1 00:00:12,780 --> 00:00:19,200 Thanks, Alex. And thank you very much indeed for coming along this lunchtime to learn more 2 00:00:19,200 --> 00:00:24,050 or to learn something about the White Rose Resistance movement or divisive. 3 00:00:24,130 --> 00:00:30,390 Also, as Alex said, I teach German here in Oxford in the faculty of medieval languages. 4 00:00:31,110 --> 00:00:36,960 And for the past year I have been running the White Rose Project, which is a research and outreach initiative, 5 00:00:37,290 --> 00:00:41,520 telling the story of the White Rose beyond Germany and in the UK. 6 00:00:42,330 --> 00:00:47,090 And so a couple of our outputs so far have been indeed this new publication, 7 00:00:47,100 --> 00:00:53,850 and there are shamelessly some flyers available for you to take away in case you'd like to order a copy. 8 00:00:54,540 --> 00:01:02,399 And this includes the students translators, Oxford Student Translators, new translation of the White Rose leaflets. 9 00:01:02,400 --> 00:01:05,460 And I'll talk a little bit more about that towards the end of my talk. 10 00:01:06,390 --> 00:01:09,660 And please, if you haven't already, do go and see the exhibition in the audience. 11 00:01:09,670 --> 00:01:18,629 Prosecco, and it was a labour of love, but I think it speaks very movingly to this story now. 12 00:01:18,630 --> 00:01:25,140 The White Rose is a household name in Germany, but it is much less well known in the UK. 13 00:01:25,560 --> 00:01:33,840 It's a very complex story involving a wide network of individuals and many examples of courage in the face of grave danger. 14 00:01:34,230 --> 00:01:37,620 The story in its briefest form goes like this. 15 00:01:37,920 --> 00:01:45,720 In 1943, five students and a professor at the University of Munich were arrested, interrogated, tried and executed. 16 00:01:46,230 --> 00:01:49,500 They were members of the White Rose, the White Rose Resistance, 17 00:01:49,800 --> 00:01:55,590 a clandestine group that wrote and distributed leaflets calling on the Germans to resist Hitler. 18 00:01:56,940 --> 00:02:05,760 What I like to do in this talk today is to focus in particular on the leaflets, the fluke letter that were produced by the White Rose. 19 00:02:06,150 --> 00:02:10,110 And to answer really three questions. 20 00:02:10,440 --> 00:02:18,480 First, what was the white rose? Second, how did they use the written word to inspire resistance? 21 00:02:19,080 --> 00:02:23,430 And third, what can we learn from them about writing and resistance more broadly? 22 00:02:26,930 --> 00:02:33,020 So what was the white rose? Or rather more accurately, who were the members of the White Rose? 23 00:02:33,800 --> 00:02:41,930 Well, the white rose resistance stretched far beyond Munich, but at its heart was six individuals Hans and Sophie Scholl, who were brother and sister. 24 00:02:41,960 --> 00:02:45,020 Christoph pulled out Alexandra for morale and very good. 25 00:02:45,020 --> 00:02:52,280 Of all of them were students at the University of Munich and Professor Kurt Huber, a professor of philosophy and musicology. 26 00:02:53,510 --> 00:02:57,799 These were individuals from middle class backgrounds who were well-educated, 27 00:02:57,800 --> 00:03:02,480 interested in literature, philosophy, music, and had a Christian humanist outlook. 28 00:03:03,260 --> 00:03:08,990 It's perhaps surprising that two of them, Hanson, Sophie Scholl, had been enthusiastic members of the Hitler Youth. 29 00:03:09,380 --> 00:03:14,390 Though we can see from anecdotes and from their own writings how their attitudes shifted over time. 30 00:03:14,720 --> 00:03:21,110 I'll give you two examples. The sister in who wrote the first post-war account of the white race. 31 00:03:21,140 --> 00:03:27,350 It's a wonderful book. I commend it to you. And she recounts the letter sewed from Hansen's days in the Hitler Youth. 32 00:03:27,770 --> 00:03:36,380 He was reading a volume by his then favourite author, Stefan Zweig, an Austrian Jew who left Austria following Hitler's rise to power. 33 00:03:37,160 --> 00:03:42,049 Hans's Hitler Youth Leader saw what Hans was reading a collection of historical 34 00:03:42,050 --> 00:03:45,980 miniatures about events that changed history called The Tide of Fortune, 35 00:03:46,490 --> 00:03:53,750 and reacted as follows. And I quote One of the leaders snatched out of his hands a book by his favourite author, Stefan Zweig. 36 00:03:54,200 --> 00:03:58,760 It was banned, he was told. But why? There was no answer. 37 00:03:59,910 --> 00:04:04,710 The contents of the text was, of course, unimportant. Only the identity of its author mattered. 38 00:04:05,460 --> 00:04:11,190 For Hans, this was one of a number of encountered encounters with the so-called enemies of Germany, 39 00:04:11,580 --> 00:04:14,970 which revealed to him how false the doctrine of Nazism really was. 40 00:04:16,290 --> 00:04:20,300 Another story is told about Sophie Scholl and one of her favourite writers, 41 00:04:20,580 --> 00:04:26,190 the 19th century poet Heinrich China, whose works had been banned by the Nazis because he was Jewish. 