Customer Reviews

Sophie Scholl: The Real Story Behind German's Resistance Heroine

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Sophie Scholl is the most famous German resistance heroine and was voted 4th in Greatest Germans. This biography tells the story of her short life which ended in 1943 by execution by the Nazi regime for taking part in a group called the White Rose, a group of Munich University students who distributed six leaflets between June 1942 and February 1943. The book draws extensively on Sophie's letters and diaries and I particulary liked the way the author set the book within the context of the history of the Third Reich. The author offered a sensitive and restrained treatment of Sophie. I liked the way the book took me into the life of an ordinary family in Nazi Germany. The period when Sophie was working as a Kindergarten teacher and in Labour Service revealed her personal thoughts very well. The book was very well written and there is no padding here. Every word counts. I particularly enjoyed the very clever ending to the book. I was very pleased that the leaflets were printed and that I could find out what happened to the other members of the group in a seperate appendix. This is a really magical book which takes the reader on a journey through the life of this remarkable young women whose death made her a herione. Overall, I found this a really terrific biography. I would recommend it is read by nyone interested in finding out about the life of an ordinary persion in Hitler's Germany who showed Germans as her sister Elisabeth says 'What Germand should have done during the Nazi era'

I have always been fascinated by the history of World War 2. I think it is because the number of family members I had serve during the time combined with working at an assisted living facility when I was in my early 20's where the majority of the residents were Jewish. I used to love listening to their stories. When author Frank McDonough wrote to me asking if I would like to read and review the book Sophie Scholl: The Real Story of the Woman who Defied Hitler, I of course accepted!

Sophie Scholl was a member of an underground, non-violent protest movement against Hitler's rule in Nazi Germany called the White Rose (die Weisse Rose). Mr. McDonough was offered to read through the diaries, personal letters written by Sophie and the transcript of her interrogation by the Gestapo. He compiled this intriguing biography from information gathered during his reading.

Scholl, a student who was 21 at the time of her death in February 1943, is a legend in Germany. The White Rose movement, which opposed Nazism by circulating thousands of leaflets telling German Christians that they had a "moral duty" to rise up against Hitler, the "messenger of Anti-Christ". The leaflets were dropped between 1942 and 1943 at Munich University. In February 1943 when Sophie Scholl along with her brother, Hans, and friend, Christoph Probst, were beheaded in Stadelhein Prison, Munich, for urging German students to rise up against Nazi terror.

Overall this was an excellent book. The historical events described catch your attention. The relationships between the Scholl children, their parents and various friends of the family is touching. If you don't like reading about historical happenings, this book may seem a little flat when you read it. I was looking forward to reading a great book about Sophie but to me it seemed that the first half of the book focused more on her brother Hans and her boyfriend Fritz and what happened to them while they were fighting in the war.

[...]

Although most Americans know little or nothing about the White Rose Movement, to young Germans the brother and sister, Hans and Sophie" Scholl are the great heroes of the resistence to Hitler. Much romanticized literature of doubtful accuray has been ptoduced for the popular market. This, on the other hand, is by far the most exhaustively researceg historical record of their lives. It is inspiring to see that such an objective account does not diminish their status as heroic figures. This should become part of the cannon on Hitler and the holocaust. It is an equal to Anne Frank's Diary and El;ie Weisel's Night.

Sophie Scholl was probably the most courageous young woman since Charlotte Corday. But McDonough's book - which I eagerly awaited, since I have an abiding interest in the subject - is a disappointment.

The White Rose wasn't just Sophie and Hans Scholl ... the siblings weren't even the center of the organization. And while no one wants to denigrate the memory of these two heroic kids, the truth is that both walked with clay feet - something the Christian right doesn't even acknowledge. McDonough doesn't acknowledge it, either; his book aids and abets the right-wing White Rose fantasy.

For example, he passes off Han Scholl's homosexual activity as "teenage fumbling." Fumbling it may have been, but it happened on a number of occasions, and Ruth Sach's transcript of Han's interrogation and trial is far more revealing. My assistant, who has read the Gestapo transcripts, finished reading the Scholl/Reden section of McDonough's book and said, "You've got to be kidding me!"

Sophie, by age 21, had slept with the two men who would become her brothers-in-law, but from McDonough's account, one would be pardoned for believing she was a vestal virgin. Sophie was a fervent Nazi in her youth; McDonough paints her League of German Girls activity as girlish exuberance. It wasn't. Inge Scholl - keeper of the right-wing flame - was hardly the definitive source on the subject, although she is the only one McDonough quotes.

There's no discussion of Han's drug problem, no real note of the strife and dysfunction in the Scholl household ... indeed, McDonough's entire effort seems aimed at convincing the reader that the Scholls were an ordinary Christian family doing their best to live their faith in challenging times. This is the same story that's been embraced by the Christian right, both in the United States and abroad. That's utter hogwash.

The Scholl siblings are even more inspiring when one realizes that they walked with clay feet like the rest of us. This book is another layer of whitewash on an already-absurd legend. I wonder why McDonough felt he couldn't produce an honest biography? He spent scant time in Germany and was apparently very selective about his source material. This is unfortunate ... he might have produced the definitive account of a brave and complex young woman. As it is, "The Real Story" is merely another triumph for the right.

Viewing 'Sophie Scholl: the Final Days' and reading Fallada's 'Alone in Berlin', as well as having a developed interest in German history prompted me to read this book. Resistance to Hitler within Nazi Germany is generally underestimated despite numerous heroic examples, none more deserving of unstinting admiration than the White Rose group, which included the Scholl siblings Sophie and Hans.

