The events of Thursday, February 18, 1943

If you have watched either the Verhoeven or the Breinersdorfer movie about White Rose resistance, this post is for you. If you have read Inge Scholl’s little book about “the White Rose,” this post is for you. If you have been moved by A Mighty Girl snippets about Sophie Scholl, this post is for you.

If you have read any books or essays, or seen any plays that place Hans and Sophie Scholl at the center of the White Rose, that portray them as its fearless leaders, this post is for you.

Because what truly happened on February 18, 1943 bears no resemblance to the legend. What truly happened on February 18, 1943 matters. To us. In 2025. It matters if you have a passion for justice, for doing what is right. It matters if you are looking to work with an organization to fight injustice.

February 18, 1943 matters. Because it wasn’t supposed to end the way it did.

Except for Hans and Sophie Scholl, White Rose friends headed out to Prof. Kurt Huber’s 10 a.m. class. Huber’s Leibniz lecture had become their weekly sermon. Every Thursday, without fail.

Hans and Sophie, on the other hand, did not hurry. They ate a leisurely breakfast, checked the mail, piddled around a bit.

The siblings may have been killing time, waiting for 10 o’clock classes to get underway. In Ulm, Hans Hirzel worried about the aftermath of his Gestapo “interview” the day before. He cornered friends to see if they’d heard anything. Also in Ulm, Wilhelm Geyer left for Stuttgart — not Munich, as he usually would have done — to sell a painting. For some reason, Herr Marquard really, but really, wanted his Guardian Angel. Geyer guessed he could forego the wages he’d otherwise earn in Munich that day if he could sell a painting.

As Geyer met with Marquard, Hans and Sophie locked the door to their flat. Hans picked up the suitcase, she the small satchel. On this day, the short walk to the university took fifteen minutes, not eight or so. They stopped at the Siegestor, the Arch of Triumph, to bid Alexander Schmorell farewell. (B&W drawing above.)

Alex had burned his paybook and uniform a few days earlier. He had agreed to stand watch for Hans and Sophie, so their friend Christoph would not be involved in this final operation. Once they were done, Alex planned to leave for Russia. Join the partisans. Fight on behalf of his countrymen against the Nazis. Lilo Ramdohr was aware of his plans. She’d helped him burn that paybook and uniform, grieving as they did so. Apparently Willi knew too.

Alex had wanted to leave before the 18th, but Hans persuaded him to do one last favor. Just in and out. Stack leaflets outside classroom doors, as they had done the summer of 1942. This time, 1500 leaflets, not 100. Maybe dropping leaflets over the balustrade as class was letting out, then running for the rear exit. Still, a known risk, Alex thought. Hans and Sophie could do this in their sleep.

As the Scholl siblings reached the university’s “front” door on Ludwig Strasse, they saw Willi and Traute Lafrenz leaving. Medical students with classes on the medical campus on Nussbaum Strasse were leaving the main university building, as it was somewhat of a trek. Willi asked Hans if he’d be joining them for Bumke’s psychology lecture. Traute noticed Willi’s edginess when Hans said no.

Once Hans and Sophie were inside the building, they saw more students they knew. A girl from Ulm, several uniformed soldier-students.

Undeterred by the presence of familiar faces, Hans and Sophie turned right into the corridor, then took two long flights of stairs up to the third floor. Hans held the suitcase while Sophie placed 80-100 leaflets in front of Lecture Hall 201. They proceeded down the hall, stopping occasionally.

After saturating the entrances to classrooms on the third floor with Kurt Huber’s leaflet, they took the back stairs to the Amalien Strasse portal, the rear exit to the university building. Hans placed a very large stack of leaflets right inside the doorway.

They had made it without being caught! If they had simply kept walking, the leaflets would have been distributed as planned, and they would have been free. They were out the door…

But instead of carrying out the plan, they turned around and went back inside. They knew that in a matter of minutes, students who had not already left for classes on the medical campus would pour out of classrooms. In a matter of minutes, thousands of students would bear witness to their act.

Still, they turned around and went back inside. They first went to the second floor — up one flight of stairs — and placed leaflets in front of those classrooms. Then they went back up to the third floor, which was already well-supplied with leaflets. They threw the remaining leaflets over the balustrade onto the Lichthof or atrium below, watching as paper fluttered down onto the heads of classmates.