42 00:04:27,360 --> 00:04:34,019 In 1936, when Sophie was active in the Hitler is an important leader of the female wing of the Hitler Youth. 43 00:04:34,020 --> 00:04:38,640 The League of German Girls visited the local group in Auburn, where the Scholls lived. 44 00:04:39,300 --> 00:04:47,180 At this meeting, Sophie reportedly suggested that they read and discuss poems by Heinrich Heine of The Leader. 45 00:04:47,190 --> 00:04:55,260 Obviously appalled by the idea, reminded them that Heiner was in fact Jewish and a writer whose works had been banned and burned. 46 00:04:55,950 --> 00:05:02,880 Sophie is said to have replied boldly. Anyone who doesn't know Heiner doesn't know German literature. 47 00:05:03,510 --> 00:05:06,660 I think this anecdote tells you a lot about Sophie Scholl. 48 00:05:07,860 --> 00:05:13,950 So reading the White Rose Members Letters and Diaries, we get a sense of how thoughtful and serious they were. 49 00:05:14,400 --> 00:05:17,700 They were astonishingly well read and tremendously courageous. 50 00:05:18,270 --> 00:05:21,330 At the same time, they were quite ordinary people. 51 00:05:22,260 --> 00:05:29,580 They were also not without a sense of humour. For example, Hans, in a letter to his parents and sister in March 1942, 52 00:05:30,030 --> 00:05:37,530 wondered whether they had received his last letter because the post was rather irregular, and, he adds, with more than a hint of mischief. 53 00:05:38,100 --> 00:05:44,870 I really sympathise with the Gestapo having to decipher all those different handwriting, some of which are highly illegible. 54 00:05:45,270 --> 00:05:50,370 But that's what they're paid to do. And after all, duty is duty, gentlemen, isn't it? 55 00:05:52,050 --> 00:05:57,450 So how then did these young people and their professor use the written word to inspire resistance? 56 00:05:59,010 --> 00:06:10,110 Well, between 1942 and 1943, the group wrote and disseminated six fluke letter, which we would translate as pamphlets or leaflets. 57 00:06:10,110 --> 00:06:18,360 And I use those interchangeably here. And these fluke letters were intended to call on the German people to resist Nazis. 58 00:06:19,380 --> 00:06:25,530 Alex and Hans wrote the first four leaflets between the 27th of June and the 12th of July, 1942. 59 00:06:26,190 --> 00:06:32,400 Later that month, Hans, Alex and Willy left Munich for a three month tour of duty at the Russian front. 60 00:06:32,700 --> 00:06:36,090 As they were all medical students conscripted into military service. 61 00:06:36,840 --> 00:06:42,150 When they returned, they resumed the leaflet campaign with Kurt Huber now taking an active role. 62 00:06:43,020 --> 00:06:51,930 Who edited the fifth pamphlets in January 1943 based on the draft by Hans and the sixth pamphlet was written by Huber in February 1943, 63 00:06:52,200 --> 00:06:55,440 following the German Army's disastrous defeat at Stalingrad. 64 00:06:56,910 --> 00:07:05,460 The group used a second hand duplicating machine, a mimeograph and despite wartime shortages, obtained paper envelopes, stencils and stamps. 65 00:07:06,390 --> 00:07:13,230 They distributed the leaflets at great personal risk, first in the hundreds, and then it is estimated in the thousands. 66 00:07:14,760 --> 00:07:21,600 On the 18th of February 1943. HANSEN Sophie took copies of the sixth leaflet to the University of Munich and 67 00:07:21,600 --> 00:07:25,500 deposited them around the atrium at the entrance of the main university building, 68 00:07:25,830 --> 00:07:32,460 which you can see here. The little they were spotted by a university caretaker and detained. 69 00:07:33,270 --> 00:07:40,890 The rest followed. And just four days later, on the 22nd of February, 1943, Hans and Sophie, along with Christoph Probst, 70 00:07:41,160 --> 00:07:46,530 was sentenced to death and executed by guillotine just hours after the conclusion of their trial. 71 00:07:48,000 --> 00:07:56,010 Alexandra Floral Court Hubert Graff was subsequently arrested, tried and sentenced to death on the 19th April that year. 72 00:07:56,550 --> 00:08:00,930 Shmuel and Huber were executed three months later on the 30th of July, 73 00:08:01,260 --> 00:08:07,350 and Graf was kept alive in solitary confinement and executed on the 12th of October, 1943. 74 00:08:07,710 --> 00:08:17,870 So you see from from February to October that very, very rapid turnaround, further trials and prison sentences followed over the next two years. 75 00:08:17,880 --> 00:08:28,650 And one of the student, Hans Lippert, was executed. So I have her example to show you of one of the six printed leaflets. 76 00:08:29,160 --> 00:08:36,000 So you can see this is pretty much two sides of roughly A4 paper typed very closely. 