Geburtstag: 9. Mai 1921
Todesdatum: 22. Februar 1943
Andere Namen:Sophie Magdalena Scholl
Sophia Magdalena Scholl war eine deutsche Widerstandskämpferin gegen die Diktatur des Nationalsozialismus. Sie wurde aufgrund ihres Engagements in der Widerstandsgruppe Weiße Rose hingerichtet.
— Sophie Scholl
Auszüge aus den Verhörprotokollen, Februar 1943; Bundesarchiv Berlin, ZC 13267, Bd. 1 Online unter bpb. de
— Sophie Scholl
Antwort auf die Abschlussfrage, ob sie "nicht doch zu der Auffassung gekommen [sei], dass [ihre] Handlungsweise und das Vorgehen gemeinsam mit Ihrem Bruder und anderen Personen gerade in der jetzigen Phase des Krieges als ein Verbrechen gegenüber der Gemeinschaft insbesondere aber unserer im Osten schwer und hart kämpfenden Truppen anzusehen ist, das die schärfste Verurteilung finden muss." Auszüge aus den Verhörprotokollen, Februar 1943; Bundesarchiv Berlin, ZC 13267, Bd. 3 Online unter bpb. de
— Sophie Scholl
Context: Isn't it bewildering … that everything is so beautiful, despite all the horrors that exist? Lately I've noticed something grand and mysterious peering into my sheer joy in all that is lovely — the sense of a Creator whom innocent creation worships with its beauty. Only man can be hateful or ugly, because he possesses a free will to cut himself off from the chorus of praise. It often seems that he will succeed in drowning out this chorus with his cannon thunder, curses, and blasphemy. But it has become clear to me this spring that he cannot. And so I must try to throw myself on the side of the victor.
As quoted in O<sub>2</sub> : Breathing New Life Into Faith (2008) by Richard Dahlstrom, p. 223; this source is disputed as it does not cite an original document for the quote.
— Sophie Scholl
Context: The real damage is done by those millions who want to "survive." The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don't want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won't take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don't like to make waves — or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honor, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It's the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you'll keep it under control. If you don't make any noise, the bogeyman won't find you. But it's all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.
As quoted in O<sub>2</sub> : Breathing New Life Into Faith (2008) by Richard Dahlstrom, Ch. 4 : Artisans of Hope: Stepping into God's Kingdom Story, p. 63; this source is disputed as it does not cite an original document for the quote. It is also used in <i> The White Rose </i> (1991) by Lillian Garrett-Groag, a monologue during Sophie's interrogation.
— Sophie Scholl
Context: The only remedy for a barren heart is prayer, however poor and inadequate. As I did that night at Blumberg, I'll keep on repeating it for us both: We must pray, and pray for each other, and if you were here, I'd fold hands with you, because we're poor, weak, sinful children. Oh, Fritz, if I can't write anything else just now, it's only because there's a terrible absurdity about a drowning man who, instead of calling for help, launches into a scientific, philosophical, or theological dissertation while the sinister tentacles of the creatures on the seabed are encircling his arms and legs, and the waves are breaking over him. It's only because I'm filled with fear, that and nothing else, and feel an undivided yearning for him who can relieve me of it.
Letter to her boyfriend, Fritz Hartnagel, as translated in At the Heart of the White Rose: Letters and Diaries of Hans and Sophie Scholl (1987), p. 256; edited by Inge Jens, translated by J. Maxwell Brownjohn; also in Voices of the Holocaust : Resistors, Liberation, Understanding (1997) by Lorie Jenkins McElroy
— Sophie Scholl
Context: Just because so many things are in conflict does not mean that we ourselves should be divided. Yet time and time again one hears it said that since we have been put into a conflicting world, we have to adapt to it. Oddly, this completely unchristian idea is most often espoused by so-called Christians, of all people. How can we expect a righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone who will give himself up undividedly to a righteous cause?
As quoted in Seeking Peace : Notes and Conversations Along the Way (1998) by Johann Christoph Arnold, p. 155
— Sophie Scholl
Context: The real damage is done by those millions who want to "survive." The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don't want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won't take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don't like to make waves — or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honor, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It's the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you'll keep it under control. If you don't make any noise, the bogeyman won't find you. But it's all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.
As quoted in O<sub>2</sub> : Breathing New Life Into Faith (2008) by Richard Dahlstrom, Ch. 4 : Artisans of Hope: Stepping into God's Kingdom Story, p. 63; this source is disputed as it does not cite an original document for the quote. It is also used in <i> The White Rose </i> (1991) by Lillian Garrett-Groag, a monologue during Sophie's interrogation.