I spoke to and corresponded with people who were there, who witnessed this event. Anneliese Graf, Willi’s sister, wrote that she saw this happen and immediately knew who was behind it. She recalled the Scholl siblings’ comments about “the necessity of risking a visible protest.”

A translator friend from Augsburg remembered her mother talking about that day. Her mom was a student in Munich in 1943 and was in the Lichthof as leaflets rained down. “Even if you agreed with what they said,” her mother said, “it was a stupid, stupid thing to do. What were they trying to accomplish?”

Helmut Götz was just entering the university as leaflets showered around him. He saw the maintenance man Jakob Schmid spring into action, heading upstairs, reprimanding students who picked up leaflets.

Inexplicably — inexplicably — Hans and Sophie Scholl stood there and watched as Schmid lumbered up those two very long flights of stairs***. They stood there and waited for him to apprehend them.

Sophie did at least have the presence of mind to get rid of evidence she had on her person. She hid the studio key in an ottoman in Room 238. Hans, on the other hand, made no effort to dispose of Christoph Probst’s leaflet draft, copies of the sixth leaflet, or Clara Geyer’s cigarette ration coupons.

When Schmid reached the siblings and apprehended them, Hans was carrying the satchel and Sophie the suitcase. To Schmid’s surprise, Sophie readily admitted she had thrown the leaflets over the balustrade.

In 1995 when I walked the scene of this “crime,” I wondered why Hans and Sophie had not chosen one of two exits that I deemed readily available: First, the stairway down to the great lecture hall. Second, the back staircase to the Amalien Strasse exit.

Hertha Schmorell nee Buhl (daughter of Commanding Officer of the Second Student Company) told me that the stairwell to the great lecture hall was added postwar. But, she said, there was no reason they could not have disappeared down the Amalien Strasse stairs. They would have been home before Jakob Schmid reached the third floor.

When Gisela Schertling exited Prof. Huber’s class, she saw the pile of leaflets and knew who had been behind that operation. She was too intent on picking up her student ID to think more of it.

A law student named Leo Samberger sat in an upper-level law course. He heard the hubbub and inquired regarding its cause. Someone told him that leaflets had been thrown over the balcony into the Lichthof and that the maintenance man had apprehended the perpetrators. Samberger watched as university employees gathered leaflets.

Katharina Schüddekopf also sat in a small graduate-level class. Someone whispered that two male students and one female student had been detained for leaflets. Leaflets? Käthe suspected what had happened, but was unsure who the third person would have been.

Meanwhile, Otl Aicher kept his 11 o’clock appointment with Hans and Sophie. He arrived at their apartment for their scheduled lunch date. The place was locked up and no one answered his knock. He decided to people-watch along Leopold Strasse (unbeknownst to him, near Manfred Eickemeyer’s studio) and try again later.

Jakob Schmid herded Hans and Sophie to the property management office. Supervisor Scheidhammer, Schmid’s boss, in turn thought this matter was too great for their office to handle. Scheidhammer and Schmid marched Hans and Sophie to the university’s trustee, Mr. Häfner. Häfner in turn thought this was above his pay grade too. They should alert the Gestapo.

Alert the Gestapo, they did. Send a couple of detectives, they suggested. This was around 11 a.m., mere minutes after Schmid huffed and puffed up that staircase. Less than fifteen minutes after Hans and Sophie entered the university building.

A couple of detectives? For this case? This case that Berlin had made top priority? The Gestapo’s Special Commission sent a whole team of detectives from that Commission, including Robert Mohr. Plus another couple of regular agents drawn from other departments. Plus a large number of municipal policemen.

Contrary to legend, the Gestapo had not been running a “sting” operation at the university. There was no “Operation Search.” The Gestapo had not prepared special cells at Wittelsbacher Palace (their headquarters) the morning of February 18. They had just caught a lucky break.

By the time the Gestapo arrived — again, only minutes later — university employees and local police had gathered all the leaflets, both those stacked in front of classrooms as well as those on the floor of the Lichthof.

The university rector and Jakob Schmid filled Robert Mohr in on the events of the past half hour. Schmid said he saw Hans and Sophie near the balcony when the leaflets rained down.

Hans and Sophie remained calm, presenting their student IDs when asked. Not at all what those assembled anticipated.

Mohr ordered a search of their persons. As a detective frisked Hans, Schmid observed that Hans tried to shred a piece of paper and unobtrusively get rid of it. Schmid called this to the attention of the detective, who scooped up the evidence.

