Sophie Scholl who was the only female member of the White Rose Society, an organization that distributed leaflets denouncing the government of Hitler. From my knowledge of WWII, the film pretty accurately depicts the repression of that period.
In a nutshell, Sophie was put to death by guillotine merely for handing out leaflets and for speaking her mind.
\\The White Rose group believed that the young people of Germany had the potential to overthrow Adolf Hitler and the Nazi government. In one leaflet, Fellow Fighters in the Resistance, they wrote: "The name of Germany is dishonoured for all time if German youth does not finally rise, take revenge, smash its tormentors. Students! The German people look to us."
The White Rose group also began painting anti-Nazi slogans on the sides of houses. This included "Down With Hitler", "Hitler Mass Murderer" and "Freedom". They also painted crossed-out swastikas.
Members also began leaving piles of leaflets in public places. On 18th February, Sophie Scholl and Hans Scholl began distributing the sixth leaflet produced by the White Rose group. Jakob Schmidt, a member of the Nazi Party, saw them at the University of Munich, throwing leaflets from a window of the third floor into the courtyard below. He immediately told the Gestapo and they were both arrested. They were searched and the police found a handwritten draft of another leaflet. This they matched to a letter in Scholl's flat that had been signed by Christoph Probst.
The three members of the White Rose group appeared before the People's Court judge, Roland Friesler, on 20th February. Found guilty of sedition they were executed by guillotine a few hours later. Just before he was executed Hans Scholl shouted out: "Long live freedom!"
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERschollS.htmThe First Amendment, which guarantees our right to free speech, is our most precious right. Beware of movements that do not tolerate ideas that differ from their own or that attempt to exclude from their midst individuals who do not agree with everything that the group believes. Beware of movements who revere their leader or admire their leader and cannot tolerate statements by people who are less enthusiastic about their leader.
The movie is excellent, but it is not an action movie. It seemed to be a filmed play. But it was an honest and moving depiction of the terrible repression of free speech that occurs when individuals become obsessed with the rightness of a movement or with their admiration of a leader and cease to practice tolerance for the ideas of those who disagree with their movement or criticize the leader of their movement.
Groups that repress free speech always believe that the repression is rational and in fact necessary in order to assure the achievement of the goals of the movement. Such groups always believe that unless the movement succeeds, there will be a disaster -- some terrorist act by those who disagree with the movement or some other horrible result. Such groups always believe that the goals of the movement are so important that they override other considerations. The ends justify the means. This is the common thread that runs through the NAZI and Communist movements, but also through many religious and other political movements. Beware. We all need to check our own ideas, our own hearts, to make sure that we are tolerant of those who do not agree with us or who agree with us only in part.
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