The Seventh Leaf

As soon as the leaflets dropped from her hand, the young 21-year-old’s heart seemed to skip a beat. While there was little physical exertion from calmly walking up the stairs, there was the thrill of righteous rebellion, manifested by the brief but acute sensation of a lump forming in her throat. The adrenaline, mixed with the fear that she might have gone too far, caused her to pause as she watched the leaflets slowly fall to the atrium below. But before the illegal propaganda she had disseminated reached its final destination, Sophie spotted the university’s maintenance man, Jakob Schmid. He had seen her drop the leaflets. And like most others in Germany, he was not only a registered member of the Nazi Party, but one who truly believed in its ideals. Upon seeing this, Jakob quickly detained the young girl and her brother. Realizing that the pamphlets the siblings were spreading opposed the Nazi Party, the school’s authorities quickly handed the brother and sister over to the Gestapo.

Introduction

It was February 18th, 1943, in the very heart of Germany — at the University of Munich. By this time in the war, those very few dissidents within Germany were perhaps beginning to gain a bit of confidence. The tide was beginning to turn against Hitler’s military campaign that stretched across Europe. Just weeks before this, the Germans surrendered to the Soviet Union after the long and bloody Battle of Stalingrad. And just one week after that, the U.S. defeated Japan in the Battle of Guadalcanal on the Solomon Islands. Yet, even though the Nazis were starting to suffer serious setbacks, the Final Solution was still moving forward with frantic pace. It was very possible that because of these recent developments on the battlefields afar, the Nazis nearby began to speed up their goal of eliminating Europe’s “undesirables.” So, it was with renewed determination and the help of IBM’s technology that the Nazis continued to collect, transport, and terminate the Jewish people. What started off as slow persecution decades before had now morphed into numerous death camps where men, women, and children were all murdered with ruthless abandon.

Although most German citizens were either ignorant of these atrocities or turned a blind eye to them, Sophie and her older brother Hans had not. Their father, Robert Scholl, had been an outspoken critic of the Nazi Party from the beginning. This was especially notable since he was once a mayor of the small town that Sophie was born in. She was the fourth of six children that her father Robert and mother Magdalena raised in the Lutheran church with righteous convictions and pacifist practices. Because Robert had refused to fight in the First World War, he found himself serving in a hospital where he met his future wife, Magdalena. The two were married soon after meeting and started a family in 1917 with the birth of their first daughter, Inge. Tragically, of the Scholls’ six children, Robert and Magdalena would outlive four of them.

Sophie

Sophie Magdalena Scholl was born on May 9th, 1921. The times were difficult in the wake of World War One, with economic hardships and political instability. The Nazi Party then was radical but small. Because many Germans generally blamed their troubles on Communists and Jews, Hitler hoped to capitalize on this. He aimed to turn a broken and defeated nation into a growing, enthusiastic, and proud German people. From his prison cell, Hitler wrote Mein Kampf in 1925, railing against the effects of racial impurity and condemning “useless eaters.” Yet, despite the crash of 1929, Germany was beginning to show some signs of economic progress, political stability, and cultural vibrancy — especially in the nation’s youth.

When Sophie was around 12 years old, she, like most young women of the time, joined the League of German Girls in 1933. The Nazi regime heavily promoted youth organizations as exciting and patriotic. These groups were largely welcomed by a tired people trying to rebuild their national identity and rebound from the great loss of the First World War. Not surprisingly, these Nazi youth groups kept the darker secrets of their racism and ethnic cleansing in the shadows. Although the camps were filled with games, the Nazis openly highlighted the roles they wanted to see from their young men and women. The boys were trained to excel in hiking, camping, and combat, whereas the girls were taught to give their efforts to three things: “Children, Church, and the Kitchen.”

But after nearly five years, Sophie became disillusioned with the Nazi movement when her older brother Hans left the Hitler Youth. Seeing his movement away from the program, as well as witnessing some of her friends and family being arrested and persecuted for opposing Hitler’s Nazism, Sophie followed her older brother’s lead. Her growing love for literature, philosophy, and religion — all of which conflicted with Nazi propaganda — served to bolster her decision not only to leave the Hitler Youth, but to counter it.

But this would not be without cost.