— Sophie Scholl
Context: The real damage is done by those millions who want to "survive." The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don't want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won't take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don't like to make waves — or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honor, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It's the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you'll keep it under control. If you don't make any noise, the bogeyman won't find you. But it's all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.
As quoted in O<sub>2</sub> : Breathing New Life Into Faith (2008) by Richard Dahlstrom, Ch. 4 : Artisans of Hope: Stepping into God's Kingdom Story, p. 63; this source is disputed as it does not cite an original document for the quote. It is also used in <i> The White Rose </i> (1991) by Lillian Garrett-Groag, a monologue during Sophie's interrogation.
— Sophie Scholl
Context: I know that life is a doorway to eternity, and yet my heart so often gets lost in petty anxieties. It forgets the great way home that lies before it. Unprepared, given over to childish trivialities, it could be taken by surprise when the great hour comes and find that, for the sake of piffling pleasures, the one great joy has been missed. I am aware of this, but my heart is not. It seems unteachable; it continues its dreaming … always wavering between joy and depression.
As quoted in Sophie Scholl: The Real Story of the Woman who Defied Hitler (2009) by Frank McDonough
— Sophie Scholl
Context: Isn't it bewildering … that everything is so beautiful, despite all the horrors that exist? Lately I've noticed something grand and mysterious peering into my sheer joy in all that is lovely — the sense of a Creator whom innocent creation worships with its beauty. Only man can be hateful or ugly, because he possesses a free will to cut himself off from the chorus of praise. It often seems that he will succeed in drowning out this chorus with his cannon thunder, curses, and blasphemy. But it has become clear to me this spring that he cannot. And so I must try to throw myself on the side of the victor.
As quoted in O<sub>2</sub> : Breathing New Life Into Faith (2008) by Richard Dahlstrom, p. 223; this source is disputed as it does not cite an original document for the quote.
— Sophie Scholl
Context: Just because so many things are in conflict does not mean that we ourselves should be divided. Yet time and time again one hears it said that since we have been put into a conflicting world, we have to adapt to it. Oddly, this completely unchristian idea is most often espoused by so-called Christians, of all people. How can we expect a righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone who will give himself up undividedly to a righteous cause?
As quoted in Seeking Peace : Notes and Conversations Along the Way (1998) by Johann Christoph Arnold, p. 155
— Sophie Scholl
Context: I've been thinking of a story from the Old Testament: Moses stood all day and all night with outstretched arms, praying to God for victory. And whenever he let down his arms, the enemy prevailed over the children of Israel. Are there still people today who never weary of directing all their thinking and all their energy, single-heartedly, to one cause?
As quoted in Seeking Peace : Notes and Conversations Along the Way (2000) by Johann Christoph Arnold, p. 155
— Sophie Scholl
Context: I'm still so remote from God that I don't even sense his presence when I pray. Sometimes when I utter God's name, in fact, I feel like sinking into a void. It isn't a frightening or dizzying sensation, it's nothing at all — and that's far more terrible. But prayer is the only remedy for it, and however many devils scurry around inside me, I shall cling to the rope God has thrown me in Jesus Christ, even if my numb hands can no longer feel it.
As quoted in At the Heart of the White Rose: Letters and Diaries of Hans and Sophie Scholl (1987) edited by Inge Jens, translated by J. Maxwell Brownjohn; also in Voices of the Holocaust : Resistors, Liberation, Understanding (1997) by Lorie Jenkins McElroy
— Sophie Scholl
Response to the closing question of whether she hadn't "indeed come to the conclusion that your conduct and the actions along with your brother and other persons in the present phase of the war should be seen as a crime against the community, but in particular against our troops fighting arduously in the east, that merits the severest sentence?" in the official examination transcripts (February 1943); Bundesarchiv Berlin, ZC 13267, Bd. 3 http://www.bpb.de/themen/5H3ZT3,3,0,Ausz%FCge_aus_den_Verh%F6rprotokollen_von_Sophie_Scholl.html#art3
— Sophie Scholl
These were her last words as depicted in the film, Sophie Scholl - The Final Days (2005) http://www.sophieschollmovie.com/, which was heavily based on Gestapo documents that were in East German archives and not released until 1990. Her last words have also been reported as "God, you are my refuge into eternity" or sometimes "Your heads will fall as well" but there is dispute over whether Sophie or her brother Hans had said this. Hans' last words have been reported as having been Es lebe die Freiheit! ["Long Live Freedom!"]
