#badassactivists

A white rose.

Born:  9 May 1921, Died:  22 February 1943

In 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany in a move that the elderly Hindenburg had resisted for some time. Hitler was popular. A charismatic talker that appealed to the worries that many of the German populace had at the time. Germany was starving and broke. The treaty of Versailles had forced the weakened German state to accept the guilt for the First World War, outlawed the creation and maintenance of a military, navy or airforce and had levied upon the German people; reparations to be paid to the allied forces who had been victorious in battle. The terms of the Treaty became vastly unpopular with German people as they saw their quality of life vastly reduced in the aftermath of the war; something that the Weimar Republic could not seem to quell. Hitler capitalised upon, with rallying speeches to a populace that felt abandoned and looked upon the Austrian as the man to deliver them from the brink.

The path from Chancellor to absolute dictator was littered with various questionable acts, the Enabling Act (1933) gave Hitler the power to skip past consulting the Reichstag for confirmation and delivered to him absolute power. The Communist Party could pose no opposition with many of its members being incarcerated after the fire that swept through the Reichstag had been blamed on a member of the communist party. The religious groups agreed with him only to find the rug swept from beneath them once Hitler had acquired the power he desired. Alongside the Night of the Long knives,  it appeared that the Fuhrer was untouchable. 

A cult of personality erupted around him. Men, women and children alike were swept along, fanaticism knew no age boundaries and those who spoke out against the Nazi were often dealt with swiftly and without mercy. Sophie Scholl was one of those who died for the opposition she posed to the Nazi regime. 

Sophie Scholl was born to Robert and Magdalena Scholl on the 9th of May 1921. Her Father was the Mayor of  Forchtenberg until he was voted out of office in 1930 for his views which were considered entirely too progressive. One of six children, Sophie was incredibly close to her siblings and all six were seen as well to do children who were never seen to be rough housing or tumbling through the streets. Sophie would join the German League of Girls in her teens, with her brother Hans joining the male equivalent of the Hitler Youth. This was much to their Fathers distress, Robert was a Lutheran pacifist with liberal views who had refused front line service in the first world war and instead and joined the medical corps. 

Sophie and equally, her brother Hans became disillusioned with the German League of Girls (BDM) and Hitler Youth respectively. Sophie approached the BDM with girlish enthusiasm and soon became a leader in the group though she had remarked that she felt it ridiculous that her Jewish friend could not also join. Child youth movements associated with the Nazi movement were often saturated with political indoctrination, one of Sophie’s group whom she lead would remark;

Political indoctrination was only one aspect among many others and I even became a troop leader(Scharführerin). Sophie's father Robert Scholl was a determined... pacifist and a sincere Christian. He told us about his experiences and that influenced my thinking.

Hans had been reprimanded for a relationship with another young boy and had begun to drift towards the German youth movement which was often in conflict with the belief structure of the Hitler Youth even after the charges were dropped, his rising disquiet and new found relations with a young woman called Traute Lafrenz meant he began to look for a way to resist. Whilst Hans had grown disillusioned with the Hitler Youth movement, Sophie too grew to be sceptical of Nazi policies that had influenced the BDM and her schooling. After being scolded for recommending an author whom was Jewish, Anti War and Left wing writer - Sophie remarked that those who did not know [Heinrich] Heine did not know literature.

Each Scholl child would gradually grow in opposition to the government, they intensely dislike the restrictions that Nazi policies placed upon their ability to listen to certain music, read certain books or poetry and speak to friends who had been deemed undesirable by the regime. Sophie was outspoken and would be summoned before the principal of her school on multiple occasions for her words and warned that she would be prevented from continuing on her desired career path if she continued to speak out . Despite this and even with her partner being a avid supporter of Hitler; Sophie would risk all by continuously speaking out against the fuhrer and his Nazi regime. 

She briefly taught as a kindergarden teacher before a brief but compulsory under Nazi Policies in the National Labour service before enrolling at the University of Munich to study biology and philosophy. Women being involved in certain work or continuing their studies was highly discouraged in Germany as the focus shifted on women being mothers rather that active participants in work or study. The focus was on the propagation of the Aryan race. During this time, Hans served in the medical corps and alongside future White Rose members - would witness the horrors of the front line that galvanised their opposing belief structure. During this time, their father was also arrested for a comment he had made to an employee, he had called Hitler ‘a scourge on mankind’ and had subsequently been reported by said employee. 