Dissident

Soon after withdrawing from the Nazi youth group, Sophie and other members of her family were arrested after Hans was found to be participating in an anti–Hitler Youth group. Technically, he was charged with illegal “membership in an unapproved youth group.” Since it was common Nazi practice to arrest and question the whole family for the actions of one, many of the Scholls were arrested and interrogated. Although Sophie, only being 16, was released the same day, Hans spent three weeks in prison. This experience only solidified the family in their collective resistance against the Nazis.

As a result, in 1942 Sophie’s father was sentenced to four months in prison for publicly referring to Hitler as the “scourge of God.” After her six months in the National Labor Service in May of the same year, Sophie then enrolled in the University of Munich as a student of biology and philosophy, determined to oppose Nazism by any means. She was 21 years old and informally engaged to a German officer named Fritz Hartnagel. They had built a relationship over the previous few years, but when he was sent to fight on the Eastern Front, their relationship was obviously strained, causing them to correspond only sporadically through letters. Being on the battlefield, Fritz’s eyes were opened to the real horrors of the Nazis. His letters served as further evidence for Sophie to continue to oppose the Nazi party.

By this time in Germany, it was nearly impossible to be an active — let alone vocal — political or religious dissident without being caught and severely persecuted. Undoubtedly, it took great courage to resist the Nazi regime, but Sophie, like her father and brother, didn’t see it that way. Although Sophie, like everyone else, feared the consequences she or her loved ones might face if caught, unlike most Germans, she was even more afraid of the cowardice of remaining silent.

The White Rose

By June of 1942, the non-violent resistance to the Nazi Party and the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler was started by Sophie’s brother Hans along with some of his college friends. They were mentored by a professor at the University of Munich, Kurt Huber. Their aim was to somehow penetrate the indoctrination of the German people. By printing and distributing their pamphlets, they sought to enlighten ignorant minds, prick calloused hearts, and place courage within timid souls. Sophie, being the only girl in the small group, knew she could be used in a way that the young men couldn’t — as women were less likely to be stopped and questioned by the authorities. Their small but collective resistance went by the name: “The White Rose.”

For the next seven months, the group enthusiastically but soberly met in secret, collecting their thoughts and editing their writings — all while trying to get their hands on a duplicating machine. All of this was extremely difficult considering they were going against the Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels. In shaping public opinion, he had complete control over all newspapers, radio broadcasts, film, literature, art, theater, music, and education messaging.

Yet, with the help of a select group of like-minded dissidents, the White Rose covertly began to write, print, and disseminate their own messages — information the Nazis tried to conceal. In their second leaflet, for example, the White Rose referenced the murder of 300,000 Jews in Poland and condemned the genocide of Jews as “the most terrible crime committed in the name of humanity.” In total, the group would write only six main leaflets. They often quoted from the Bible, Aristotle, and Novalis, along with other famous German poets. One excerpt from the fourth leaflet read: “Why do you allow yourselves to be treated like so many cattle by one single man? The state has usurped the high command, and it is in the hands of criminals.” They then asked their fellow Germans, “Are you so cowardly that you dare not face the truth?”

Each of the articles was signed, “The White Rose.” Sophie, Hans, and the others hoped to reach all Germans, but educated ones in particular, believing that others would be convinced by the same philosophical and theological ideas that had inspired them. To spread their message, they left the leaflets in phone books inside public booths, mailed them to professors and students, and even sent copies by courier to other universities.

Arrest

On a cold, ordinary Thursday morning, Hans and Sophie walked the halls of their own college — the University of Munich. They had just acquired a suitcase full of their freshly printed sixth leaflet. They dropped stacks of their material in the hallways of the university so students would pick them up upon leaving the lecture rooms. But as Sophie surveyed the large atrium and the stairs rising above, she noticed that the central hall was relatively empty. The students were in their classes, and only a distant figure would occasionally pass by the walkway. With no one who would see her, Sophie had the idea to drop dozens of leaflets onto the atrium floor. Although brazen, this would surely disseminate their message much faster.

As soon as she saw the opportunity, she grabbed the remaining leaflets from the suitcase and walked up the stairs, trying to look as normal and relaxed as possible, given she was about to openly commit high treason against the Third Reich. Reaching the top, the papers in her small hand seemed to take flight rather than simply fall. But before the last leaflet hit the stone floor below, Sophie turned her head and noticed the school custodian watching her from behind a pillar. Jakob Schmid, a self-avowed Nazi, had seen her. Before Sophie and Hans could reach the outside door, Jakob had locked it from the inside and took the siblings to the school administrators. Upon reading their short letter, which personally condemned Hitler and explicitly called upon the students to overthrow the Nazi regime, it was abundantly clear that the brother and sister were caught not only spreading but inciting treason. The Gestapo promptly picked them up for questioning.