The pat-down yielded no results for Sophie, but a wealth of information for Hans. In addition to those bits of paper, Hans’ pockets yielded several leaflets (folded over) and Clara Geyer’s cigarette ration cards.

Schmid also played a role in matching the stacks of leaflets to the size of the suitcase and satchel. He did not hesitate in pointing his involvement out to the detectives. There was a substantial reward for the capture of the authors of the White Rose leaflets!

Mohr ordered the building locked, no one in or out.

Prof. Huber was confined to the building, along with all those students. He caught the eye of his sister-in-law, Rosmarie Schlickenrieder. He told her later that he immediately knew Hans Scholl was behind it, that he knew no good would come of his association with Hans. Because, Kurt Huber was aware of Hans Scholl’s addiction to pervetin, or crystal meth.

Friends outside the university worried too. Willi and Traute could hardly sit through Bumke’s lecture. They needed to get back to the university to find out what was going on with Hans and Sophie. Traute remembered how restless Willi was.

Otl returned to the Scholls’ apartment around 11:30. Mohr had already dispatched detectives to search the Scholls’ flat. Those agents opened the door and immediately took Otl into custody. He witnessed their search. For over two hours. Two very long hours.

Excruciating hours for students trapped inside the university as well. SS and Gestapo cars parked out front signaled the gravity of the situation. Not only were the doors locked. The Gestapo also shut down public telephones inside the university, so no one could leak news to the outside world.

Gisela Schertling, fresh student ID in hand, worried as she waited. Helmut Götz stood near Gisela, near the front of the mob wanting to leave as soon as possible. He witnessed two Gestapo agents lead Sophie through the crowd and became enraged that no one jumped to her defense.

Until he stopped short, realizing that he too was afraid to take such bold action, too cowardly to take that deadly step forward. “However, I was disturbed by the comfortless passivity of the students present who stood around silently, expectantly.”

Most students, that is. One young man caught the eye of Detective Penkert. First Lieutenant Count Karl von Metternich, standing close to Gisela and Helmut, kept trying to weasel his way past the sentries. He did this several times. He wanted out and was apparently used to getting his way. Not exactly in defense of Sophie Scholl, but not passively waiting, either.

When Gestapo Agents Achter and Ammer led Hans Scholl out a few minutes later, Hans turned to Gisela and shouted, “Tell him I won’t be coming home this evening.”

Agent Achter immediately took Metternich into custody along with Hans Scholl. He ignored Metternich’s protestations. Achter assumed that the person addressed by Hans Scholl had to be friend or acquaintance, involved in their work. Probable cause for an arrest in 1943. He felt vindicated when Detective Penkert advised him of Metternich’s suspicious behavior.

After the miscreants had been taken away by the Gestapo, university Chancellor Wüst appeared at the front portal. He had an important speech to make. Helmut Götz recalled, “He babbled on about traitors and the like. The students had the unbelievable idiocy to applaud [literally, stomp their feet].”

As soon as Alex became aware of the arrests, he hied himself to Lilo’s apartment near Schloss Nymphenburg. “I saw it,” he told her. He related how the Gestapo had turned the campus upside down. He was lucky to escape the dragnet, and he had been over a block away!

“I can’t go home,” he said. The noose was tightening, although he was still free. “The Gestapo works fast.”

He asked if he could use the neighbors’ phone to call his parents. Miele Roters, Lilo’s upstairs neighbor, shared her anti-Nazi sentiments. Sure enough, Miele granted permission.

Lilo dialed the number. But when a strange voice picked up on the other end, she could distinctly hear the crackling associated with a wiretap. Lilo panicked and hung up.

As Lilo and Alex attempted to reach the Schmorells, Traute ran the entire distance between campuses. Bumke’s lecture lasted two hours, not one, and their shared dread made it difficult to stay for the whole thing. Willi said he had to return to barracks — emergency roll call — so Traute arrived at the university alone, just as doors were opening. The first wave of students were exiting, with more locked inside.

She could hear the whispers. Doors were locked, leaflets, they took two people away… These fragments were enough. She knew. Traute knew.

Then she saw Monsieur Rousset, Käthe’s friend who had spent time with them at the studio. Haecker’s lecture. French novels with Käthe, Wilhelm Geyer, and Traute. A beloved friend. Traute stopped him. “Oui, oui, they took Hans away, et une jeune fille, petite et noire [and a young girl, small and black],” and he made a motion like Sophie’s smooth hair. “Comme une Russe [like a Russian],” but he could not remember her name.