77 00:08:37,590 --> 00:08:45,840 And we have at the beginning of each of the leaflets a title here, fruit letter device and also dry leaflets of the white nose number three. 78 00:08:45,850 --> 00:08:51,270 So this is the third leaflet and then an instruction right at the bottom of the right 79 00:08:51,270 --> 00:08:56,190 hand page bits of Have you decided to invite a given with three exclamation marks? 80 00:08:56,880 --> 00:09:04,680 Please spread these. Pass them on. You can also see at the bottom of the right hand page a quotation. 81 00:09:05,160 --> 00:09:07,950 This is from Aristotle's politics. 82 00:09:08,670 --> 00:09:17,040 And many of the leaflets contain extensive quotations from other works of literature or other works, significant cultural works. 83 00:09:18,810 --> 00:09:26,190 Another thing that's interesting to note is the use of something called fastest, which is because there's no italics. 84 00:09:26,400 --> 00:09:30,060 This is a way of putting things really in emphasis. 85 00:09:30,540 --> 00:09:32,490 So we have a few examples of this. 86 00:09:32,790 --> 00:09:41,250 Also, every time the words sabotage, sabotage is used in this leaflet, it's in fact that is spaced out so that it really packs a punch. 87 00:09:46,440 --> 00:09:54,370 So that's what they look like now in this table. I've put together something which I think is very useful, just the same as a glance, 88 00:09:54,390 --> 00:10:00,090 the way that the leaflets developed, the way that things changed over the course of these six leaflets, 89 00:10:00,090 --> 00:10:07,110 because of course, they were produced over a period of about 18 months, but the first four were produced in about four weeks. 90 00:10:07,110 --> 00:10:10,350 And then there was quite a long delay before five and six. 91 00:10:11,100 --> 00:10:20,250 So you can see that leaflets, 1 to 4 all began with the same construction leaflets of the white rose and then the corresponding number. 92 00:10:20,520 --> 00:10:28,169 And what this indicates is, of course, that right from the beginning, right from leaflet one, this was intended to be a series of leaflets. 93 00:10:28,170 --> 00:10:33,600 This was not going to be an isolated event. This was going to be a series that they were producing. 94 00:10:34,830 --> 00:10:38,820 Leaflet five Then obviously change is the pattern here. 95 00:10:39,630 --> 00:10:44,910 Rather than evoking this image of a white rose, which in itself is very interesting. 96 00:10:47,100 --> 00:10:49,410 We have something that's much, much more general. 97 00:10:50,520 --> 00:11:00,299 So leaflets of the resistance movement in Germany, an appeal to all Germans Leaflet six is addressed simply to fellow students, 98 00:11:00,300 --> 00:11:06,510 which is again interesting, given that this is the only one that was written solely by a professor, not by the students themselves. 99 00:11:06,990 --> 00:11:15,420 And in the German here, it's very interesting that the fellow students have rendered melatonin and melatonin so literally female students, 100 00:11:15,630 --> 00:11:21,870 male students, putting the female students first and also calling really emphasising the call to everyone. 101 00:11:23,490 --> 00:11:33,810 If you look also at how each of the leaflets ends. We have in the first five leaflets and exhortation to copy these leaflets, 102 00:11:33,990 --> 00:11:40,170 to spread them to to try and get a kind of as broad a readership as possible for them. 103 00:11:40,170 --> 00:11:45,060 We urge you to transcribe this leaflet, make as many copies as you can, and distribute them. 104 00:11:45,300 --> 00:11:48,570 Please copy this document, distribute it as widely as possible. 105 00:11:48,840 --> 00:11:54,239 Please reproduce this and pass it on. Please duplicate and redistribute support the resistance movement. 106 00:11:54,240 --> 00:11:57,210 Distribute the leaflets that again corresponding to the beginning. 107 00:11:57,480 --> 00:12:10,379 This is much more general an appeal and leaflet six dispenses with this form of address entirely and simply ends with the very moving and inspiring. 108 00:12:10,380 --> 00:12:19,440 All people are on the verge of breaking free from National Socialism's enslavement of Europe in this new spiritual dawn of freedom and honour. 109 00:12:23,980 --> 00:12:31,390 So that's the overall picture of what the leaflets, how the leaflets began, how the leaflets and what they were roughly do. 110 00:12:31,630 --> 00:12:39,310 But but what had the white rose written that meant that they had to die and that really they had to die very quickly? 111 00:12:40,630 --> 00:12:47,440 Well, the leaflets urge their readers to open their eyes to the atrocities being committed in the name of the regime. 112 00:12:48,070 --> 00:12:51,580 They draw on a range of philosophical ideas and influences. 