University Students vs. the Third Reich

Hi again ... Geoff Walden, your Munich tour guide, with a note about Munich history. A unique resistance movement against the Nazi government was formed among university students in Munich in mid-1942. This movement became known as the "White Rose" group, headed by siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl, Alexander Schmorell, Christoph Probst, and others. The students printed and distributed anti-Nazi leaflets until February 1943, when the Scholls were caught throwing leaflets into the air in the atrium of the University of Munich. The Scholls were interrogated by the Gestapo and other members of the group were rounded up and tried in a Peoples Court (Volksgerichtshof), several receiving sentences of death. The Scholls, Probst, Schmorell, and others were executed by beheading.

The legacy of the "White Rose" lives on in Germany, particularly the memory of the Scholls, who are memorialized across the country in street names, memorial plazas, and monuments. We will have the opportunity to visit the Geschwister-Scholl-Platz at the University of Munich, to see for ourselves where the "White Rose" stood up against the Third Reich.