Interrogation and Execution

It was February 18th, 1943. The brother and sister were taken to the infamous Wittelsbacher Palace where the interrogations began. Hans and Sophie were immediately separated and questioned for hours by Gestapo Inspector Robert Mohr. At first, Sophie tried to deny the charges leveled against her. She claimed that she was merely a young student with no political involvement. But when a handwritten leaflet was found in Hans’s pocket — an incomplete draft of the seventh leaf — the evidence was overwhelming.

Because of the proof extracted from Hans, the Scholls’ friend and fellow member of the White Rose, Christoph Probst, was arrested the following day. After his apprehension, Sophie no longer denied or deflected the accusations against her and the White Rose. She made a full, fearless confession and never recanted. During the next two days, Saturday and Sunday, the interrogations continued. Sophie was recorded as confessing, “What we wrote and said is what many people think. They just don’t dare to say it.”

On Monday morning, February 22nd — just four days after their arrest — the trial before Judge Roland Freisler began at about 10:00 a.m. With the collected evidence being immense, coupled with the confessions of Hans, Sophie, and Christoph, the entire trial lasted only three hours. Judge Freisler condemned the three members of the White Rose with “high treason, treasonous aiding of the enemy, and undermining national defense.” All three were sentenced to death by Fallbeil — German for falling blade. The sentence was pronounced shortly after noon. The execution would take place at the People’s Court in Munich only a few hours later.

Once the judgment was delivered, the Scholls’ parents, Robert and Magdalena, were notified. While the executions were to be private, the parents were allowed a few minutes to see their children one last time under strict supervision. Magdalena held Sophie’s young face while Robert clutched her hands tightly. There were really no words to say. But with quiet Christian confidence, at the very end of their brief moment together Sophie told her parents, “Such a beautiful, sunny day — and I must go.”

Once separated, the three prisoners were walked to the holding cell where the guillotine awaited in the next room. The executioner was Johann Reichhart, one of the most prolific executioners in recorded history. The professional killer wore a top hat and black suit. As a seasoned expert, he took neither pleasure nor remorse in his work. He considered himself merely a functionary of the law, not a decision-maker.

At 5:00 p.m., Sophie was the first called into the Beilraum — “blade room.” She looked at Christoph and her older brother Hans one last time and stood up. Besides the executioner, only a few prison officials and legal witnesses were present. The room was sterile, quiet, and strictly procedural. Sophie lay face down as she was secured to the wooden bench. Though the experience seemed unreal and drawn out, she was in the room only a few minutes.

Knowing the atrocities that Hitler’s regime had carried out upon hundreds of thousands of Poles, Russians, Jews, the elderly, and the disabled, Sophie’s final moments carried a haunting resonance. She had spoken for those who could not. She had acted when others remained paralyzed by fear. Comforted by this final act of obedience to God, Sophie then began to pray in peace. Then the blade fell.

Hans was executed next. Before his voice was silenced, he cried out, “Let freedom Live!” Christoph Probst was then put to death. All three core members of the White Rose were executed in less than ten minutes.

Conclusion

In the years that followed, Sophie and the White Rose became symbols of quiet heroism, of faith that does not yield, and of resistance that does not waver. Soon after their deaths, their leaflets were smuggled to the Allies and later dropped over Germany by the thousands, ensuring that their voices would not be silenced.

Sophie Scholl did not carry a weapon, nor did she lead an army. She did not live to see the fall of the regime she opposed. But her courage-given faith lives on — a reminder that even the smallest voice, when lifted in truth, can change the course of history. Like her Savior, Jesus, Sophie gave her life to not only oppose evil, but to testify of the truth so that others might see and truly live.

Sophie Scholl’s story forces every generation to confront the same haunting question: will we remain silent when evil rises, or will we speak the truth no matter the cost? Her faith did not make her safe—it made her brave. And now the question comes to us, just as it once came to her.

But what do you think?

Micah Coate, President & Host of Salvation and Stuff

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Thank you for taking the time to read this article. This piece will be adapted into a YouTube video with additional commentary and insight, releasing on February 22, 2026—the 83rd anniversary of Sophie Scholl’s execution. Be sure to watch for it!