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- Everyone who feels morally responsible, must join their voice to ours and rise against the domination of brute force - said prof. Kurt Huber during the process in 1943.
February 18, 1943 the Gestapo arrested members of the anti-Nazi organization Weisse Rose, created by five students and a professor. Kurt Huber Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich.
In Nazi Germany the chances of creation of any opposition to National Socialism were slim. In a totalitarian state all means of communication were subject to control, and all the negative messages carefully concealed. As Hitler wrote in "Mein Kampf": "The broad mass of the people more easily fall victim to a big lie than the small." They lied to everyone - from the party peaks, teachers and journalists, the provincial Gauleiters. In other words, it reigned collective, cheap lie.
All dissenters waiting brutal repression. In the Third Reich, in contrast to other countries under German occupation, there arose a strong resistance. Weight resisting fell on a small group of people who rely on their awareness and hope.
Former communists, who escaped the Nazi purges. Nazis were opposed to members of the Lutheran clergy. Also part of the aristocratic Junker and members of the liberal intelligentsia.
However, initially those who loudly opposed Hitler was a group of young people. Rose Wiesse organization established by six Munich students. They wanted to start a fire of youth revolt to stop the merciless Führer before wasting their generation.
They acted in Munich, the cradle of the fascist movement, the city extremely dangerous for people with anti-Hitler views. In the third year of the war, when the Germans began to suffer defeat on all fronts, a tuba propaganda of the regime are still foretold great success Hans Scholl, twenty-two medical student, he decided to take up active resistance.
In its decision, "the awakening of the nation" was complete support of his sister Sophie Scholl, three students: Alexandra Schmorell, Christoph Probst, of William Graf and philosophy professor Kurt Huber.
From the beginning of the circle was not very well organized, they acted in a naive way. Without money and support from the outside. In constant fear of ubiquitous Gestapo. To be effective, they have to expand the business scope and make contact with the public.
They took a simple method of printing underground leaflets and sending them to random addresses from the phone book. Paradoxically, this simplicity has allowed them to survive for so long. Gestapo, accustomed to fight the well-organized spy nets, was convinced that the communists are looking for experienced, with support outside the country.
Investigators did not come to mind that are looking for five students and a professor who ink, envelopes and stamps bought with their own money.
The organization Weisse Rose for over half a year, a number of printed leaflets, which called for the understanding of the true course of events. They talked about the violation of the fundamental rights of the individual, drew attention to the German victims of the war and the destruction of German cities. All Germans were accused of passivity and persuaded not resigned to die for Adolf Hitler in the war doomed to defeat.
Over time, the action spread ever wider circles until it covered the whole country. Investigators were getting closer. Scholl siblings fell 18 February 1943 while spreading leaflets at the University of Munich.
All members of the organization were soon arrested and sentenced to death. Through strict control of the totalitarian regime on the media, few people in Germany ever heard about Weisse Rose. Besides awakening opposition political awareness in young people brought up in the ideology of the Third Reich it was simply unrealistic. It was too early, too few leaflets distributed, that they can change anything.
The message of the people of the Weisse Rose of freedom, awareness and humanism has been carved in stone posed at the entrance to the University of Munich. Today, hundreds of young people on their way to class passes an inscription commemorating the great courage of the Munich students.
The anti-Nazi opposition in Germany listen to a broadcast of the "sound guide to the most recent history."
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