“I did not run any more,” Traute said. “I knew what I had to do.”

Still, she had lunch with Käthe before making a hard-and-fast action plan. She had to be certain. Käthe later recalled how indignant Traute was. How she could not believe the Scholls would have been so foolhardy.

Traute spent the rest of her Thursday warning everyone who had not been at the university that morning. Her fearless actions likely saved the lives of many. Tilly Hahn described a young woman who warned her against dropping off a bigger and better duplicating machine at the Scholls’ apartment on behalf of Eugen Grimminger that afternoon. Almost assuredly Traute.

For certain, it was Traute who warned Josef Furtmeier. After the war, Furtmeier credited Traute with saving his life.

Gisela Schertling headed for the Scholls’ apartment after she was finally released. Like Otl before her, she walked straight into the arms of the Gestapo. Unlike Otl, she was immediately transported to Gestapo headquarters.

The Gestapo had gone from having no leads, to having almost too many to handle. Mohr ordered Agents Achter and Ammer to search Metternich’s room at the Abazia Hotel. They were to examine his clothing, luggage, and all objects found in the area that could be deemed slightly suspicious. And they were to check out Metternich’s male roommate, First Lieutenant von Blücher. Who knew what they would find?

Lisa Grote, that friend of Alexander Schmorell and possibly Kurt Huber, also heard about the arrests. She and her small band of resisters who copied out leaflets by hand and distributed them to nannies and associates? News of the arrests paralyzed them. “We lost all our courage.”

With agents dispatched to search the rooms of Metternich and Scholl, Agents Mohr and Mahler settled into their interviews of Sophie and Hans Scholl. Despite Sophie’s confession to Jakob Schmid, they believed these two were not the perpetrators they sought. Sophie reframed her confession as “I saw the leaflets on the balustrade and pushed them over, but I didn’t distribute them.” Seemed reasonable (or so he said postwar) to Robert Mohr.

A fascinating footnote to these initial interrogations: Agent Mahler was not the initial interrogator for Hans Scholl. While Robert Mohr completed Sophie’s intake form and questionnaire, Hans’ questionnaire was filled out by the “SS Chief Company Commander,” likely either Dr. Trenker or Gestapo Chief Schaefer. Mahler took over once that intake form was finalized.

Both Hans and Sophie did a decent job of deceiving their interrogators for the first hour or so. They both used their genuine Nazi credentials — Hitler Youth, family, military — to mislead Mohr and Mahler.

What they did not count on, but should have: The arrest of Gisela Schertling. While Hans and Sophie spun sweet tales, Gisela spilled her guts. Agent Grimm sat in another room, taking dictation as Gisela damned Hans, Sophie, Alex, Willi, Huber, Professor Muth, and Söhngen. Those were the only names she could remember on that day.

But oh! The Gestapo noted every one. Especially the one named Alex, whose last name began with Sch.

Mahler and Mohr immediately confronted Hans and Sophie with Gisela’s words. Instead of standing firm and vehemently contradicting Gisela’s denunciations, Hans denounced Alex and Willi, giving Mahler full names and addresses (Gisela could only remember first names). Mahler did not yet ask about Muth and Huber, and Hans did not yet volunteer information about them. But he did betray Alfred von Martin on February 18.

Hans gave up Otl Aicher as well. He was unaware that the Gestapo had detained Otl, but mentioned him, again with full name and address.

Hans Scholl also behaved like the smartass he could be, which only angered Agent Mahler. When Mahler asked Hans (in response to a statement Hans had made) whether he and Sophie had “lingered long on the third floor at the top of the rear staircase,” Hans foolishly replied, “I am not aware of a rear entrance to the university.” No clue what he hoped to gain with his impudence. But Mahler was not amused.

On February 18, both Hans and Sophie identified Traute Lafrenz as the student they had seen with a leaflet that morning. For me personally, this denunciation was the worst. Even Gisela had not identified Traute. Also, we know that Hans and Sophie had seen many other friends inside the university, some of whom were hardcore Nazis. They could have stated they saw any of those “friends” with a copy of the leaflet. To finger Traute? And, in the early stages of their interrogations?

When Mohr used Gisela’s testimony in his interview of Sophie, she not only betrayed Traute. She also implicated both Willi Graf and Alexander Schmorell with her statements.

