Director: Marc Rothemund, colour, 116 min., 2005
February 1943. After distributing anti-Nazi leaflets young Sophie Scholl and her brother Hans are arrested in Munich University. After days of being interrogated by the Gestapo, they are sentenced to death by the Nazi “People’s Court” and executed.
Julia Jentsch and Marc Rothemund tried to move away way from the image of Sophie Scholl as an inaccessible, almost otherworldly heroine and paint a true-to-life picture of a young student with zest for life. However, the main question still remains unanswered: What made this young woman, who once joined the
Bund Deutscher Mädel (the Nazi organisation for young women) so courageous and clear-sighted? Was it the influence of her parents? If this were the case there would have been many other examples of student resistance. Can it be explained by her religious beliefs? This too is unlikely. Many practising Christians collaborated with the Nazis. Did the horrific tales of life on the Eastern front from her brother and his friends give her the strength to resist? In 1943, after the Battle of Stalingrad, these stories were common knowledge. The film does not offer any definitive answers. Sophie Scholl, who hid her fear and desperation from friends and enemies alike, remains an enigma; reminiscent in some ways of Joan of Arc. The executioner is reported to have said that he had never seen anyone walk to her death with as much composure as Sophie Scholl. The Nazis seem to almost have feared Sophie and her comrades, perhaps recognizing that they were faced with something stronger than their own brutality.
Note: In 2005 Fred Breinersdorfer’s screenplay was published in paperback by Fischer along with numerous documents (among others, the transcripts from the interrogations of Sophie and Hans Scholl, Christoph Probst and Alexander Schmorell) and the story “The White Rose”.
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