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75th anniversary of the White Rose, anti-Nazi resistance
Five students executed in Munich, Nazism against religion
23 February, 19:09
(by Giovanni Innamorati)
(ANSA) - ROME - The 75th anniversary of the foundation of the
White Rose, the Anti-Nazi resistance group composed of five
students from Munich and their professor, falls this year.
On February 18, 1943, Hans and Sophie Scholl were arrested in the main lobby of their university, where they were distributing leaflets, and on the same day their friend Christopher Probst was captured, and all three were beheaded on February 22. , Their professor Kurt Huber was arrested on February 23, and the other two students Willi Graf and Alex Schmorell on February 25, and then executed in the following weeks.
This anniversary is celebrated with various events, including the announcement made by the diocese of Munich that the canonization process for Willi Graf has got started. One of the peculiar features of the White Rose movement was their religious inspiration that made them see Nazism as a negation of Christianity itself. The two Scholl brothers came from a Lutheran family from Ulm, Graf from a Catholic family from the Saar, Schmorell was educated according to his mother's Orthodox faith, while Probst, although not baptized, approached Christianity and received baptism on the day of his execution, June 13th.
The four boys met in Munich in 1941, since they were all medical students enrolled in the Army Department of medical officers. Hans Scoll and Alex Schmorell, after meeting each other,, and Alex introduced his new friend to his schoolmate Christian Probst. All three attended evening meetings where literature, music, painting and especially theology and religion were antidotes to Nazism. The meeting with Carl Muth, publisher of Hochland, the liberal Catholic magazine shut down by the Nazi regime, and famous writer Theodor Haecker, whose book "What makes a man?" was forbidden since its publication in 1934. Reading the articles written by Romano Guardini, Catholic theologian of Italian origins, was decisive. Guardini is the link between the two friends with Willi Graf, who happened to meet the two students in July 1942. After sharing an experience on the Russian front, the four friends went then back to Munich, where they were joined by Sophie Scholl, a philosophy student, and professor Kurt Huber,.
who inspired the last two leaflets, written at the end of January and February. The last one was the cause of the tragedy.
After sending - as usual - many copies all around the city, Hans and Sophie Scholl tried to leave many copies at the university, where they were discovered by a janitor and arrested. After the war, in 1945, Scholl's family called for the commemoration of their own children and appealed to Romano Guardini, whom they had never known, and the great theologian, much loved by Benedict XVII, encouraged the spread of the internationaal fame of these five brave young students and their professor. (ANSA).
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On February 18, 1943, Hans and Sophie Scholl were arrested in the main lobby of their university, where they were distributing leaflets, and on the same day their friend Christopher Probst was captured, and all three were beheaded on February 22. , Their professor Kurt Huber was arrested on February 23, and the other two students Willi Graf and Alex Schmorell on February 25, and then executed in the following weeks.
This anniversary is celebrated with various events, including the announcement made by the diocese of Munich that the canonization process for Willi Graf has got started. One of the peculiar features of the White Rose movement was their religious inspiration that made them see Nazism as a negation of Christianity itself. The two Scholl brothers came from a Lutheran family from Ulm, Graf from a Catholic family from the Saar, Schmorell was educated according to his mother's Orthodox faith, while Probst, although not baptized, approached Christianity and received baptism on the day of his execution, June 13th.
The four boys met in Munich in 1941, since they were all medical students enrolled in the Army Department of medical officers. Hans Scoll and Alex Schmorell, after meeting each other,, and Alex introduced his new friend to his schoolmate Christian Probst. All three attended evening meetings where literature, music, painting and especially theology and religion were antidotes to Nazism. The meeting with Carl Muth, publisher of Hochland, the liberal Catholic magazine shut down by the Nazi regime, and famous writer Theodor Haecker, whose book "What makes a man?" was forbidden since its publication in 1934. Reading the articles written by Romano Guardini, Catholic theologian of Italian origins, was decisive. Guardini is the link between the two friends with Willi Graf, who happened to meet the two students in July 1942. After sharing an experience on the Russian front, the four friends went then back to Munich, where they were joined by Sophie Scholl, a philosophy student, and professor Kurt Huber,.
who inspired the last two leaflets, written at the end of January and February. The last one was the cause of the tragedy.
After sending - as usual - many copies all around the city, Hans and Sophie Scholl tried to leave many copies at the university, where they were discovered by a janitor and arrested. After the war, in 1945, Scholl's family called for the commemoration of their own children and appealed to Romano Guardini, whom they had never known, and the great theologian, much loved by Benedict XVII, encouraged the spread of the internationaal fame of these five brave young students and their professor. (ANSA).
