Sophie Scholl - Origins of The White Rose

Origins of The White Rose

Based upon letters between her and her boyfriend, Fritz Hartnagel (reported and analyzed by Gunter Biemer and Jakob Knab in the journal, Newman Studien) she had given two volumes of Cardinal John Henry Newman's sermons to Hartnagel when he was deployed to the eastern front in May 1942. This discovery by Jakob Knab shows the importance of religion in Scholl's life and was highlighted in an article in the Catholic Herald in the UK and by Scholl biographer Frank McDonough, who commented on BBC Radio Merseyside, "Knab's discovery is very important as it has highlighted how important her religious faith was in her life and as a key factor in her decision to oppose the Nazi regime." Though she was Lutheran, the White Rose was founded after Scholl and others read a stern anti-Nazi sermon by Cardinal Clemens August Graf von Galen (the "Lion of Münster"), the Roman Catholic Bishop of Münster.

She and they had been horrified by Hartnagel's reports of the behavior of the Germans on the Eastern Front where Hartnagel witnessed Soviet soldiers shot in a pit, and learned of the mass killings of Jews. Her correspondence with Hartnagel deeply discussed the "theology of conscience" developed in Newman's writings. This is seen as her primary defense in her transcribed interrogations leading to her "trial" and execution. Those transcripts became the basis for a 2005 film treatment of her final days, Sophie Scholl – The Final Days.