to buy a duplicating machine (which could not be obtained in Nazi Germany except by permit), which suggests that she may have known about the activities earlier. Her participation proved to be valuable to the group because, as a woman, she was less likely to be randomly stopped by the SS.
Arrest and execution
On 18 February 1943, Sophie and Hans Scholl went to the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München to leave flyers out for the students to read. The Scholls brought a suitcase full of leaflets to the university main building, and hurriedly dropped stacks of copies in the empty corridors for students to find when they left the lecture rooms. Leaving before the lectures had ended, the Scholls had some copies left in the suitcase and decided to distribute them. Sophie flung the last remaining leaflets from the top floor down into the atrium. This spontaneous action was observed by the university maintenance man, Jakob Schmid, a self-avowed Nazi, who had joined the Nazi Party in 1937.
Hans and Sophie Scholl were taken into custody by the Gestapo. A draft of a seventh pamphlet, written by Christoph Probst, was found in the possession of Hans Scholl at the time of his arrest. While Sophie Scholl was able to hide incriminating evidence in an empty classroom just before being captured, Hans tried to destroy the draft of the last leaflet by tearing it apart and swallowing it. The Gestapo recovered enough of it to read what it said and, when pressed, Hans gave the name of the author, Christoph Probst. In the record of his second interrogation, he stated, "The piece of paper that I tore up following my arrest this morning originated with Christoph Probst. ... All other persons with the exception of Probst are in my opinion not guilty." Christoph Probst was captured on 20 February 1943.
The main Gestapo interrogator was Robert Mohr, who initially thought Sophie was innocent. However, after Hans had confessed, Sophie assumed full responsibility in an attempt to protect other members of the White Rose.
In court before Judge Roland Freisler on 22 February 1943, Scholl was recorded as saying these words:
Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just don't dare express themselves as we did.
This was their only defense; they were not allowed to call witnesses.
On 22 February 1943, Scholl, her brother Hans, and their friend Christoph Probst were found guilty of treason and sentenced to death. They were all beheaded by guillotine by the executioner Johann Reichhart in Munich's Stadelheim Prison. Sophie was executed at 5:00 p.m., Hans at 5:02 p.m. and Christoph at 5:05 p.m. The execution was supervised by Walter Roemer, the head of enforcement of the Munich district court. Prison officials were impressed by the condemned prisoners' bravery, and let them smoke cigarettes together before they were executed.
Legacy
After Scholl's death, a copy of the sixth leaflet was smuggled out of Germany through Scandinavia to England by the German jurist Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, where it was used by the Allied Forces. In mid-1943, the Royal Air Force dropped millions of copies of the tract, retitled The Manifesto of the Students of Munich, over Germany as propaganda.
The playwright Lillian Garrett-Groag said in Newsday on 22 February 1993, "It is possibly the most spectacular moment of resistance that I can think of in the twentieth century. ... The fact that five little kids, in the mouth of the wolf, where it really counted, had the tremendous courage to do what they did, is spectacular to me. I know that the world is better for them having been there, but I do not know why."
In the same issue of Newsday, the Holocaust historian Jud Newborn observed, "You cannot really measure the effect of this kind of resistance in whether or not X number of bridges were blown up or a regime fell. ... The White Rose really has a more symbolic value, but that's a very important value."
On 22 February 2003, a bust of Scholl was placed by the government of Bavaria in the Walhalla temple. She was the fifth woman to receive that honor.
The Geschwister Scholl Institute of Political Science at LMU Munich is named in honour of Sophie and Hans Scholl. The Institute is home to the university's political science and communication departments, and is housed in the former Radio Free Europe building close to the Englischer Garten.
Many schools as well as countless streets and squares in Germany and Austria have been named after Scholl and her brother.
In 2003, Germans were invited by television broadcaster ZDF to participate in Unsere Besten (Our Best), a nationwide competition to choose the top ten most important Germans of all time. Voters under the age of 40 helped Scholl and her brother Hans to place fourth, above Bach, Goethe, Gutenberg, Bismarck, Willy Brandt, and Albert Einstein. If the votes of young viewers alone had been counted, Sophie and Hans Scholl would have been ranked first. Several years earlier, readers of Brigitte, a German women's magazine, voted Scholl "the greatest woman of the twentieth century".
Cultural legacy
In the 1970s and 1980s, there were three film accounts of Sophie Scholl and the White Rose resistance. The first TV film Der Pedell (1971) focused on the university maintenance man Jakob Schmid, who denounced Scholl and the other White Rose members. The TV film was produced for the West German ZDF. Percy Adlon's Fünf letzte Tage (Five Last Days, 1982) presented Lena Stolze as Scholl in her last days from the point of view of her cellmate Else Gebel. Stolze repeated the role in Michael Verhoeven's Die Weiße Rose (The White Rose, 1982). In an interview, Stolze said that playing the role was "an honour".
In February 2005, a film about Scholl's last days, Sophie Scholl – Die letzten Tage (Sophie Scholl – The Final Days), featuring Julia Jentsch in the title role, was released. Drawing on interviews with survivors and transcripts that had remained hidden in East German archives until 1990, it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in January 2006. For her portrayal of Scholl, Jentsch won the best actress at the European Film Awards, best actress at the German Film Awards (Lolas), along with the Silver Bear for best actress at the Berlin Film Festival.
The German TV docudrama Frauen die Geschichte machten – Sophie Scholl was broadcast in 2013. Sophie Scholl was played by Liv Lisa Fries.
She was portrayed by Victoria Chilap in the documentary movie Death of a Nation in 2018.
In February 2009, The History Press published Sophie Scholl: The Real Story of the Woman who Defied Hitler by Frank McDonough.
In February 2010, Carl Hanser Verlag released Sophie Scholl: A Biography (in German), by Barbara Beuys.
In Libba Bray's 2025 novel Under the Same Stars, "Sophie Scholl" is the name of Jenny and Lena's queer punk rock band in the 1980s West Berlin storyline. The story behind the real-life Sophie Scholl is later conveyed.
American playwright Lillian Garrett-Groag's play The White Rose features Scholl as a major character.