The White Rose is a shining example of resistance to Hitler, but also of the ruthlessness which the Nazis authorities showed when faced with any opposition. In early 1943, the fortunes of war were clearly turning against the Germans. The battle of Stalingrad had been a complete disaster, resulting in the surrender of the Sixth Army on January 31, 1943. Around this time, a small group of students, mostly centered in the University of Munich, began openly to agitate against the Nazi regime. They saw the war as lost, the good things they had thought would result from the Nazis in the 1930s as having been thrown away, and were horrified at the mistreatment of the Jews. The leaders of the student revolt were Hans Scholl (25), a medical student and his sister Sophie (21), a biology student. Hans Scholl had been an enthusiastic member of the Hitler Youth in 1933, but he quickly became disillusioned with Nazism as its inhumanity and barbarism became more and more clear with the passage of time.
People who have never lived under a totalitarian government have difficulty understanding how difficult it was - and how dangerous - to organize opposition to the government. The Nazis in particular were organized right down to the street level and people were encouraged to inform on their parents, relatives, and friends to the Gestapo; in short, anyone who manifested disagreement with the Nazis could be in serious trouble. Under the law of the Third Reich, over 5,000 people were executed for such trivial offenses as making jokes about Hitler or listening to radio broadcasts from Britain.
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