113 00:12:51,580 --> 00:12:56,110 And as I said, they include quotations from German writers such as Groucho Schiller, 114 00:12:56,200 --> 00:13:01,180 the violence, as well as Aristotle's political philosophy, the Old Testament, 115 00:13:01,450 --> 00:13:07,390 the Chinese philosopher to see the leaflets were designed to stir up the people, 116 00:13:07,510 --> 00:13:14,530 to confront them with truths which the group believed that they were deliberately ignoring through fear or through obstinacy. 117 00:13:15,430 --> 00:13:19,810 From the very beginning, their language is forceful and I think even quite shocking. 118 00:13:25,400 --> 00:13:28,040 If every one of us waits for someone else to start, 119 00:13:28,820 --> 00:13:36,890 then the heralds of avenging nemesis will draw ever closer until the last sacrificial victim is vainly thrown into the jaws of a demon. 120 00:13:37,100 --> 00:13:40,340 That will never be seated. They're not messing around here. 121 00:13:40,370 --> 00:13:45,740 This is this is very bold rhetoric. And this is this is leaflet one. 122 00:13:46,910 --> 00:13:53,840 It's going to get more intense from here. So the first leaflet really appeals to a common German cultural heritage, 123 00:13:54,140 --> 00:13:59,690 quoting from two German works, one by Johann Wolfgang from Ghouta and the other by Philippe Schiller. 124 00:14:00,260 --> 00:14:09,409 Both were writers whom the Nazis had co-opted, but who could speak to another time and another way of being good has play upon the need. 125 00:14:09,410 --> 00:14:15,140 As Awakes was written for the celebrations in Berlin of Napoleon's defeats in 1815, 126 00:14:15,470 --> 00:14:20,660 and in the excerpt quoted at the end of the first leaflet, The figure of hope speaks. 127 00:14:21,140 --> 00:14:29,780 They stutter, stammer on and on that fair and taunting word freedom till all our temporal steps and use are useful and so unfamiliar. 128 00:14:30,080 --> 00:14:34,700 We call its name a joyful clamour with conviction, loud freedom. 129 00:14:39,370 --> 00:14:43,120 It's significant. But the final word of this excerpt quoted is, 130 00:14:43,240 --> 00:14:51,310 is the word freedom's I hate when Sophie was taken to the court from her cell on the morning of the 22nd of February 1943. 131 00:14:51,640 --> 00:14:58,690 Her soul mate noted that she had left behind the court's indictment on which she had written the single word Fight Freedom. 132 00:14:59,650 --> 00:15:04,820 Sophie was executed that same day at 5 p.m. and minutes later as her brother Hans was led to the guillotine. 133 00:15:04,840 --> 00:15:08,500 He cried out as labour, despite long live freedom. 134 00:15:08,950 --> 00:15:15,010 Freedom is a word which recurs again and again in these leaflets and which was of huge significance to the white rose. 135 00:15:16,510 --> 00:15:21,249 The first leaflet also quotes Socialist 1789 essay the law giving us of Lycurgus and 136 00:15:21,250 --> 00:15:25,630 so long in which he contrasts the oligarchic and Republican forms of government. 137 00:15:26,380 --> 00:15:32,230 It was actually this text that first made Sophie suspect that Hans was involved in the White Rose campaign. 138 00:15:32,650 --> 00:15:41,080 He'd been at university for about six weeks. She saw a copy of this leaflet and then, by chance, while waiting, enhances rumours. 139 00:15:41,080 --> 00:15:44,620 One day she happened to flick through his books and found a copy of the 140 00:15:44,620 --> 00:15:49,360 Schiller text and found that the passage quoted in the leaflet had been marked. 141 00:15:49,720 --> 00:15:51,460 And of course, this was the same passage. 142 00:15:51,670 --> 00:15:58,270 It immediately struck her, and she's reported to have confronted her brother at this point and asked him about the white rose. 143 00:15:58,270 --> 00:16:03,220 And reportedly, it's at this moment that Sophie also becomes involved in the white race. 144 00:16:05,130 --> 00:16:10,250 In the second leaflet, the White Rose explicitly denounces the persecution of European Jews. 145 00:16:10,710 --> 00:16:16,350 Writing We want only to point out briefly by way of example, the fact that since the conquest of Poland, 146 00:16:16,350 --> 00:16:20,880 300,000 Jews have been murdered in that country in the most bestial manner. 147 00:16:21,390 --> 00:16:28,080 Here we see the most horrific crime against human dignity, a crime unparalleled in all human history. 148 00:16:29,700 --> 00:16:34,589 They attempted to show how their fellow Germans have been taken in by Nazis and urged 149 00:16:34,590 --> 00:16:38,940 readers to open their eyes to these atrocities being committed in the name of the regime. 150 00:16:40,020 --> 00:16:45,180 They go on until the outbreak of the war. The vast majority of the German people were blinded. 151 00:16:45,570 --> 00:16:53,730 The National Socialists did not show their true face. But now, since they have been seen for what they are, the highest and only duty, 152 00:16:53,910 --> 00:16:59,640 the most sacred duty, even of every German, must be to destroy these beasts. 