Sophie Scholl (9.5.1921 Forchtenberg – 22.2.1943 Munich-Stadelheim)

Sophie Scholl came from a liberal Protestant Swabian family and was the younger sister of Hans Scholl. Her father, Robert Scholl, served as mayor and later worked as an accountant and tax consultant. Sophie spent her childhood in Ludwigsburg and Ulm. In 1934, she joined the League of German Girls (BDM), in which she rose to become group leader.

Like her brother Hans, she ran afoul of the Gestapo in 1937 due to her league activities, which prompted her to turn her back on National Socialism for good. Once she finished high school in March 1940, she trained as a kindergarten teacher, completing this training in March 1941. After labor and war effort service, she followed her brother Hans to Munich in May 1942 and started studying biology and philosophy at university. She was part of the freethinking student circle around Hans Scholl and Alexander Schmorell and engaged with the ideas of the Catholic intellectual Carl Muth and the Munich-based philosopher Kurt Huber.

In January 1943, she helped produce and distribute the fifth ‘White Rose‘ flyer. Together with her brother Hans, she distributed the sixth ‘White Rose‘ flyer at the University of Munich on February 18, 1943 and threw the remaining copies into the atrium. Both siblings were caught in the act by the university's custodian and brought to the executive board, which in turn informed the Gestapo. At the Wittelsbacher Palais, the Gestapo headquarters, Sophie Scholl was subjected to an interrogation lasting several days, during which she courageously admitted her criticism of the Nazi regime and tried to protect her friends and comrades by portraying herself and her brother as the only protagonists. On February 22, Sophie Scholl, along with brother Hans and Christoph Probst, was sentenced to death by the People's Court under its president Roland Freisler and guillotined that same day in Munich-Stadelheim Prison.