During the three weeks in April 2025, my "Christian Mart Difficult Theology" class studied how a group of German students and professors from Munich and Hamburg formed the resistance movement known as the "White Rose" from 1942 to 1943. These people ignored Nazi tyranny and were imprisoned and many were executed.

At the center of the movement are Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl, Alexander Schmorell, Christoph Probst and Willi Graf, all in their 20s, and Professor Kurt Huber. The Scholl siblings, their friends and their professors were beheaded for urging students at the University of Munich to oppose the Nazi regime.

On the surface, White Rose's "crime" was a work in six anti-Nazi pamphlets, printed and distributed, urging the Germans to resist Adolf Hitler and work to end World War II. But a careful study of their pamphlets and excerpts from diaries and letters suggests that their resistance is rooted in something deeper—a belief that relies on friendship and humanistic learning. The time they spent together reading and discussing theological texts deepened their Christian faith.

Teaching this lesson tells me that teachers can inspire students to improve the social and political landscape of the country by studying literature, history, and theology. Teachers can help students build a conscience and empower them to fight false and injustice.

White Rose Sports

These young people come from a variety of Christian backgrounds, including Catholic, Lutheran and Orthodox traditions. Some were teenage members of Hitler youth, while others were medical assistants to the German army. Among the students at the University of Munich, they built strong bonds and went through personal transformations, where they were guided by several philosophers, especially the devout Catholic Kurt Huber.

Students regularly meet secretly with professors to learn literature, philosophy, and theology from the Catholic intellectual tradition, and the Nazi regime was forbidden as part of Hitler's strategy to kill and strangle the German Catholic Church for the first time. According to students’ letters and diaries, their secret interaction with Catholic thought became the cornerstone of White Rose’s rejection of Nazi tyranny.

In the writings of the fifth-century North African theologian Augustine, the 20th-century novelist and playwright Georges Bernanos and the 20th-century philosopher Jacques Maritain, these students encountered a Catholic intellectual tradition that responded to their pressing problems.

From Augustine, they learned the importance of cultivating prayer-based indoor living. Bernanos emphasized the importance of embracing humans in the face of evil. Maritan stressed the need to work for a liberal democratic society.

The importance of prayer

The White Rose Movement focuses not only on the current situation of humanity, but also on its future, not only on individuals, but on individuals. In secret meetings and letters, they fight with the relationship between faith and reason, the face of evil goodness, the meaning of tyranny, the nature of a just state, and the basis of true freedom. Solving these serious problems not only matures their intelligence, but also deepens their hearts. It taught them the importance of prayer.

"Suffering unbearable pain is less than vegetation. To desire, pray better for pain, pain and pain, rather than feeling empty and not feeling the real feeling. I mean I mean resist."

White Rose’s personal writings reflect a religious passion similar to the prayers of the saints.

For example, Graf said in prison: "I know my Redeemer liveth. This belief alone can strengthen and sustain me." The impact of Christianity on the inner lives of these young people is a key part of their narrative and resistance.

Their circle of friendship becomes a safe haven for a totalitarian state, trying to isolate individuals, instill fear and transform these alienated and fearful people into part of mass society. "We denied many people and built them on a few people and believed that we were strong." Later, they were the last surviving member of White Rose and a member of the Hamburg circle, and later said.

Perhaps the most important intellectual influence on this group was John Henry Newman, a 19th-century Catholic convert and theologian who emphasized the primacy of "good" conscience. His writings helped them recognize the moral truth that Catholics like me believed to be beyond Nazi propaganda - everyone carries the voice of the living God in them. This voice cannot be silent by state power.

Newman's philosophy

Newman insists that conscience is not only intuitive, but also shaped through learning - from conversations, books, and life experiences. Under the guidance of the professor, White Rose students can develop conscience.

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If Newman spoke to college students today, I would like to believe he would emphasize the importance of talking to friends on campus, discussions with classmates and professors in the classroom, newspapers they read, newspapers they participate in, novels they participate in, novels they tasted during the holidays, road trips throughout the country, and their learning. All these experiences help shape their conscience.

Newman’s defense of broad, active and serious learning provides an attractive opposite for Nazi ideology, which not only seeks to deprive individuals of civil rights, but also weakens their inner lives and abilities to form meaningful relationships through horror and fear.

Sophie Scholl better illustrates the power of a conscience, and Sophie Scholl shares Newman's sermon with her boyfriend Fritz Hartnagel, a Wehrmacht official who fought for Germany during World War II.

In the summer of 1942, Hartnagel wrote to Scholl that Newman's words were like "a drop of precious wine." He wrote in another letter: "But we know who we were created and we are in line with the moral obligations of the creator. Conscience gives us the power to distinguish between good and evil." After the war, Hartnagel actively participated in the peace movement and supported opponents of conscience. For members of White Rose, conscience is a spiritual stronghold-a country cannot violate it.

Seeking truth and challenges today

I believe that while my students today face different challenges - this society is made up of a society that I think is the existence of technological power and populism rather than a totalitarian totalitarian society, they also desire to act in a clear and convictional way. Newman’s view on the formation of conscience also aroused my students.

What my students share with young dissidents over 80 years ago is a commitment to fostering inner life, fostering community of friends and engaging in a dynamic intellectual tradition.

They were attracted by the works of the animation Hans Scholl, who drew inspiration from Catholic playwright Paul Claudel.

"Chasms yawning and the darkest nights were over my pursuit, but I pressed it anyway. Claudel said so brilliantly: Life is a great adventure for light."

As a teacher, I believe young people want to interact with intellectual traditions to help them discover their careers and live in an upright way, similar to Scholl.

They seek to act with a clear conscience in the uncertainty of their time. This approach contrasts sharply with any hollow, anti-intelligence and cultural bankruptcy tyranny.