153 00:17:02,970 --> 00:17:10,200 So in addition to this very serious, very hard hitting rhetoric, there's also some humour elsewhere. 154 00:17:10,200 --> 00:17:14,580 They openly mock the Nazis, poking fun at Hitler's Mein Kampf. 155 00:17:15,270 --> 00:17:21,120 They write that this is a book which, despite having been written in the most appalling German that I've ever read, 156 00:17:21,630 --> 00:17:26,370 has been elevated to biblical status by this nation of poets and philosophers. 157 00:17:27,060 --> 00:17:36,510 Now, the German lumps that they put on Denker nation of poets and philosophers is an almost proverbial phrase applied to the Germans by themselves, 158 00:17:37,650 --> 00:17:38,850 that they have thus embraced. 159 00:17:38,850 --> 00:17:49,530 This worthless book of Hitler suggests either that they are not so gifted as that, or that they need specifically to recover their critical faculties. 160 00:17:49,860 --> 00:17:53,670 And this is indeed, I think, what the White Rose was urging people to do. 161 00:17:54,990 --> 00:18:01,320 The leaflets called on readers to engage in passive resistance to bring down national socialism, 162 00:18:01,770 --> 00:18:09,720 but not with violence and to bring an end to the war, which despite the fact that four of them were conscripted medics, 163 00:18:10,080 --> 00:18:16,470 which they viewed as unjust, they also advocate sabotage of factories, 164 00:18:16,560 --> 00:18:21,400 national socialist events, universities, cultural events, the arts and the media. 165 00:18:21,990 --> 00:18:28,950 They even warned against giving to Charity Street Collections because this will only continue to benefit and support the state. 166 00:18:30,000 --> 00:18:35,100 And what, according to the White Rose did that states that Nazi government looked like? 167 00:18:35,670 --> 00:18:43,500 They expressed this in the following terms. All current states, in inverted commas, is the dictatorship of evil. 168 00:18:44,250 --> 00:18:49,190 We know that already. I hear you object and we don't need you to approach us for it yet again. 169 00:18:49,980 --> 00:18:54,240 But I ask you if you know that, then why don't you act? 170 00:18:54,810 --> 00:19:02,540 Why do you tolerate these rulers gradually robbing you in public and in private of one race after another until one day? 171 00:19:02,550 --> 00:19:09,630 Nothing, absolutely nothing, remains but the machinery of the state under the command of criminals and trumpets. 172 00:19:11,360 --> 00:19:15,290 We deserve to be scattered across the world like dust before the wind. 173 00:19:15,590 --> 00:19:20,930 If we do not prepare ourselves for action now at the 11th hour and finally muster the courage 174 00:19:20,930 --> 00:19:26,390 which we have thus far lacked to not conceal your cowardice under the cloak of expediency. 175 00:19:27,980 --> 00:19:34,010 So the apathy is the apathy which they discern among the people around them that they 176 00:19:34,010 --> 00:19:39,320 take issue with and that they're trying to expose with this extremely powerful rhetoric, 177 00:19:40,370 --> 00:19:49,550 there's an unwillingness to see things which are in plain sight, which the white rose again and again try to get their readers to see. 178 00:19:51,460 --> 00:19:54,040 I've said that the leaflets include several quotations, 179 00:19:55,120 --> 00:20:01,390 and I think these were clearly intended to appeal to a particular audience of a particularly educated, intellectual audience. 180 00:20:01,960 --> 00:20:08,080 There are, however, other examples of how writers and thinkers known to the White Rose members influence them. 181 00:20:08,470 --> 00:20:17,410 And a very prominent example is a gentleman called Tito Hecker, an authority on Kirkegaard and translator of John Henry, Cardinal Newman. 182 00:20:18,400 --> 00:20:26,110 Under the Nazis, Hitler had been banned from speaking publicly or publishing, and he kept a secret journal, a fascinating journal, 183 00:20:26,770 --> 00:20:31,089 documenting his internal resistance to the regime which his teenage daughter, 184 00:20:31,090 --> 00:20:34,790 in fact, had to smuggle out of their flat when it was searched by the Gestapo. 185 00:20:34,810 --> 00:20:36,250 She puts it in her music case. 186 00:20:37,450 --> 00:20:45,910 Hector's influence is discernible in the fourth leaflet, especially, which draws on theology and metaphysics presenting Hitler as the Antichrist. 187 00:20:48,240 --> 00:20:51,510 Every word that comes out of Hitler's mouth is a lie. 188 00:20:52,050 --> 00:20:58,770 When he says peace, he means war. And when he blasphemous invokes the name of the Almighty, he means the power of the evil. 189 00:20:58,770 --> 00:21:07,860 One of the fallen angel of Satan. His mouth is the stinking more of [INAUDIBLE], and his power is, in its very essence, corrupt. 