While Hans, Sophie, and Gisela were endangering the lives of their friends, Lilo and Alex worked on a plan to get Alex out of the country. Lilo asked Miele Roters if she would be willing to help them forge a new passport. When Miele agreed, Lilo accompanied Alex to the home of a Bulgarian-Armenian friend named Nikolai Nikolaeff-Hamasaspian. Nikolai gave Alex his Bulgarian passport, endangering his own life in support of his friend. Lilo watched through the window as Nikolai and Alex said goodbye.

Miele not only forged the passport for Alex, she also gave Alex her husband’s razor. Lilo provided a pullover and scarf, while promising Miele that if Alex were arrested, neither of them would mention her. Miele thanked her. If I were to be arrested, with my husband on the Russian front and two small children at home, I don’t know what I would do.

Alex told the two women he had to do one more thing before he left Germany: He must call Willi. The way he talked, Lilo assumed Alex and Willi had made plans in case things went south. Miele granted permission for Alex to use her telephone one more time. But this time, he called Willi Graf, not his family.

Willi was back in his room at Maria Lösch’s house. It was around 3:15. Despite what Willi told Traute, he had not returned to barracks.

Willi agreed to meet Alex at 3:45 at the corner next to Ursulakirche in Schwabing. It was far north of the university, likely well outside the Gestapo’s dragnet.

Alex told Willi about the Scholls’ arrest. Willi was surprised at Alex’s relative equanimity. They should immediately go into hiding, Alex said. Willi, who did not own a forged passport, replied that that would be difficult. If they were to flee, the army would put out an alert for them. AWOL, absent without leave. That alone would cause their arrest.

Nevertheless, Willi agreed to help Alex with his own escape plans. He would meet him on the 19th at the “Starnberg” train station, the adjunct station handling slow-moving trains headed south. And, he waited with Alex while Alex made two more phone calls. They found a public telephone booth where Alex could talk without fear of being overheard. Willi stayed with Alex, probably standing watch.

First, Alex called Josef Söhngen. Alex assumed that the Gestapo would uncover Hans’ relationship with Söhngen. “Exercise extreme caution,” Alex told Söhngen. Söhngen had not heard about the arrests, and Alex spoke in riddles in case Söhngen’s phone was tapped. Söhngen understood and assumed the worst.

Then, to be sure that what Alex had seen and Willi had heard was absolutely true, they called the Scholls’ apartment. “A man’s voice answered the telephone,” Willi said. “He said that Scholl was not there.” Now they knew.

Alex returned to the safe haven of Lilo’s apartment, while Willi went to his cousin’s home in Pasing for dinner. Over a meal with the Luibles, Willi would ask if they knew students who would be interested in getting involved in resistance. Willi Graf was not about to back down.

Meanwhile, Alex, Hans, and Willi had indeed missed emergency roll call at the barracks. Hubert Furtwängler, unaware of the arrests, had answered in their stead, as he had done over the prior months when they worked on leaflets. Only this time, his “favor” for his friends backfired. Hubert would be interrogated by the Gestapo.

By 4 p.m., the lockdown at the university was completely lifted. All students and professors were finally dismissed. The Gestapo detained not only Metternich, they also thought Wilhelm Geyer’s friend Gerhard Feuerle looked suspicious. Unlike Gisela Schertling, Gerhard Feuerle did not denounce his friends. Not one person was arrested because of Gerhard’s interrogation. As they released him, the Gestapo advised Gerhard that they still considered him an “accessory to high treason,” although at that point they had no evidence against him.

Around 6 o’clock, Metternich was released. The search of his hotel room had come up empty, and they had learned he was a member of the NSDAP. Apparently a high-ranking member, judging from the alacrity of his release. He was not required to sign a nondisclosure agreement, as was the case with almost everyone else.

As Metternich was being released, Otl Aicher was escorted into Gestapo headquarters for his interrogation. On the ride from the Scholls’ apartment to Wittelsbacher Palace, he observed the mounds and mounds of evidence that had been collected. And there were still agents at the apartment, continuing the search. Otl realized how precarious his situation had become.

As an agent began to interrogate Otl, Otl stopped the proceedings and demanded transfer to a military court. He knew his rights as a soldier!

“Oddly enough,” Otl said after the war, “that made an impression on them, even though in a totalitarian state, there really is no such thing as a competent legal authority.”