Sophie Scholl’s fiance Fritz Hartnagel wrote to her of the atrocities of the Eastern Front, the Nazi propaganda machine could not quell the information that travelled back from soldiers who wrote of the things they saw and soon the students of Germany, Hans and Sophie included, became acutely aware of the vile acts committed by the Nazi Regime. Hans Scholl and a friend were spurred into action, designing and distributing leaflets that would soon become the first of the ‘leaflets of the white rose’ of which the first four would appear between the years of 1940 and 1942. 

When Sophie became aware of the group that her brother and his friends had created, she ardently requested to join in his activities. Though he was aware of the risks they took by speaking out against the Fuhrer and his party, he allowed her to join after initially being reluctant to do so. Soon she became an integral member of the White Rose, she organised the groups finances and it would soon realised that women were less likely to be searched at checkpoints and so Sophie alongside Traute became invaluable couriers. 

Various leaflets would be distributed over the years including a pamphlet which drew upon the disquiet caused by the Battle of Stalingrad in an poem written by Hans’ favourite teacher, Kurt Huber. However their was unrest amongst the White Rose, Hans had caused some upset as he became cavalier about security and included his new girlfriend Gisela in the proceedings; of whom many members of the White Rose harboured some suspicions about. Many members were preparing to leave the movement due to her brothers actions. 

Hans convinced the group that one bold statement was needed and thus Sophie and Hans skipped classes and began to distribute pamphlets around their university. Sophie accidentally sent a pile of flyers tumbling from the atrium which did not go unnoticed by the maintenance man of the building who swiftly reported the siblings to the authorities. Both were apprehended by the gestapo. 

Initially the agent who interrogated Sophie believed that she was innocent but after her brother confessed, Sophie tried to take all of the blame for the movement. Both siblings were subjected to a show trial, their fate likely already sealed. Their lawyer was described by their sister Elizabeth as little more than a lifeless puppet, they had not been able to select their own of course and we subsequently found to be guilty by the notorious Nazi judge Roland Freisler. She had been offered a reduced sentence if she consented to denying her own involvement in the movement but she ultimately refused to betray her own brother and accepted the same punishment that he would receive. Execution.

She was even defiant at the show trial itself, interrupting the judge and scrawling ‘freedom’ across the back of her own indictment. Whilst Hans would be beheaded following a rebellious outcry, Sophie presented a far more reserved figure in the event of her imminent death. 

“Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go,” 21-year-old Sophie Scholl lamented, before she was guillotined by the Nazis. “But what does my death matter, if through us thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?”

A final pamphlet would circulate following their death stating that despite everything their spirit would live on. Most of the White Rose would be incarcerated, few who spoke out against the Nazi regime would survive the wrath of the Fuhrer. The sixth and final Pamphlet was saved and smuggled to America who would drop millions of leaflets upon German Cities.

It is important to remember in the light of Sophie’sand also Hans memory that what is right is not always legal. Both siblings spoke out against a regime that was notorious for coming down hard on those who decried its methods. A regime that silences its critics is a dangerous one regardless of whether or not they sentence these critics to death.

And lastly, 

Humanity without diversity is very poor indeed. 

Stuff:

https://www.britannica.com/event/Treaty-of-Versailles-1919

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Adolf-Hitler/Rise-to-power

Where Ghosts Walked. Munich's Road to the Third Reich by David Clay Large (London, 1997).

https://www.historyonthenet.com/enabling-act-1933

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0426578/ - Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (Movie)

https://spartacus-educational.com/GERschollS.htm

Gupta, C. (1991). Politics of Gender: Women in Nazi Germany. Economic and Political Weekly, 26(17), WS40-WS48. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4397988 

Kinsella, P. (2019) The White Rose: Standing up to Hitler. History Revealed. Tower House, Bristol. 

https://amysmartgirls.com/sophie-scholl-the-german-student-who-led-an-anti-nazi-resistance-movement-ef4c8d2f4d96

https://allthatsinteresting.com/sophie-scholl-hans-scholl-white-rose-movement

For there is power in words.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett

Born: July 16, 1862  Died: March 25, 1931

To say this lady is impressive is nothing short of an understatement.

