Based on the True Story
A book based on the true story about German resistance activist, Sophie Scholl and her boyfriend, German army officer, Fritz Hartnagel
He told her what he witnessed. What she did with the truth changed history.
As a founding member of the Munich student resistance during World War II, Sophie Scholl helped write, produce and distribute thousands of anti-Nazi leaflets. Tens and thousands of these important documents reached sixteen Southern German and Austrian cities. Scholl’s boyfriend, Captain Fritz Hartnagel, served on the Western and Eastern fronts in Hitler’s Army.
For the first time ever, this story reveals the inner thoughts and feelings behind a six-year relationship. Sophie is recognized today as one of the best-known political activists against the Third Reich.
Importantly, Officer Hartnagel wrote to his girlfriend about his witnessing of SS and German Army atrocities.
It took two courageous people to know the truth. On opposite sides of the war, they used their confiscated personal freedoms to act on it, risking their lives.
Fritz and Sophie’s correspondence provided more than just motivating Scholl further into acting against their country’s dictator. Sophie Scholl and Fritz Hartnagel’s relationship illustrates the moral complexity of living in a totalitarian state, and is, ultimately, a story about love.
INFORMATION ABOUT THE BOOK
amazon.com/author/alexandralehmann
Print book available October 2016
This is a novelization of a true story. It is a dramatic interpretation of real events and people taken from eyewitness interviews and other primary archival sources and historical records. Some scenes are presented as composites or have been imagined. Excerpts from letters are sometimes used as dialogue. Chapter titles excerpted from Sophie Scholl’s letters.
The author translated letters and diaries with assistance from Heinz Tophinke.
Permission granted from Damit wir uns nicht verlieren. Briefwechsel 1937-1943. Copyright S. Fischer Verlag GmbH, Frankfurt am Main, 2005. Used by permission.