Werner Scholl | |
|---|---|
 Werner Scholl (left) with his sister Sophie | |
| Born | November 13, 1922 |
| Disappeared | June 1944 Soviet Union |
| Known for | Younger brother of Hans and Sophie Scholl |
Werner Scholl (born November 13, 1922, declared missing in action in June 1944) was the younger brother of Hans and Sophie Scholl, who are best known for their resistance to Nazism as part of the White Rose.
Werner Scholl was born on November 13, 1922. He was the fifth out of six children (one of whom would die in infancy):
Like his siblings, Werner joined the Hitler Youth when Hitler came to power. [1] In 1936, Werner, Sophie, and their sister Inge were arrested by the Gestapo. [2] After being held for a few weeks, Werner was released, but the imprisonment left a mark on him. [3]
In the summer of 1939, Werner became the first member of the Scholl family to openly resist the Nazi regime when he resigned from the Hitler Youth, a decision that barred him from being able to take the Abitur . [1] Werner also climbed on top of the statue of Justice at the Courtroom in Ulm to blindfold the Lady of Justice with a swastika flag. [3]
Werner Scholl was drafted into the Reich Labour Service in 1941, immediately after graduating from high school. He was later brought into the Wehrmacht, where he served as a medical officer. [4]
In 1942, Werner was sent out to the Russian front, where, by chance, he was stationed near Hans. The two were able to see each other fairly often. [5]
In February 1943, Werner was given leave to go home to Ulm. When he came home, he found out that Sophie and Hans had been captured by the Gestapo. Along with his parents, Werner travelled to Munich for the trial on 22 February, storming into the courtroom just as Roland Freisler was about to give the verdict. [6] After a brief stand-off, the Scholl parents were removed from the room. Because Werner had an army uniform on, he was able to blend in with the crowd and be there when the judge announced the guilty verdict. As those in the courtroom got up to leave, Werner was able to see Hans and Sophie one last time and take their hands. Hans said to him, "Stay strong. Make no concessions!" [3] Later that day, his parents were able to see Hans and Sophie again, but Werner was not. After helping Traute Lafrenz clear out incriminating evidence from Sophie and Hans' living quarters, [4] Werner and his parents then left Munich, distraught but hopeful that they could petition for clemency. They were unaware that Sophie and Hans had already been executed at 5:00 pm. [2] A few days later, when Fritz Hartnagel came to Munich after learning of Sophie's arrest, it was Werner who broke the news to him that Sophie had already been executed. [4]
Soon after, the entire Scholl family was arrested, with the exception of Werner, who had gone back to the Russian front soon after Hans and Sophie's execution. The family members were arrested because of Sippenhaft, the assumption of shared family guilt. Sippenhaft was a major deterrent for anyone considering resisting the Nazi Regime; if they were captured, not only would they suffer, but their family would too. [7]
In June 1944, the Scholl family received word that Werner was classified as missing in action. His body was never found, so it is assumed that he died on the Soviet front. He was 21. [1]
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, also sometimes referred to as Saint Alexander of Munich, 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.
Otto "Otl" Aicher was a German graphic designer and typographer. Aicher co-founded and taught at the influential Ulm School of Design. He is known for having led the design team of the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, and for overseeing the creation of its prominently used system of pictograms. Aicher also developed the Rotis typeface.
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 Scholl was a Württembergian politician and father of Hans and Sophie Scholl. Robert Scholl was a critic of the Nazi Party before, during and after the Nazi regime, and was twice sent to prison for his criticism of Nazism. He was mayor of Ingersheim 1917–1920, mayor of Forchtenberg 1920–1930 and lord mayor of Ulm 1945–1948, and co-founded the All-German People's Party in 1952.
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.
Else Gebel was a communist member of the German resistance to Nazism. She is remembered for having been the cellmate of Sophie Scholl in the Gestapo headquarters in the Wittelsbacher Palais of Munich before Scholl's execution.
Friedrich "Fritz" Hartnagel was a lawyer and soldier of the Wehrmacht during World War II. In the 1950s, Hartnagel, then a judge in Stuttgart, campaigned against the rearmament of the Federal Republic. He was Sophie Scholl's fiancé.
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.
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