From when it began to when it ended, Slavery was used in the American Colonies to build a nation into an economic powerhouse through the cultivation and sale of crops such as cotton and tobacco. A practise which began in the 17th century, individuals of African descent were taken and shipped to the shores of America to work as labour on plantations and whilst it is hard to put an exact figure on how many individuals were displaced during this era; the figure is thought to be around 7 million to 8 million. They were used as a source of cheap and plentiful labour in a booming economy.

A movement began to grow in the Northern States, the reliance on slaves here was not as heavy than the south so in the early 1820′s the Missouri Compromise was signed abolishing slavery in new western states which to the Southern states was seen as a direct challenge to the institution of slavery. The Dred Scott Decision said that none that were enslaved or had escaped to free states were citizens and that those who had escaped were still the property of those whom they had ran from. This decision breathed new life into a flagging abolitionist movement.  Slaves had also rebelled on numerous occasion but those who had benefitted from Slavery still remained firm on the issue.

Ida was born into slavery during the civil war between the North and the South in Holly Springs, Mississippi and when the war came to a conclusion; her parents became activists in reconstruction era politics. Her mother was a famous and her father was an excellent carpenter so through this they were able to support Ida and six other children after the war ended. Sadly, aged 14, Ida would lose her parents to an epidemic of yellow fever whilst she was visiting her grandmother. In a feat that would be indicative of what a powerhouse she was, she managed to gain a position as a teacher in order to keep together and support her family. After a while she would move her siblings to Memphis, Tennessee and continued to work as an educator. 

At a pivotal point in her life, Ida was forcibly removed from a train despite having a ticket. She proposed she remain in her seat after she was asked to move to allow a white individual to sit, the conductor tried to remove her forcibly from the seat and Ida reacted by biting the conductor who did not try and remove her but instead brought along other train staff to do so. Ida brought a law suit against the train company in the circuit courts which awarded her compensation; however this was later overturned by a higher court. This drove her to pick up the pen and begin to write under the moniker of ‘Lola’. The experiences of a young African-American woman as she rallied against white supremacy were quite popular reading.

In 1892, three of her friends, the owners of the Peoples Grocery Company were lynched. The fuelled an already incredibly outspoken Ida B Wells who wrote in The Free speech:

The city of Memphis has demonstrated that neither character nor standing avails the Negro if he dares to protect himself against the white man or become his rival. There is nothing we can do about the lynching now, as we are out-numbered and without arms. The white mob could help itself to ammunition without pay, but the order is rigidly enforced against the selling of guns to Negroes. There is therefore only one thing left to do; save our money and leave a town which will neither protect our lives and property, nor give us a fair trial in the courts, but takes us out and murders us in cold blood when accused by white persons.

Her words enraged the locals who burned her press en masse. Her campaign led the angry mob to raid her printing press and destroy her equipment in response to her anti-lynching message. A large number of black members of the community also headed her words and left the area with others in the community organised a large scale boycott of white owned businesses in the area. Hoping that the threat to the owners pocket would lessen the willingness to lynch. Regardless of the actions of her white neighbours, Ida did not stop writing and did not stop campaigning against the inequality and injustices the black community faced. She would eventually go onto write  for multiple publications and even went on to work as a travelling lecturer and campaigner, also travelling internationally to enlighten the world on the experiences that black people faced.

In 1895, she married a well known and famed African American lawyer and delivered four children. Ida balanced motherhood and continued her work. She worked as part of the NAACP and led a movement that insisted that white and black women march together in the face of suffrage and criticised the intersectionality of the women’s suffrage movement openly. In 1913, she marched with white women for women's suffrage; openly showing that discrimination had no place in the action to gain emancipation for women. Ida continued to be active in the action for women's rights, and militant in her fight for the equal rights and justice for African Americans which included calling on the president to end discriminatory hiring processes with the employment sector.

Ida passed away in 1931 after a battle with kidney disease in Chicago, Illinois. What was never lost after that March in 1931 was a towering figure and the legacy she left behind. Ida was never prepared to stand down from her beliefs even in the face of dangers she faced, even in the face of violence; Ida never once abandoned her beliefs or stopped her calls for justice. 

Info:

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/slavery

https://www.britannica.com/topic/slavery-sociology

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/slavery-abolished-in-america

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ida-B-Wells-Barnett

https://www.biography.com/people/ida-b-wells-9527635

http://people.duke.edu/~ldbaker/classes/aaih/caaih/ibwells/ibwbkgrd.html

https://www.google.com/doodles/ida-b-wells-153rd-birthday