Unfortunately, despite all the academic apparatus (important appendices including the texts of leaflets and extensive endnotes) McDonough has produced a poorly written book: the subject matter, not the expression of it, compels completion, and he misses opportunities for discussion and analysis which one would expect from an expert on the period.

Despite the writer's scholarly credentials, his style can be clumsily populist, as though he is unsure whether he is writing a detailed academic book or a more popular piece - 'what is so fascinating about this biography is that I take you, not only inside Sophie Scholl's inner thoughts, but on a journey inside Nazi Germany to the life of an ordinary family living in a small city.' (I'm really not sure how 'ordinary' the Scholl family is, or what the phrase is meant to suggest in this context. Two children attend university: the father is a former lord mayor. 'Ordinary' seems like a redundant tag-line to lure in `ordinary' readers - aren't we all `ordinary'.) Leaden-footedness continues throughout: either the author or the editor is guilty of distracting awkwardnesses which detract continually from the story. The worst examples relate to repetition:
(p.78) ' ..... the Nazi euthenasia programme which led to the systematic murder of thousands of the mentally and physically handicapped ...' -Just 2 pages later (p.80) `... the Nazi regime had secretly established in August 1939 - and which was systematically killing thousands of mentally ill and physically handicapped adults and children .....'

(p.89) `... Sophie also met Wilhelm (Willi) Graf ..... and attended lectures by Professor Kurt Huber, the star philosophy lecturer on campus.' (p.92) 'One of the most popular lecturers at Munich university was Dr Kurt Huber, who ran a philosophy course which Sophie attended twice a week in her first term. Huber's lectures were 'must see' events for undergraduates.'

(p113.) `The fifth leaflet came to the attention of the Gestapo, located at the Wittelsbach Palace, the former residence of the Bavarian royal family.' (p.123.) 'The incident was immediately reported to Gestapo headquarters at the Wittelsbach Palace .....' (p.124) Sophie and Hans were bundled into the back of a van, which transported them to Gestapo headquarters. As Sophie arrived at the Wittelsbach Palace, which had been one of the residences of the Bavarian monarchy .... but was now the HQ of Munich's Gestapo.'

"Does this matter?" one might ask. For me, this clumsiness begins to make me question the judgement and analytical competence of the author. At the very least, they distract as one experiences déjà vu over and over again. (There are many more examples.)

Once the terrible events of the interrogation and trial take centre stage, the book improves as the inevitability of the victims' fates draw near. Yet the final chapter really is a major disappointment and missed opportunity which confines the concept of `legacy' to the author visiting surviving protagonists and sites associated with the Scholls. His presence on the page, so to speak, introduces a reverential tone which is deeply off-putting, for this reader. It would be interesting, even in a modestly proportioned book, to have some account of why the Scholls captured the post-war popular imagination so much as Germany struggled, first divided and then finally united in 1989, to come to terms with its past. (There were other resistance groups!) Even McDonough tacitly acknowledges that the duration of Sophie's involvement is uncertain, yet she seems to have emerged as the emblematic figure in domestic resistance for present day Germans. The author quotes a teacher at Sophie's former school who offers a slightly less complimentary view of the Scholls, yet he makes literally no effort to explore that or evaluate her comment that `The White Rose, when compared to other more political groups, did not have a wider perspective'. He passes over the accusation of self-centredness and recklessness, perhaps most marked in the impulse to push leaflets from the 3rd floor of the Lichtof, with the terrible consequences for the Scholls and father of 3, Probst, amongst many others. McDonough claims to be presenting figures from whom the whitewash has been scrubbed, yet his final page really undermines that claim as he places himself centre stage, in a cafe, penning a tribute which he then vouchsafes to us, hot off his emotional press, and tipping the book into hagiography. To criticise that risks accusations of insensitivity, but for me the tribute seems at best like a failure of academic rigour and capitulation to emotionalism: at worst, the erection of security cameras around a shrine.

Before anyone accuses me of shameless desecration of international treasures, I reaffirm that the White Rose group, of which the Scholls were a part, deserve our admiration for their extraordinary courage - I wish I had one tenth of it: that goes without saying, I trust. In fact, I think the importance of these figures deserves a much more thoughtful and questioning approach than this book takes: we do not admire them any less for a thorough analysis of motives, inconsistencies and the hugely important broader legacy of their place in German history.

So, a terrifying story which must be told, but deserves to be honoured by a better telling. However, we must be grateful that McDonough has uncovered all the details relating to Hans's earlier clash with the authorities. Well worth reading for the most up to date narrative, but not the triumph, in my opinion, referred to in other reviews. We will have to wait longer for a more thoughtful and thorough analysis of the Scholls' and the White Rose's place in German post-war identity.

This is an excellent treatment of one of the twentieth century's most heroic group: the White Rose movement in Munich during 1943. Sophie Scholl comes across as a courageous individual challenging the Nazi state who was arrested for distibuting anti-state missives at the Universiy of Munich.
Throughout her interrogation, trial, sentencing and execution she never lost her composure or commitment and remains a truly heroic status. Highly recommended.

I teach German and the White Rose has intrigued me since I learned about them as a high school student. Their story is part of my curriculum and I was naturally interested in this new book. I thought that it was informative and interesting and it covered parts of their upbringing that I did not know about, as most books and films talk primarily about them after they have arrived in Munich. I also liked the photos which I had not seen before as well as the appendix at the end that gave a short synopsis about what happened to many of the people who knew/worked with the White Rose. I had often found myself curious about what happened to some of these people but never could find out about them.

I didn't like that there were quite a few typos, which was surprising. I felt that it was poorly edited and that fact combined with the fact that some of the information in the book conflicted with what I have previously read made me question the book's overall validity. I think that "Sophie Scholl and the White Rose by Newborn and Dumbach is a much better book. It reads like a novel and is very informative.