While there were plenty of bomb , tanks , and guns press against the Nazi regime during WWII , heavy heavy weapon was just one method of combat . The White Rose resistance chemical group choose to combat Hitler with words .
In June 1942 , German sibling Hans and Sophie Scholl , along withfriends Willi Graf , Alexander Schmorell , and Christoph Probst , make a non - violent resistance mathematical group call " White Rose . " To protest Hitler ’s flagitious acts of race murder and educate their fellow Germans , the White Rose anonymously penned a series of pamphlet that unwrap what the regime was doing . In addition to writing the material , White Rose appendage were also responsible for distribute it — a severe undertaking . But they found raft of consecrated scholar willing to do it , launch a connection throughout Munich , Hamburg , Freiburg , Berlin , and Vienna .
On February 18 , the Scholls brought a suitcase full of leaflet no . 6 to the University of Munich , leaving stacks in the hallway for educatee to find . Hans and Sophie were on their way out of the construction when theydecided to fling the remaining leafletsfrom the top of a staircase .
A " white rose " monument at the University of Munich in Bavaria , Germany . Credit : Gryffindor viaWikimediaCommons// Public Domain
The dramatic gesture was their undoing — it trance the attention of the maintenance military personnel , who called the constabulary . Hans and Sophie were taken into detention later that night , and the Gestapo , the secret state police , wasted no time convicting the Scholls of lese majesty . On February 22 , 1943 , just four years after the stairwell incident , the Scholls and Probst were sent to theguillotine . Graf , Schmorell , and faculty phallus Kurt Huber suffered the same destiny later that twelvemonth .
But the White Rose had the last laugh : One of their last leaflets was smuggle out of the nation , and in July 1943 , Allied planes droppedmillionsof them over Germany .