The agents backed off as Otl demanded transfer to military courts, and their treatment of him changed significantly. He feigned a cold and asked to retrieve a handkerchief from his briefcase, which sat within reach. Not only did they let him get that blessed handkerchief — he was also able to get his diary from the briefcase and hide it under his shirt! As Otl reached for the briefcase, he saw Hans Scholl. Hans did not see him, but Otl recalled that seeing Hans gave him courage. He could never explain that sensation. Just that it was so.

When they moved Otl from the interrogation room to a cell (which caused Otl full-blown panic), they searched the briefcase, but not his person, because they had already searched his person before the interrogation. He knew he had been lucky.

Unbeknownst to Otl, he had seen Hans Scholl because Hans and Sophie were led back to their cells for supper break. Hans told his cellmate Helmut Fietz that he was afraid he would betray friends he had been able to protect to that point. Sophie confided nothing significant to Else Gebel, her cellmate.

After supper, Mohr and Mahler confronted Sophie and Hans with evidence from their apartment. Although the crime lab had only begun to sift through the materials they’d received, what they did have was more than enough, especially in that autocracy: Stamps, the Erika typewriter used to address envelopes, lists of addresses, memos, notes, bullets, an army issue .08 pistol, and these were merely the initial bits and pieces.

Crime lab quickly determined that the Erika typewriter was one of at least two typewriters used (dirty lower-case e, u, s, and k, and upper-case H, plus the number 4). Interrogations now became relentless. Mohr and Mahler (and now Agent Schmauβ as well) knew they had two of the perpetrators, but there would be more.

Hans Scholl clearly struggled to keep it together, his fears expressed to Helmut Fietz coming true. Mohr dispatched two agents to Willi Graf’s room. They found it neat as a pin, somehow missing the duplicating machine hidden under his bed.

Robert Mohr asked the Gestapo in Ulm to visit the Scholl family and demand any and all correspondence related to Hans or Sophie Scholl. Finally, Inge Scholl took Hans Hirzel’s multiple warnings to heart. That same evening, she hurried to the Geyers’ apartment to give Wilhelm Geyer a coded message to pass along to Sophie. She did not know her siblings had been arrested. Merely that they were in danger. Inge asked Clara Geyer to tell her husband, when he goes to Munich in the morning, could he tell Sophie, Machtstaat und Utopie?

Close to midnight, Wilhelm Geyer arrived home in Ulm and Willi Graf returned to his room from Pasing. Clara gave Wilhelm the message, only to learn it meant nothing to him. She was happy that he had sold his Guardian Angel painting to Marquard, happy to hear him chatter about meeting up with old friends in Stuttgart, even though it meant a lost day of work in Munich.

Willi, on the other hand, walked into an ambush. Anneliese had already been taken into custody, but remained at the Mandl-Strasse room. Agents Grimm and Müller waited for her brother. As soon as Willi appeared, they announced that he too was under arrest.

Calmly, Willi asked if he could change into his uniform. Nonplussed, the agents agreed, leaving him alone in his room. Anneliese told me she assumed that Willi hid his little journal as he changed clothes. (He probably carried it with him.)

Shortly after midnight, Willi Graf and his sister Anneliese would be marched into the same Gestapo headquarters where Hans and Sophie Scholl were being interrogated. Over the next four hours, both Hans and Sophie continued to give the Gestapo names of friends, including the name of Christoph Probst as author of the leaflet draft in Hans Scholl’s pocket.

Over the next four hours — indeed, over the next eight months — Willi Graf steadfastly protected his friends, taking guilt upon himself.

Willi Graf, Traute Lafrenz, Alexander Schmorell, Wilhelm Geyer, Lilo Ramdohr, Miele Roters, and Nikolai Nikolaeff-Hamasaspian demonstrated true friendship.

Traute used her precious hours of freedom to warn others, keeping them safe from harm, although her actions nearly cost her her life. She coordinated testimony with Käthe Schüddekopf, so the two of them could keep their stories straight. She stayed one step ahead of her interrogator, fending off accusations, protecting those she dearly loved.

Wilhelm Geyer, he who had taught Alex how to make that Down With Hitler template, he who saw their paint supplies and template in the studio basement, he who took meals with the Scholls on a regular basis, he who shuddered when Sophie told him she wanted to go out in a blaze of glory, he who had six children and a wife and mother he cherished more than life itself — this Wilhelm Geyer protected his friends. Like Otl, he too was lucky in that his audacious request for his wife’s cigarette coupons deprived the Gestapo of evidence against him.