190 00:21:08,250 --> 00:21:10,440 And I hope you can hear also some very biblical, 191 00:21:10,440 --> 00:21:15,360 perhaps also some very Lutheran preaching resonances in some of the language that they are using here. 192 00:21:17,640 --> 00:21:22,290 The white rose here again in this false leaflet point to the future and emphasise 193 00:21:22,290 --> 00:21:27,449 individuals responsibility for bringing the criminals to justice after the war ends. 194 00:21:27,450 --> 00:21:29,670 But always looking forward to the future, 195 00:21:29,970 --> 00:21:36,120 to a point when the war will inevitably have ended and when Germany will have to account for what has gone on. 196 00:21:37,110 --> 00:21:41,700 There is no punishment on this earth that would do justice to the crimes of Hitler and his inner circle. 197 00:21:42,360 --> 00:21:45,089 But out of love for the coming generations. 198 00:21:45,090 --> 00:21:52,710 An example must be set after the end of the war so that no one will ever feel even the slightest inclination to commit such acts again. 199 00:21:53,490 --> 00:21:59,310 Do not forget the petty villains of this regime. Remember their names so that not a single one goes free. 200 00:22:00,980 --> 00:22:06,950 The fourth least that ends with an assurance that the white rose is not in the power of a foreign power before boldly declaring, 201 00:22:07,880 --> 00:22:10,940 We will not be silent. We are your bad conscience. 202 00:22:11,450 --> 00:22:15,230 The white rose will never leave you in peace. It's quite a threat. 203 00:22:16,700 --> 00:22:24,290 And the fact that we're still talking about this 75 years later, I think indicates quite easily that indeed they were somehow never silent. 204 00:22:25,910 --> 00:22:32,690 Hence, Alex and Lily were appalled at what they witnessed on the eastern front in the summer of 1942 and returned to Munich, 205 00:22:32,690 --> 00:22:39,720 determined to write more leaflets and to distribute them across Germany and into Austria in leaflet five. 206 00:22:39,950 --> 00:22:45,830 Written by Hans and edited by Huber and distributed six months after leaflet four had been. 207 00:22:46,220 --> 00:22:50,990 There's an even greater sense of urgency. Hitler cannot win the war. 208 00:22:52,100 --> 00:22:57,350 He can only prolong it. His guilt and the guilt of his followers continually exceeds all boundaries. 209 00:22:57,680 --> 00:23:05,409 Just punishment is nigh. Also striking is the focus again on what's going to happen after the war ends, 210 00:23:05,410 --> 00:23:10,570 how Germany's going to be seen by the rest of the world and by the rest of Europe in the years to come. 211 00:23:10,780 --> 00:23:18,009 And I think this comes across really as very as almost prophetic, given the post-war history of Germany, 212 00:23:18,010 --> 00:23:23,200 and particularly post-war discussions in West Germany of collective guilt and collective responsibility. 213 00:23:23,950 --> 00:23:28,030 Germans, shall we be forever hated and shunned by the whole world? 214 00:23:28,270 --> 00:23:33,910 No. So separate yourself from the subhuman nature of National Socialism Act. 215 00:23:34,120 --> 00:23:39,010 Prove that you think differently. A new fight for liberation is at hand. 216 00:23:40,330 --> 00:23:44,830 And again, what's interesting about the white rose is use of language here is that they take this pejorative 217 00:23:44,830 --> 00:23:52,180 word that the Nazis use to refer to Jews and other persecuted groups and to the Russian enemy, 218 00:23:52,450 --> 00:23:58,030 wouldn't to mention subhumans. And they turn it right back around on the Nazis themselves. 219 00:24:00,240 --> 00:24:07,620 In the sixth leaflet who believes the blame for the German defeat at Stalingrad in early February 43 squarely hit the store? 220 00:24:09,770 --> 00:24:12,990 It also dispenses with this closing piece and make more copies. 221 00:24:13,010 --> 00:24:21,560 It's simply interested, I think, in this powerful rhetoric, and it addresses specifically student readers this time. 222 00:24:21,770 --> 00:24:25,220 For us, there is only one slogan Fight against the party. 223 00:24:25,460 --> 00:24:29,450 Get out of the lecture halls of the states and senior leaders and party sycophants. 224 00:24:29,870 --> 00:24:34,160 There is no threat that can deter us. Not even the closure of our universities. 225 00:24:34,610 --> 00:24:38,180 It is the duty of each and every one of us to fight for our future, 226 00:24:38,450 --> 00:24:43,250 our freedom and honour in a political system conscious of its own moral responsibility. 227 00:24:43,460 --> 00:24:57,750 And that, again, is that word, freedom. In addition to the leaflet campaign over the course of two nights in February 1943. 228 00:24:57,780 --> 00:25:08,250 Hence, Alex and Willie went out and used Kauri green and black coal tar dyes to write graffiti on the walls of several Munich buildings. 