Sophie Scholl's Definition Of Moral Courage

I'm going to tell you a little story about Lisl Winternitz and about her life.”some non-Jews hid Jewish children and sometimes, as in the case of Anna Frank,hid other family members as well”(myjewishlearning.com). Lisl Winternitz was born in may 7, 1926. She lived in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Lisl was the youngest of two children born to a Jewish family in the Czechoslovakian capital of Prague. Lisl’s family lived on Karlova Street in the karlin district of the city. Liesl's father owned a wholesale business that sold floor coverings. When Liesl's was 12 she went to school and her teacher shouted at her, “You dirty, filthy Jew!” and then spat at her face. They weren’t allowed in any public place and their ration cards were stamped with a red

Sophie and her brother both start as being fans of Nazism and Hitler’s rein. “Hans was an active Hitler Youth leader- all the children had been members of the movement- the most disturbing aspect of their lives had been the conflicts this had aroused with their fathers” (Dumbach 15). They did this even against their father’s wishes and beliefs. They thought that it was the right thing to do because all of the other children around them were doing this same thing. They saw it as an exciting thing to participate in. They “felt themselves a part in the rebuildings of their deeply divided and demoralized nation”(24). Before Hitler came to power, when they listened to him speak they liked what he had to say about the youth. However they ended up changing these views. “All of the Scholl children had grown disillusioned with National Socialism, and after a few tension-filled years, the family was reconciled” (Dumbach 15). They do this because “their family stood posed against a regime that was making increasing inroads into the peace and autonomy of their lives”(15). Also Hans was appalled by the rules that the Hitler Youth had in place. “[A]n early confrontation that raised within him doubts about the organization to

Hitler had a very clear idea of women’s role; she was the centre of family life, a housewife and the mother. Their job was to keep the house nice for their husband and family – their lives should revolve round the three ‘ks’, church, children and cooking. This ideal was based around Hitler wanting to achieve his long held goal of Lebensraum to increase the German Aryan population. Strasser argues that ‘National Socialism intended to restore the natural order, and states that this was to accord women the respect they deserved as mothers and housewives’, therefore improving their status. However Carey argues that women’s position did not improve and “throughout the civil war

As a whole, Alison Owings’s interview with Liselotte Otting and Freya von Moltke shown different perspective and experience about Germany during 1930’s to 1940’s. Otting was a woman who able to lived privilege life come and was aware of social and political wrongs of the Nazis. Although, she did not agree with out they treated individuals, but she was an able to stand them. Whereas, Moltke she and her husband was trying their fast to stop Hitler at any cost. From Moltke interview, she worked side by side with her husband and play important role to anti-Nazi

People are motivated to make a difference when they believe a change must be made and each person has their own motivation to make a change. They realize that they no longer like what is happening in the world, or even in their life, and they decide it must be changed. In A Noble Treason by Richard Hanser, Hans Scholl wants to make a difference and go up against Hitler by writing leaflets under the alias White Rose. Hans Scholl grew up in a family where his parents let him make his own choices and let him believe in whatever he wanted. They never pressured him into their choices and own beliefs. His father did not support Hitler and his beliefs, even though at the time, in Hans Scholl’s life Hitler was an incredibly prominent hero. Hans Scholl joined the Hitler Youth and fought for everything he believed was right. Hans soon realized he and Hitler did not see eye to eye on many things. Hans valued his individuality and Hitler took it from him. Hitler took away all creativity he personally found ugly and forced upon everyone what he thought was beauty. The leaflets Hans Scholl had written was his way of making a difference by bringing forward what the people of Germany may not have noticed was the reality of Hitler's actions. Hans Scholl’s motivation to make a difference was the fact that Hitler put limitations on everything, the more Hans Scholl wanted to learn, the more he was unable to do so, and this caused him to feel that he no longer had his freedom to be an individual.

After her husband Rudolf got killed, she lost her job because of the communist party. As long as the communist was running things she was not allowed to have a job. Thrown out of every house she moved to because the party controlled that as well, this goes to show that they truly had control over everything. She studied how the people act under a system of government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires complete subservience to the state. “Loss of Father , loss of Husband , loss of honor , loss of Health , Loss of Employment and opportunity to complete education “ (Kovaly pg.174) all under a party that her and her husband joined, the had to let it be known that the party wasn’t going to do anything that they

The Nazi Conscience by Claudia Koonz is an intriguing read. Koonz’s thesis in the book is that Nazis, being a large party, were mostly of different mindsets, they had differing morals. Koonz writes about the party and how it got most of its fundamental bases. She talks about who brought eugenics to the table, and how Hitler convinced the people of Germany to be a part of the Nazi organization. She also writes about the radical members and what was done to keep them in line.