Lilo, Miele, and Nikolai undertook measures to protect Alex. All three would have been executed had their actions been discovered. Alex too kept his word and never mentioned what they did. There is so much confusion regarding his actions between February 18th and February 24th because of his beautiful deceptions on their behalf.

Willi stood strong in the face of accusations. When presented with names of others, he denied their involvement and claimed he was responsible. When the Gestapo would later sit Alex across from Willi, hoping that each would accuse the other and deflect blame, their plans were thwarted. Alex and Willi instead stayed true to one another and tried to accept the other’s guilt.

On the other hand, Hans and Sophie Scholl, Kurt Huber, Hans Hirzel, and Gisela Schertling were all too willing to name names, to give details about their operations. We know so much about what the friends did from late December 1942 to February 18, 1943 because of the interrogations of those individuals. Sometimes, the narrative is almost minute by minute.

Why this matters?

If you decide to stand up for justice, choose your partners wisely. If someone is compromised by drugs or by a criminal record, be careful. If your coworkers associate with known Nazis, as Hans and Sophie Scholl did, run the other way. If your gut tells you something is not right, that your collaborator is careless or cannot control his speech, trust your gut.

Choose coworkers who take proper precautions. Who avoid close contact with known Nazis. Who cannot be compromised by a criminal record or coercion (one agent apparently used Hans Scholl’s pedophilia and Section 175-2 conviction to blackmail him into revealing Christoph Probst’s name).

February 18, 1943 was not supposed to end with the arrest of Hans and Sophie Scholl. Hans and Sophie were supposed to put leaflets out, perhaps even throw them over the balustrade. Then they were supposed to run down the back staircase, out the Amalien Street portal, and be home within minutes.

Alexander Schmorell was supposed to leave Germany to join Russian partisans in their fight against Nazis. Willi Graf would likely head to Berlin to meet resistance members around Pater Delp.

Everyone else would go on with their lives. Even Hans and Sophie. White Rose resistance would end on February 18, 1943.

Except. For some reason, the siblings decided to go out in a blaze of glory. They stood and waited as Jakob Schmid huffed and puffed up two long flights of stairs.

It was not supposed to end with the arrests of Otl Aicher, Helmut Bauer, Heinrich Bollinger, Willi Bollinger, Heinz Brenner, Manfred Eickemeyer, Gerhard Feuerle, Hubert Furtwängler, Wilhelm Geyer, Eugen Grimminger, Heinrich Guter, Theodor Haecker, Tilly Hahn, Falk Harnack, Hans Hirzel, Susanne Hirzel, Traute Lafrenz, Lilo Ramdohr, Gisela Schertling*, Elisabeth Scholl**, Werner Scholl**, Käthe Schüddekopf, Josef Söhngen: Bolded served time in prison, bolded italic barely escaped death.

It was not supposed to end with the deaths of Harald Dohrn, Willi Graf, Kurt Huber, Hans Leipelt, Christoph Probst, Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl.

But it did.

*In the end, the very-Nazi Gisela Schertling redeemed herself. During the July 13, 1943 trial of Dohrn, Eickemeyer, Geyer, Söhngen, Gisela Schertling recanted her prior testimony, resulting in the acquittal of all but Söhngen, and a light prison sentence for Söhngen. Without her non-testimony, all four men would have been sentenced to death.

After the war, Gisela Schertling — unlike Inge Scholl — publicly repented her Nazi ideology. She spent the rest of her short life making atonement any way she could. Had more Germans followed Gisela’s example, life in Germany after the war would have been much different. In the best possible way.

**Werner Scholl and Elisabeth Scholl were detained by the Gestapo in Ulm not because they were siblings of Hans and Sophie. But because both had strong Communist leanings. Both spent a great deal of time with Richard Scheringer and family, as did Sophie Scholl.

***Jakob Schmid was standing approximately where the Lichthof photograph was taken, in the atrium. He had to run up the flight of stairs to the ground floor (visible), and then up two more flights of stairs, each twice as long as what's visible. Even if you're in good shape, it's quite a long haul due to the unevenness of the stairs.

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The above information is fully footnoted in our White Rose histories. Please purchase them for access to that material! To order digital version of White Rose History, Volume I: Coming Together (January 1933-April 30, 1942), click here. To order digital version of White Rose History, Volume II, click here. WRH1 is © 2002, 2003, 2007 by Denise Elaine Heap. WRH2 is © 2002, 2007 by Denise Elaine Heap.

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