By
Sebastian Bullhorn
Dead Rebel Of The Week
~ Hans Scholl ~
This week’s recognized Dead Rebel is, again, a real person. He’s even considered to be a rebel by more than one or two relatives. For anyone who’s somewhat familiar with the history of the Third Reich, Hans Scholl is a pretty obvious choice for this column. Hans, born in 1918, was one of the founders of the German resistance movement during the second World War called “The White Rose” (“die Weiße Rose”).
Quite remarkably, (or maybe not, depending on whether you believe that people are actually born rebels or not), he actually started out as a young and zealous member of the Hitler Youth. But there was something about being arrested for carrying a flag representing an independent youth group at the 1935 Nuremberg Rally that made him realize the whole movement wasn’t that big on freedom after all. This in turn made him resent the Nazis and, thus, prepared him for his future role as the figurehead (along with his sister) of the German resistance against Hitler.
But at that early point he still lacked a few experiences that would later lead him to put his life at stake in the name of his ideals.
After Neuremberg, Scholl apparently still felt a need to have bullshit shoved down his throat and next turned to the Catholic religion. But even though nobody can say for sure what exactly inspired him to actively resist the national socialists in the end, there’s a good chance it had something to do with the sermons by a certain bishop, Clemens August Graf von Galen, that dealt with perseverance against Nazi terror. The bishop used these sermons as a way to inform the people about the ongoing annihilation of the mentally ill, or “euthanasia” for handicapped people. Perhaps that bishop would qualify as a Dead Rebel himself if it wasn’t for the fact he probably knew he was safe. He actually owed his life to Joseph Goebbels, who was smart enough not to create any Catholic martyrs during the war. But it’s neither the bishop’s nor Goebbels’ turn this week, and chances are they’ll never get the incredible honor, so fuck it and let’s get back to young Hans Scholl.
By 1942 Scholl had long made up his mind about the situation in his country and he realized he wasn’t alone. Through like-minded people, more and more reports about the Nazis’ mass murders in Poland and Russia reached him. It wasn’t really a secret anymore. Most people realized what really went on inside and outside of the country. But whether they liked it or not didn’t matter since what everyone predominantly realized was what would happen to you if there was any doubt about your loyalty.
And that’s where Hans differed from pretty much all the other people in Germany at that time, which is also the reason why I’m writing about him and not Günther Müller from Bliesmengen-Bolchen or any other craven citizen. Hans didn’t just stick his head in the sand and hope for the best like all the others. He didn’t freely surrender instead of taking a chance. He didn’t value his life higher than his ideals of personal freedom. Or in other words: Hans Scholl had balls.
The last straw for him was experiencing life as a paramedic at the war’s front first-hand after he was drafted into the Wehrmacht. Scholl decided to do something about the whole debacle. So back at the University of Munich, where he was studying medicine, he created The White Rose with fellow student Alexander Schmorell.
Needless to say, there was no point in grabbing a kitchen knife and trying to ram it up Adolf’s ass, so they thought of ways to raise awareness among the German citizens, who for the most part still believed all the propaganda they were being fed. Scholl decided to print flyers denouncing the Nazi regime and appealing to the German population, calling for resistance. In June and July of 1942 they managed to print four different flyers and anonymously mail them to German intellectuals. The first one just criticized the lack of civil disobedience. The second mainly dealt with the truth about the holocaust. After that, Scholl openly started calling for sabotage.
From July until late autumn, Scholl and Schmorell unfortunately had to return to the Eastern front. But once back in Munich they immediately resumed their endeavour. The group was joined by Hans’ sister, Sophie, another student named Willi Graf, as well as a respectable professor from their university named Kurt Huber. Together they designed two more pamphlets that were sent all over Germany and even made their way to Austria. It is estimated that 9000 copies of each pamphlet were printed.
This may not sound like a hard thing to do, but you have to bear in mind that if they were caught they would have been killed immediately with no questions asked. And if nobody’s supposed to know what you’re doing, try to find someone who’s ready to risk his own life printing your flyers. Try to explain why you need thousands of stamps to the authorities. Hell, try to pay for all that shit in the first place.
And while they managed to do all that, The White Rose still went down the shitter in the end. The sixth flyer composed by Kurt Huber finally marked their downfall in February of 1943. The battle in Stalingrad had just been lost and this resulted in great uncertainty and doubt among the German population; the first big defeat. So they decided to go all the way - it was make-or-break. During the nights, they repeatedly painted the university and as much of the rest of Munich as possible with “Down with Hitler” (not to be confused with retarded thug-talk, by the way) and “Freedom” slogans as well as crossed-out swastikas.
And as they weren’t able to ship all the copies they managed to make, they decided to hand them out at their university. This turned out to be the fatal mistake. On February 18th ,1943 a janitor turned the Scholl siblings over to the GeStaPo. Back then those trials didn’t take quite as long as today, and so the Scholls had a date with the guillotine only four days later. The rest of the members of The White Rose soon followed.
Fun fact: it never really became clear whether Sophie Scholl actually had given up and let herself get caught on purpose because she couldn’t handle the pressure anymore. It had become harder and harder to work undercover.
Okay, even though it wasn’t the easiest task to cope with you may still think, “So what? They printed a couple of flyers and passed them around. Why exactly are they called rebels while little Samran who’s advertising his Thai food diner at the corner the same way is not?“ There’s indeed a not insignificant difference: all Scholl got for his efforts was the arguable pleasure of being executed at the age of 25 and he didn’t have any reason to do it aside from his beliefs.
You have to try to stop thinking as someone who takes freedom for granted in order to appreciate the accomplishments of The White Rose. Stop thinking as someone who sees boundless freedom of speech as the most natural thing in the world. That couldn’t have been farther from the truth at that time – a time when one unwarily uttered word meant your immediate death. It wouldn’t hurt to be aware that our freedom is actually a monumental privilege.
Would you die for it?
Or if nothing else, Hans Scholl should at least remind us that not everyone in Germany was fond of what was going on and some people weren’t even cowards. His last words were “Long live freedom”. Beats “Is this one loaded?” as far as I’m concerned.
For some, Hans Scholl was a traitor, for others a national hero. But all valuation aside – he was definitely a rebel.
