Now, professor Huber is also in the group. It’s not always easy to talk with him.
He just believes: “The German army is good! They’re going to go against Hitler!”
The teenagers knew better. They had seen the troops shoot women and children.
They talked with the professor for a long time. In the end, they didn’t write anything about the army.
And Hans had new connections. With a group in Berlin.
“Who are these people? Communists?” The professor asked.
“I think there are also communists in there.” Hans answered.
The professor jumped. “Communists? Never!”
The professor didn’t want to know anything about that.
“Hitler should go and then Stalin comes? Don’t you know, what that means?”
Yes, they’ve heard about Stalin’s terror region. “But right now, that’s not the most important.” Hans thinks. “Everyone against Hitler should work together!”
“Not with communists! You all know, what that means!”
A few days later, they didn’t have to persuade each other anymore.
The Gestapo caught the group in Berlin. The “Red Capelle”, the Nazis called it that.
“Just like I said: Communists!” The professor said.
Every participant received death penalty.
“The end for everyone is the same.” Hans said.
Hans, Sophie, Alexander and Christoph: They all have fear.
But, they still went on with the next sheet.
“Whoever doesn’t hear, has to experience, we always say to the children. We also know, a smart child only puts their finger once on the stove…they learn.
In the last few weeks, Hitler’s soldiers fought on in Africa and Russia. Many think: Hitler, the Hitler, can finally end all of this. Others think: That can’t be it.
But now, the German troops aren’t progressing in Egypt. They’re also marching slowly, extremely slowly in the east, and many have fallen. Why?
Who caused the deaths? Hitler or Goebbels? They’re definitely not paying for that. But people are dying. Every day, thousands are falling in Russia. When the situation gets tough, grief enters German families. Nobody can dry the tears of many mothers. And Hitler still continues with his lies. In reality, it is exactly him who grabbed their sons and sent them to death.
Every word out of Hitler’s mouth is a lie. He said freedom but wanted war. And when he addresses God, he thinks of Satan. And we’ve learned: There are real demons, and it is below us.
Every time, there were people who stood against the evil: brave, free people.
And now, I’ll ask you, if you’re a Christian: Why aren’t you acting? What are you waiting for? Do you always think that someone else is going to do everything for you? We have to rise against the evil. And the evil is Hitler.
What we’ll do? Sabotage, in the factories, in the trains, in the schools, in Nazi meetings!
We’re going to act, we’re writing on. The White Rose isn’t going to stay quiet!”
Then, shock came.
The Germans got defeated in Stalingrad.
More than two hundred thousand German soldiers died. “A German soldier will never surrender!” Better, they die.
The Gestapo and the SS are especially nervous in the time.
Aren’t anyone hearing the words against Hitler?
And then these flyers from the White Rose! In Hamburg, in Saarbrücken, in Innsbruck! People found them all across the nation. Who wrote such a thing? An expert analyzed the text. It’s students that have written it, that’s clear. Not Communists, but Christian students. The center of all this seems to be in Munich, in the university. But it’s large. The Gestapo is on a search in Munich. But they haven’t found the White Rose.
Hans and Alexander also started to paint words in white on the walls at night. They are really happy, when they see it stay.
But isn’t that too dangerous?
“The Gestapos asked me about you.” A friend of Hans said to him.
But Hans continued on.
“Now, it can’t last that long!”
The group wrote the next sheet together.
“To every German!
The war is coming to an end soon. Hitler can’t strive on, he can only keep the war going.
What’s the German nation doing? It’s seeing nothing and hearing nothing. It’s going with its guider to hell. I’m fighting on till the last man, Hitler said that. And he’s already lost the war.
Germans! Do you want you and your children to die before Hitler just like the Jews? Do you want to stay as the hated nation of German? No! Then do something. Speak what you think out loud! Sabotage the production line! We have more people than Hitler. A new war is beginning. Come with us. There’s still time.”