Die Weiße Rose

I’ve just finished a book about the White Rose anti-Nazi group who distributed leaflets during the war and were executed by the Nazis as traitors. I have to say it’s moving stuff, young conscientious people willing to put it all on the line because it was the right thing to do while most buried their head in the sand. I feel like I should pop down to Munich one February 22nd to pay tribute. Next year will be the 65th anniversery of the first 3 executions – of Hans and Sophie Scholl and father of three, Christoph Probst.

One of the things I especially like about the group is that they didn’t just oppose the Nazi war crimes, but they also opposed their world view. They opposed the overly strong state. They opposed the view of man as a tool, a means to an end, and the state as an end instead of a means.

The strange thing about this particular text is the fact that it claims to be written by a couple of academics, and on the face of it seems well researched, (its the only book on the subject I’ve read so I’m not in a good position to judge) yet it isn’t footnoted.

I’ll finish with the final paragraph of the book:

“The impact of the White Rose cannot be measured in tyrants destroyed, regimes overthrown, justice restored. A scale with another dimension is needed, and then their significance is deeper; it goes even beyond the Third Reich, beyond Germany: if people like those who founded the White Rose can exist, believe as they believed, act as they acted, maybe it means that this weary corrupted, and extremely endangered species we belong to has the right to survive, and to keep on trying.”

from Annette Dumbach and Jud Newborn, Sophie Scholl and the White Rose, (Oxford: Oneworld, 2007)

~ by yorksdevil on July 24, 2007.