Hans Scholl

Hans Fritz Scholl (; 22 September 1918 – 22 February 1943) was, along with Alexander Schmorell, one of the two founding members of the White Rose resistance movement in Nazi Germany. The principal author of the resistance movement's literature, he was found guilty of high treason for distributing anti-Nazi material and was executed by the Nazi regime in 1943 during World War II. Elisabeth Scholl Hartnagel (1920–2020), who married Sophie's long-term boyfriend, Fritz Hartnagel; Sophie Scholl (1921–1943); Werner Scholl (1922–1944), who served as a Wehrmacht medical officer and went missing in action on the Eastern Front and presumed dead in June 1944; and Thilde Scholl (1925–1926).

Scholl was raised as a Lutheran, although he did at one point consider converting to Catholicism. During this time, his attitude towards the Nazi regime gradually began to change.

During the trial, Scholl was also charged under Paragraph 175, the paragraph in the German Criminal Code that criminalized homosexual behavior. Under questioning, he admitted to having had two separate sexual relationships, one with Rolf Futterknecht, Futterknecht had been the one to inform on Hans.

Medical studies and Wehrmacht In spring of 1937, he joined the Reich Labour Service, having volunteered for duty. He was discharged in March 1939 Therefore, Hans began to question his own ideological position more critically.

During the semester break, he was drafted as a medic for front service and took the rank of medical sergeant in the French campaign. What he experienced during direct frontline operations reinforced his personal stance against the rulers and the war in particular. Hans was again enrolled in the military service in the spring of 1941 as a medic in the Wehrmacht.

Origins of the White Rose

Between 1940 and 1941, Scholl, a former member of the Hitler Youth, began questioning the principles and policies of the Nazi regime. As a student at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU), Scholl met two Roman Catholic men of letters who redirected his life, inspiring him to turn from studying medicine and pursue religion, philosophy, and the arts.

After their experiences at the Eastern Front, having learned about mass murder in Poland and the Soviet Union, Scholl and Alexander Schmorell felt compelled to take action. From the end of June until mid-July 1942, they wrote the first four leaflets. Quoting extensively from the Bible, Aristotle and Novalis, as well as German poets Goethe and Schiller, they appealed to what they considered the German intelligentsia, believing that these people would be easily convinced by the same arguments that also motivated the authors themselves. These leaflets were left in telephone books in public phone booths, mailed to professors and students, and taken by courier to other universities for distribution.

From 23 July to 30 October 1942, Willi Graf, Scholl and Schmorell served again at the Soviet front, and activities ceased until their return. After their return, Willi Graf became one of the core members of the White Rose. Sophie was the second to last member to join. By the end of December 1942, Kurt Huber became the last main member of the White Rose.

With six core members, two more White Rose pamphlets were created and circulated over the summer of 1942.

The leaflets were distributed around the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Additionally, leaflets were also mailed to doctors, scholars, and pub owners throughout Germany.

Capture and execution Mugshots of Scholl taken by the Gestapo 1943On 18 February 1943, while Hans and Sophie were distributing leaflets at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Sophie flung the last remaining leaflets from the top floor down into the atrium. This spontaneous action was observed by the university maintenance man, Jakob Schmid.

In the same issue of Newsday, Holocaust historian Jud Newborn noted: You cannot really measure the effect of this kind of resistance in whether or not X number of bridges were blown up or a regime fell... The White Rose really has a more symbolic value, but that's a very important value.

It was not until the 1998 law to abolish Nazi judgments of injustice in the administration of criminal justice that the sentences against Hans Scholl and other members of the White Rose became void in Germany.

In 2003, Germans were invited by television broadcaster ZDF to participate in Unsere Besten (Our Best), a nationwide competition to choose the top ten most important Germans of all time. Voters under the age of 40 helped Scholl and his sisters to finish in fourth place, above Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johannes Gutenberg, Otto von Bismarck, Willy Brandt, and Albert Einstein. If the votes of young viewers alone had been counted, Sophie and Hans Scholl would have been ranked first.

The Audimax of the Bundeswehr Medical Academy in Munich was named after Hans Scholl in 2012.

In film Three films have been produced about the White Rose:

Hans was portrayed by Michael Cornelius in the film Fünf Letze Tage (1982) Hans was portrayed by Wulf Kessler in the film Die Weisse Rose (1982) Hans was portrayed by Fabian Hinrichs in the film Sophie Scholl – The Final Days (2005).