Böll found it especially distressing that the people who could have best afforded to resist the rise of fascism, for example the university professors, did so little. In The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, Böll s attitude of contempt for the Nazi’s can be viewed in the lack of interrogation of Konrad Beiters, “Konrad Beiters voluntarily admitted to having once been a Nazi and that alone explained why so far no one had paid any attention to him”. Konrad is the only character close to Katharina who is not questioned by the police and this shows the right winged political stance that West Germany still had in 1974 and the misuse of authority by powerful people in social institutions such as the media and the police, especially men.

Schirach’s role in Germany during World War II was very important to the acceptance of the Final Solution by the German citizens. The purpose of the organizations that he lead throughout the years of the war were to integrate anti-semitic ideology into the minds of the new generations of German people. His goal was to train all of the German youth to be blindly loyal to Hitler and everything he believed in, as well as encourage them to always act on that loyalty thoughtlessly. They also trained children as young as ten years old for military service once they reached eighteen, putting them into training units and conditioning them to a life of violence. Despite the psychological warfare used by Schirach, he was sentenced to only twenty years in prison (Nuremberg Trial Defendants: Baldur von Schirach). This is as surprising as it is disappointing, that the Allies would allow a criminal who manipulated and brainwashed so many people, children included, to escape with such a light sentence in relativity to his crimes. He served his time in Spandau prison an eventually died in 1974 (Nuremberg Trial Defendants: Baldur von

Sophie Scholl is based on a true story where university students went against the Nazi Party by speaking against Hitler and his beliefs. Although the consequence of this action was death, Sophie and her brother still risked the outcome to open the eyes of the people around them to the destruction Hitler was causing. This movie is set in the early 1940s, where Hitler was in full power and was followed by millions of Germans. The court scene of the movie emphasizes on the dedication and extremism

Women in Nazi Germany is based upon the Nazi regime’s attitudes, policies, and ideologies concerning the role of women in the public and private sphere. Stephenson argues that the women of Nazi Germany should be studied in depth, including the support they gave to the regime, the treatment they received, and the different roles they played. However, she argues they should not be studied separately from the other happenings at the time, but instead, they should be incorporated into the history just as the men are. This book reviews their roles, functions, and how they were controlled by the Nazi leadership, and also their lives in pre-Nazi Germany.

Unlike other children at this time, the Scholl’s father, Robert Scholl, expressed his anti-Nazi views openly to his entire family, which may have helped the Scholl children see the truth behind Hitler’s lies. Despite their father’s feelings about Hitler, Hans and Sophie were still both enticed by their new leader and his lavish promises, so they both joined pro-Hitler programs, the Hitler Youth and The League of German Girls. Even as members of these pro-Hitler programs, they could not escape Robert Scholl’s ideologies that were engraved in the back of their minds. An excerpt from the German Listeners Radio Series by Thomas Mann in July of 1943 went on to say, “This susceptibility of German Youth-The youth in particular- To the National Socialist Revolution of lies was painful” (221). Other children at this time were deeply influenced by the Hitler Youth, which enabled Hitler to continue spreading his domination all over Munich. Through the Nazi programs Hans and Sophie soon realized that their feelings did not match up with those of Hitler’s Party. Hans and Sophie both got caught reading banned books by Jewish authors and faced criticism from their Nazi organizations. Hans was caught reading one of his favorite books by a Jew, Stefan Zweig, which may have been a crucial

Sophie’s introduced to the ideals that lead her to oppose the Nazi party came a young age, through the views of her parents, who taught their children to be free thinkers and were later openly opposed to Hitler’s ideas of Aryan supremacy. She noticed that advice that she received from her parents contrasted what she was taught by the League of German Girls, a Hitler-established youth group that she was a part of. This would have allowed her to see the manipulation of the young population by the Government that would provoke her to rally against the Nazi

After years of mandatory national service, both Hans and Sophie found themselves attending the University of Munich. Because Hans had started going to the school a few years before Sophie joined him, he already had a group of friends that shared the same beliefs as him and his sister, so Sophie easily befriended them as well. Together they discussed the ugliness of war and Hitler’s actions. In time they came to believe that they should do more than just talk about their ideas and actually start acting upon them. The group decided to print and hand out leaflets calling resistance to Hitler, and began calling themselves the White Rose. Some of the members were Christoph Probst, Alexander Schmorell, Willi Graf, and even a philosophy professor at the university named Kurt Huber (“Hans Scholl”).

When Sophie was twelve years old, she joined the League of German Girls. This was a “pseudo-Nazi organization” (Pettinger). These organizations, called Hitler Youth Organizations, “trained and educated” German teenagers to become “loyal followers of the Nazi Party” (Zapotczny). Initially, Sophie excelled in the League of German Girls. She enjoyed the activities and was even promoted to a leadership position. However, Sophie eventually became skeptical about the organization she was in (Pettinger). As was typical