Ten Mounted Photographs to Honor Sophie Scholl’s 100 Birthday

Charlestown, Rhode Island, May 5, 2021.   Starting on May 9, BoP Gallery at 289 Narrow Lane will be showing ten historic photographs illustrating the heroic lives of Munich’s White Rose resistance group. Sophie Scholl, German teacher and student (1921-1943), was a principal figure in a cell that would grow beyond 23 members at the…

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Translation of Sophie Scholl’s Gestapo Interrogation Notes

Sophie Scholl interrogated here after her arrest, February 1943

Fortsetzung der Vernehmung der Beschuldigten Munich, February 20, 1943 Context: Two days earlier, siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl were captured and arrested at the University of Munich after distributing Professor Kurt Huber’s sixth edition of the “German Resistance” leaflets. They were interrogated by Chief Inspector Robert Mohr at the State Secret Police Headquarters on Briennerstrasse. The below…

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Seventy-Five Years Ago Today

Sophie Scholl quote translated by Alexandra Lehmann

Seventy-five years ago today Sophie Scholl sketched “FREEDOM” on the backside of her conviction for “treason.” F R E E D O M. She would die hours later, forgiving her executioners as the passageway to eternal life. (See: Pastor Alt’s eyewitness testimony to her last Communion.)  If one wants to know this great hero of…

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To Fritz Hartnagel, Munich, February 16, 1943

Context: Fritz Hartnagel survives Stalingrad. It is World War II’s most horrific battle. He is recuperating from near starvation and amputations from severe frostbite at a field hospital in occupied Poland. Sophie is studying Nazi approved philosophy with her brother and his friends at the University of Munich. They have kept their resistance activities, started…

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Christmas Greeting from Stalingrad

With You There Is Light Sophie Scholl Alexandra Lehmann

Translated here into English for the first time with permission of S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt. To Sophie Scholl from Fritz Hartnagel, December 1942. Yesterday, my dear Sophie, as the Russians fired on our position with heavy artillery and the sirens went berserk, a little bird suddenly sat at the edge of our trench and peeped…

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Political Resistance History and Context in the Age of Trump, Part 2 of 4

With You There Is Light

For the liberal elite, Progressives, and #NeverTrumpers, resistance means opposition to the country’s sitting President. Referring to this ray of light in World War II history along with shouting “Nazi” and instilling fear in those who do not think or believe as strongly in another group’s identity politics obstructs the unification of this country.* Journalists…

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Re-Visiting The White Rose Student Resistance Movement in Munich

white-soe-installation

New Munich Student Resistance Installation (LMU, 2/17)     Munich, June 10, 2017. Re-visiting the new installation at the University of Munich (LMU) furthered my commitment to sharing the history of the White Rose student resistance movement. During World War II, siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl, and Alexander Schmorell, began active opposition against Hitler and the Nazi Party.…

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Sophie Scholl’s “Library” 1937-1943

sophie-scholl-library-books

Sophie Scholl gave us a very thorough “intellectual history,” often quoting from and mentioning the books she read in her letters and diaries. Sophie decided to engage in “inner emigration” by retreating into literature  as the Nazi hold on society grew more restrictive. The Reich Cultural Directorate had declared many of Sophie’s books “degenerate or subversive.” She read…

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