229 00:25:08,910 --> 00:25:14,940 They came up with slogans such as Down with Hitler, Freedom and Hitler, Mass Murderer. 230 00:25:15,540 --> 00:25:20,370 And these were intended to awaken again the German people's fierce resistance. 231 00:25:20,610 --> 00:25:27,690 But now, in a much more condensed form, when Hans and Sophie were arrested in February 1943, 232 00:25:28,020 --> 00:25:32,400 Hans had the rough version of what would have been his seventh leaflet in his pocket. 233 00:25:32,700 --> 00:25:41,520 This had been drafted by Christoph Post. Hans tried to destroy this incriminating piece of paper, but he was unable to do so and it was discovered. 234 00:25:42,420 --> 00:25:53,040 The six pamphlets, however, was smuggled out of Germany, and in the summer of 1943, millions of copies of this were dropped by the RAF over Germany. 235 00:25:54,360 --> 00:26:05,190 The text for a new title manifesto of the Munich Student's Manifesto mentioned a student and the same year as this. 236 00:26:05,550 --> 00:26:14,200 Thomas Mann, the exiled German novelist, dedicated one of his regular BBC broadcasts on the BBC's German service to the White Rose, 237 00:26:14,220 --> 00:26:18,750 declaring good, splendid young people, you shall not have died in vain. 238 00:26:18,990 --> 00:26:26,560 You shall not be forgotten. A new faith in freedom and honour is dawning, and the war would roll on for another two years. 239 00:26:26,580 --> 00:26:31,110 These leaflets did not stop that, but the white rose would indeed not be forgotten. 240 00:26:32,790 --> 00:26:38,070 What can we learn from the white rose about rising and resistance in a more general way? 241 00:26:38,910 --> 00:26:39,059 Well, 242 00:26:39,060 --> 00:26:48,510 the white rose used the written word specifically to call the German people to resist Marxism and to contribute in some way to an end to the war. 243 00:26:49,170 --> 00:26:55,560 Through the leaflets, they tried to spread their ideas and to open people's eyes to what was going on around them. 244 00:26:56,910 --> 00:27:01,950 They used specifically the medium of the flu plot, the leaflets, the flyer, the pamphlets. 245 00:27:02,580 --> 00:27:12,300 This was the first medium of mass communication and in the history of the German speaking lands specifically has a very great importance. 246 00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:20,400 And we find pamphlets and flyers used to disseminate ideas and information for the purposes of propaganda and control, 247 00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:23,370 as well as provocation and of course, resistance. 248 00:27:24,030 --> 00:27:31,440 Initially, flyers were sold rather than being distributed free of charge, so they had a slightly different understanding of those. 249 00:27:31,890 --> 00:27:39,690 And it is estimated that in 1520, for example, a four page pamphlet would have cost publish a penny, which is the equivalent of a mug of beer. 250 00:27:41,220 --> 00:27:47,730 Now, it is important, I think, to see the White Rose leaflets in the context of this tradition of pamphlets, 251 00:27:47,730 --> 00:27:50,520 hearing of resistance rise and the fluke letter in Germany. 252 00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:59,700 But there are increasingly much broader links that can be made not just within Germany or not just within the history of the Third Reich. 253 00:28:00,540 --> 00:28:05,730 And it's one of the things that the White Rose Project will be pursuing in its future work. 254 00:28:07,020 --> 00:28:16,130 And in order just to say a few words about this, I want to take us from 1943 to 2018, because in the summer of 2018 15, 255 00:28:16,170 --> 00:28:24,300 undergraduate students from across this university were selected to work on Newt on the new translation of the White Rose leaflets. 256 00:28:24,720 --> 00:28:28,530 Now, of course, there are many, many translations into English as the White Rose leaflets, 257 00:28:29,730 --> 00:28:35,220 but it struck me that I was certainly not aware of three things. 258 00:28:35,250 --> 00:28:43,200 First, the pamphlets published as a parallel text so that you could read the German and the English side by side. 259 00:28:43,590 --> 00:28:48,330 Because of course, as journalists, we always want everybody to learn and read and understand German. 260 00:28:49,230 --> 00:28:54,360 But we're also aware that sadly, not everyone does, which is, you know, something we hope to rectify. 261 00:28:54,780 --> 00:29:01,650 But it would be we felt it would be a wonderful resource to be able to see the English next to the German. 262 00:29:02,520 --> 00:29:07,590 The second thing was that I was not aware of a translation of the leaflets that had been collaborative. 263 00:29:08,250 --> 00:29:14,640 And of course the leaflets themselves were a collaboration between students and then between students and their professor. 