” The Nazis, aka National Socialists, (Nationalsozialische Deutische) are known primarily for their slaughter of the Jews in Europe.  However, they also crushed anyone daring to voice any sort of opposition to their regime, including “pure blooded Germans” who dared to open their mouths …   www.katjasdacha/whiterose/index.

Such were Hans and Sophie Scholl, and their young friends.  Calling themselves The White Rose Organization,  they distributed leaflets of the same name, throughout Germany.  Leaflets which they wrote and printed … leaflets which resisted National Socialism (Nationalsozialismus).

On February 22, 1943 they were arrested by the Gestapo.  Within hours they were tried and sentenced to death by guillotine.

They were beheaded within hours by executioner Johann Reichart in Munichs Stadelheim Prison.

The words springing to the eyes from their leaflets travel straight to the heart.  How they must have shone hope upon a beleaguered population as they  condemned the madness which had descended upon Germany under Hitlers’ bloody reign of  hate filled terrorism and ‘death squads.’

Let this leaflet, which is a mere sample of the many White Rose leaflets,  speak for itself.  Let is speak to our day.

Leaflet #2

“It is impossible to engage in intellectual discourse with National Socialist Philosophy, for if there were such an entity, one would have to try by means of analysis and discussion either to prove its validity or to combat it.  In actuality, however, we face a totally different situation.

At its very inception this movement depended on the deception and betrayal of one’s fellow man;  even at that time it was inwardly corrupt and could support itself only by constant lies.

Hitler states in an early edition of “his” book, a book written in the worst German I have ever read,  in spite of the fact that it has been elevated to the position of the Bible … in this nation of poets and thinkers.

It is unbelievable to what extent one must betray a people in order to rule it.

If at the start this cancerous growth in the nation was not particularly noticeable, it was only because there were still enough forces at work that operated for the good, so that it was kept under control.  As it grew larger, however, and finally in an ultimate spurt of growth attained ruling power, the tumour broke open, as it were, and infected the whole body.  The greater part of its former opponents went into hiding.

The German intellectuals fled to their cellars, there, like plants struggling in the dark, away from light and sun, gradually to choke to death.

Now the end is at hand.  Now it is our task to find one another again, to spread information from person to person, to keep a steady purpose, and to allow ourselves no rest until the last man is persuaded of the urgent need of his struggle against this system.

When thus a wave of unrest goes through the land, when “it is in the air”, when many join the cause, then in a great final effort this system can be shaken off.

After all, an end in terror is preferable to terror without end.”

“The kingdom is a living being.  It cannot be constructed, in truth!  He who tries to manipulate it will spoil it, he who tries to put it under his power will lose it.”  Lao Tzu