Saturday Afternoon: Christianity in the White Rose Society and in Hitler's Table Talk
Sept. 14, 2013
The original members of the White Rose Society were all Christian, born around 1918 into devout families, who resented the emphasis on “service to the state” that National-Socialism was built around.
- Hans Scholl‘s father was a minor Social-Democrat, anti-Hitler politician, his mother a Lutheran lay preacher, and Hans was always forming, and being active in, groups;
- Sophie Scholl wanted to be a part of her brother’s secret group and was influenced by the writings of Catholic Cardinal Neumann on the duty to obey one’s conscience;
- Alexander Schmorell was Russian-born, a faithful son of the Orthodox Church, who never felt “at home” in Germany, where he wanted to bring about a revolution;
- Willi Graf was a Roman Catholic who didn’t like the way Church groups were replaced by Nat-Soc groups, and felt strongly enough to do something about it;
- Christof Probst‘s father’s second wife was Jewish; his father associated with “decadent” artists of society, so Christof fell in naturally with the White Rose;
- Hitler understood by 1941-44 that official Christianity could not bend toward a national state, but was trapped in it’s universalist dogma wherein the Church’s duty was to transcend race and national boundaries and to speak for all people, everywhere;
- Hitler expressed his thoughts along these lines in many passages found in “Table Talk.”