264 00:29:15,270 --> 00:29:21,930 And third, I was not aware of a translation of the leaflets that had been done by students, 265 00:29:22,110 --> 00:29:26,490 students who were the same age as the authors of most of these texts. 266 00:29:26,940 --> 00:29:29,580 So they seemed to be a very productive way of going about things. 267 00:29:30,510 --> 00:29:40,500 And these are indeed published and available now in the course of this project, working with 15 undergraduate students. 268 00:29:40,770 --> 00:29:48,630 I was reminded, as I think Oxford teachers always are, that we're not really teaching so much as we're learning most of the time. 269 00:29:48,790 --> 00:29:55,509 We learn from our students. And I want to quote a couple of the students now because they had these very fascinating 270 00:29:55,510 --> 00:30:02,170 insights into the leaflets and specifically the leaflets as examples of resistance writing. 271 00:30:02,890 --> 00:30:06,040 So the. That they are in fact. 272 00:30:07,980 --> 00:30:11,250 Now made famous. Okay. 273 00:30:11,700 --> 00:30:17,100 So the first students I want to quote is Adam Mazzariello, who's a fourth year student of German. 274 00:30:17,760 --> 00:30:24,990 And he wrote During the Arab Spring, disabled, mobile and Internet networks and activists turned to leaflets as a means of highlighting 275 00:30:25,200 --> 00:30:28,920 and railing against the current and historical abuses of dictatorial regimes. 276 00:30:29,490 --> 00:30:35,730 In the Egyptian case, many of these leaflets were scanned and made available as part of a collection called the Tourism Documents. 277 00:30:36,270 --> 00:30:40,140 Reading these leaflets now, eight years later, and with the white rose in mind, 278 00:30:40,410 --> 00:30:47,069 it's impossible not to hear the echoes across time drawing, as the white rose did on cultural and religious heritage. 279 00:30:47,070 --> 00:30:50,190 They saw themselves as defending against perversion and erasure. 280 00:30:50,640 --> 00:30:56,610 The printed ephemera of the revolutions of 2011 are just as rich in satire, irony and anger. 281 00:30:57,300 --> 00:31:02,700 In both cases, moreover, the words ring just as true for the leaflets contemporary readers as they do today. 282 00:31:04,500 --> 00:31:08,310 I think this is a this is a fascinating link that I certainly wouldn't have made. 283 00:31:08,970 --> 00:31:16,170 And I think there's also great resonance with the kind of eco activism that we've seen particularly recently and particularly among the young. 284 00:31:17,700 --> 00:31:21,720 Another quotation from one of our student translations, Eve Mason. 285 00:31:22,650 --> 00:31:29,100 She commented The White Rose members were individuals who wanted more than anything to provoke action to awaken their fellow Germans 286 00:31:29,100 --> 00:31:35,940 and inspire their resistance to the regime in an age in which young people are constantly being accused of apolitical cynicism. 287 00:31:35,970 --> 00:31:42,120 Imagine, I hope, our translation of these pamphlets can provide an example of the political action our 288 00:31:42,120 --> 00:31:46,890 generation can achieve and of the true potential we have to make change in the world. 289 00:31:48,330 --> 00:31:53,250 Now questions are often asked about the white rose and the extent to which it had any kind of impact. 290 00:31:54,060 --> 00:31:57,030 Some have questioned how much concrete change they really achieved. 291 00:31:57,900 --> 00:32:03,630 As a matter dumba and just newborn rice and less in the study of Sophie Scholl and the white rose. 292 00:32:04,170 --> 00:32:09,160 They quote, I quote The impacts of the white rose cannot be measured in tyrants destroyed. 293 00:32:09,420 --> 00:32:14,220 Regimes overthrown. Justice restored. A scale with another dimension is needed. 294 00:32:14,580 --> 00:32:19,680 And then the significance is deeper. It goes even beyond the Third Reich, beyond Germany. 295 00:32:22,120 --> 00:32:28,540 The White Rose didn't, I think, expect to bring down the Nazi state with six leaflets. 296 00:32:29,170 --> 00:32:34,300 But it matters that those leaflets exist and their story gives us hope. 297 00:32:34,570 --> 00:32:39,129 I think especially for those of us who work with young people, but for everyone, 298 00:32:39,130 --> 00:32:48,400 it provides a moving and inspiring example of how conscience and moral courage and the written word can challenge injustice. 299 00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:54,430 And after all, here we are 75 years later, talking and thinking about the white race. 300 00:32:55,330 --> 00:32:57,819 So thank you very much. Thank you for your attention. Thank you for coming. 301 00:32:57,820 --> 00:33:02,620 And I look forward to any questions you might have about the White Rose or about the White Rose Project. 302 00:33:02,980 --> 00:33:03,150 Thank.