The White Rose was written by Lillian Garrett-Groag and premiered in 1991 at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, Calif. The play chronicles the arrest, interrogation and eventual execution of a group of University of Munich students who protested the Nazi regime at the height of World War II. The students assigned to themselves the name White Rose.
"The play has roles for seven males and one female. The strongest roles belong to Robert Mohr, the head of the Munich Gestapo, and Sophie Scholl, one of the students. Mohr, moved by Scholl's passion (and mindful that she is German, but not Jewish), attempts to save her by giving her a chance to recant, but she refuses. The play ends with a spotlight on Scholl snapping off, symbolizing her beheading, and Mohr musing, "The most we can hope for is to get by. Heroes and ... (carefully) demagogues will always shake things up for a while, but if we're clever, we'll still be here when they're gone." At which point, a Gestapo investigator attempts to be encouraging, noting that people like Mohr "are of enormous use to the Reich." Thus concludes the theme of the play, that people, not monsters, are responsible for great communal disasters, and each of those people had a "moment of choice," according to Garrett-Groag in her Foreword. [1]
The White Rose won the AT&T Award for New American Plays. [2]
On January 24, 1991, Bruce Kerner was interested in producing the film adaptation of The White Rose back in 1989 with Inge Scholl consulting on the film and production expected to start later in 1991 or in 1992. [2]
In 2013, a professional production of The White Rose took place in Vaughan, Ontario, Canada (part of the Greater Toronto Area) at the Vaughan City Playhouse. Produced by Shadowpath Productions, it was directed by Tanisha Taitt and featured Alex Karolyi as Sophie Scholl.
On January 24, 1991, Bruce Kerner expressed interest in producing a Broadway production of The White Rose as well. [2]
The White Rose was a non-violent, intellectual resistance group in Nazi Germany which was led by five students and one professor at the University of Munich: Willi Graf, Kurt Huber, Christoph Probst, Alexander Schmorell, Hans Scholl and Sophie Scholl. The group conducted an anonymous leaflet and graffiti campaign that called for active opposition to the Nazi regime. Their activities started in Munich on 27 June 1942; they ended with the arrest of the core group by the Gestapo on 18 February 1943. They, as well as other members and supporters of the group who carried on distributing the pamphlets, faced show trials by the Nazi People's Court ; many of them were imprisoned and executed.
Hans Fritz Scholl was, along with Alexander Schmorell, one of the two founding members of the White Rose resistance movement in Nazi Germany. The principal author of the resistance movement's literature, he was found guilty of high treason for distributing anti-Nazi material and was executed by the Nazi regime in 1943 during World War II.
Sophia Magdalena Scholl was a German student and anti-Nazi political activist, active in the White Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany.
Kurt Huber was a German university professor and resistance fighter with the anti-Nazi group White Rose. For his involvement he was imprisoned and guillotined.
Die Weiße Rose is a 1982 CCC Film production about the White Rose resistance to the Nazis led by university students in Munich in 1942–1943 whose members were caught and executed in February 1943, shortly after the German capitulation at Stalingrad.
Christoph Ananda Probst was a German student of medicine and member of the White Rose resistance group.
Sophie Scholl – The Final Days is a 2005 German historical drama film directed by Marc Rothemund and written by Fred Breinersdorfer. It is about the last days in the life of Sophie Scholl, a 21-year-old member of the anti-Nazi non-violent student resistance group the White Rose, part of the German Resistance movement. She was found guilty of high treason by the People's Court and executed the same day, 22 February 1943.
Wilhelm "Willi" Graf was a German member of the White Rose resistance group in Nazi Germany. The Catholic Church in Germany included Graf in their list of martyrs of the 20th century. In 2017, his cause for beatification was opened. He was given the title Servant of God, the first step toward possible sainthood.
Alexander Schmorell was a Russian-German student at Munich University who, with five others, formed a resistance group known as White Rose which was active against the Nazi German regime from June 1942 to February 1943. In 2012, he was glorified as a saint and passion bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, and is venerated by Orthodox Christians throughout the world.
Lillian Groag is an Argentine-American playwright, theater director, and actress. Her plays include The Ladies of the Camellias, The Magic Fire, and The White Rose.
Inge Aicher-Scholl, born in present-day Crailsheim, Germany, was the daughter of Robert Scholl, mayor of Forchtenberg, and elder sister of Hans and Sophie Scholl, who studied at the University of Munich in 1942, and were core members of the White Rose student resistance movement in Nazi Germany. Inge Scholl wrote several books about the White Rose after the war.
Hans and Sophie Scholl, often referred to in German as die Geschwister Scholl, were a brother and sister who were members of the White Rose, a student group in Munich that was active in the non-violent resistance movement in Nazi Germany, especially in distributing flyers against the war and the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler. In post-war Germany, Hans and Sophie Scholl are recognized as symbols of German resistance against the totalitarian Nazi regime.
Traute Lafrenz Page was a German resistance activist who was a member of the White Rose anti-Nazi group during World War II.
Lieselotte "Lilo" Fürst-Ramdohr was a member of the Munich branch of the student resistance group White Rose in Nazi Germany. She was born in Aschersleben.
Robert Mohr was an interrogation specialist of the Gestapo. He headed the special commission responsible for the search and arrest of the White Rose, part of the German Resistance to Nazism.
Franz Josef Müller was a member of the World War II-era White Rose resistance group in the Third Reich. In 1986, he founded the Weiße Rose Stiftung.
Jakob Schmid was a German janitor of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU). On 18 February 1943, he turned in the siblings Hans Scholl and Sophie Scholl, members of the resistance group White Rose, for distributing pamphlets against Nazi Germany.
Werner Scholl was the younger brother of Hans and Sophie Scholl, who are best known for their resistance to Nazism as part of the White Rose.
Elisabeth Hartnagel was the sister of anti-Nazi activists Hans and Sophie Scholl.
Hans Hirzel was a German resistance fighter. He was a member of the Ulm high school graduate group around which the White Rose resistance group formed.