Synopsis

The White Rose was a non-violent/intellectual resistance group in Nazi Germany, consisting of students from the University of Munich and their philosophy professor. The group became known for an anonymous leaflet campaign, lasting from June 1942 until February 1943, that called for active opposition to Adolf Hitler's regime.

One day in 1942, copies of a leaflet entitled “The White Rose” suddenly appeared at the University of Munich. The leaflet said that the Nazi system had slowly imprisoned the German people, was now destroying them, and that the Nazi regime had turned evil. It was time, the leaflet said, for Germans to rise up and resist the tyranny of their own government. At the bottom, the following request appeared: “Please make as many copies of this leaflet as you can and distribute them”. The leaflet caused a tremendous stir among the student body as it was the first time that internal dissent against the Nazi's had surfaced in Germany.

Today, the members of the White Rose are honoured in Germany as amongst its greatest heroes, since they opposed the Third Reich in the face of almost certain death. The six core members of the group were arrested by the Gestapo and they were executed by decapitation in 1943.

This play is based on this true story of a group of students who formed an unprecedented resistance movement to Hitler's regime. It traces the story of Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans, and his friends as they despair of the increasingly totalitarian lives being forced onto the German nation.

'The White Rose' is a play which is both intimate and epic in its portrayal of the story and characters involved, and, though drawn from the pages of history, it is as relevant today as it was when it originally unfolded during the dark days of war.

Originally conceived as a musical, this play was developed from that to meet a production request. The musical is available here.

Characters