The War of the White Roses
Although everyone believes in something, most of us would not sacrifice our lives for many things. The odds are, I probably wouldn’t give up my life for very many things. But in 1942, Nazi Germany, three young people who were only a few years older than me, wouldn't let the fear of death stop them from doing what they believed in. These young college students sacrificed their lives for the good of their country and the people they loved. To fully understand the story of Hans, Sophie, and Christoph, the creators of The White Rose, you need to know about their life, their courage, and how inspiring their work was. (Hornberger)
Hans and Sophie Scholl were regular people, just like us. They siblings in a hardworking German family who loved their country. They both went to the University of Munich, where they met the people who they would work with to free Germnay from oppression When the Nazis came to power, they enthusiastically joined the Hitler Youth with their friends and classmates, which their father didn’t like very much. Their father was later imprisoned for complaining about the war to his secretary. One of the other original writers of the pamphlets was Christoph Probst, who was an older student at the University of Munich. They were helped by their psychology and philosophy professor, Kurt Huber. They wrote their
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We are taught not to back down, and to stand up for what we believe in, even if that's not what everyone else thinks. We are shown that we can't back down form the things that are important to us, while we shouldn’t sacrifice our lives for the majority of things, we should still stand up for them. And while we may not always agree with the consequences, or if we believed that our actions, don’t deserve consequences, there are times when you need to accept them, whether you like it or not.
In the story, Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler’s Shadow, the thoughts of independence and judgement were shown by German student, Sophie Scholl. Like any other teenager, Sophie started to gain thoughts of her own. She began to “grow away from the National Socialistic Ideas about race, religion, and duty”, as stated in Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler’s Shadow. Sophie immediately began to have her own ideas of society and politicians. What she noticed was that, she had different preferences on some of the subjects she was being taught at school. But unfortunately, Sophie was never able to share her ideas, because her Nazi teachers would not allow any kind of discussion or disagreement in the classroom. Which caused her to stop giving her Nazi teachers the answers to any National Socialistic question, which she thought was wrong. Her teachers soon grew upset with her, and the principle threatened to not allow Sophie to graduate. Sophie was horrified at
The tragedies of the holocaust forever altered history. One of the most detailed accounts of the horrific events from the Nazi regime comes from Elie Wiesel’s Night. He describes his traumatic experiences in German concentration camps, mainly Buchenwald, and engages his readers from a victim’s point of view. He bravely shares the grotesque visions that are permanently ingrained in his mind. His autobiography gives readers vivid, unforgettable, and shocking images of the past. It is beneficial that Wiesel published this, if he had not the world might not have known the extent of the Nazis reign. He exposes the cruelty of man, and the misuse of power. Through a lifetime of tragedy, Elie Wiesel struggled internally to resurrect his religious beliefs as well as his hatred for the human race. He shares these emotions to the world through Night.
In the beautiful Southern autumn days, a war was becoming bloodier and bloodier by the day. Howard Bahr’s The Black Flower: A Novel of the Civil War takes place in the most tranquil time of the year in 1864. Bushrod Carter, a young Confederate rifleman, leaves his Mississippi town to fight in the Tennessee Army under General John Bell Hood. The story follows Bushrod and a few of his fellow Confederates through the months leading up to the Battle of Franklin on November 30, 1864. Bahr writes the story with great historical accuracy and vivid imagery. The story documents the fear, suffering, and close bonds created with fellow soldiers through every part of the battle including the eve, during, and its aftermath. Bushrod’s luck runs high as he has never once gotten seriously wounded or shot. However, he becomes wounded in one of the Confederate charges and he is taken to a makeshift hospital where he comes under the care of Anna Hereford. She has already lost two potential romances to the war, but Bushrod attempts to form somewhat of a courtship even though he is in the middle of a terrible war that will not be settled for sometime.
The French and Indian war, also better known as the seven year war, was in 1754. It all began in the early spring of 1754 through 1763, when George Washington and some 160 Virginians and hand full of Mingo Indians started to move when they were concerned about the French military presence in their county. The battle first started when a Mingo chief, the Indian leader that was with George Washington in his campaign, led a unit of soldiers into a small French encampment in the woods. It was a very small battle but, the fight ended up with 14 French men wounded. While Washington was trying to get all the available information from their French dying commander to help their plans in the war, the Indians killed and scalped the remaining survivors including the commander.
Many individuals and groups attempted to resist Nazism in Germany, but were unsuccessful. The White Rose, The Red Orchestra and the Kreisau Circle all advocated non-violent resistance to oppose the Nazi regime and even with the high risk of getting caught and potentially killed, the courageous members of these groups went after what they believed was right despite the serious consequences. The White Rose was formed in Munich in 1942 by students at the University of Munich named Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl, Willi Graf and Alexander Schmorell. These students constantly hear others discuss the atrocities of Hitler’s regime and the disturbing stories of over 200,000 Jewish people being murdered. Hans Scholl, the leader of the White Rose group, decided to take action as he could no longer stay silent while so many civilians were being murdered.
The French and Indian war was a 7 year war. The war lasted from 1756 to 1763 it formed a chapter in the imperial struggle between Britain and France called the Second Hundred Years War. The French and Indian War resulted an ongoing tensions in North America and both French and British imperial officials and colonists wanted to extend each country’s province of influence in frontier regions. In 1753 the outbreak of hostilities Great Britain controlled 13 colonies in the Appalachian Mountains. The Anglo American colonists and the Iroquois Confederacy controlled most of upstate New York and parts of northern Pennsylvania. The border between French and British goods was not defined and one territory was the upper Ohio River valley. The French had constructed many forts in that region to strengthen their claim on territory. The war didn’t go good for the British. The British Government had General Edward Braddock go to the colonies for commander in chief of British North American forces. He disaffected Indian allies and colonial leaders which failed to cooperate with him.
America's bloodiest and most deadly battle was The American Civil War. America was never the same after the civil war. America changed and became a different nation. The civil war is noted as one of the most meaningful, impacting, and important events in America’s history. The Civil War was fought between the northern and the southern states. However, its impact was felt by the entire nation politically, economically, and socially. This war cost over 600,000 lives and divided the nation.
The French and Indian War changed the economic, political, and ideological relations between Great Britain and the American colonies in many ways. Politically the colonist felt like they were deprived of representation, when Great Britain imposed unfair taxation without any say. Economically, many colonist were infuriated with the British because the British were starving them of many resources and making high taxes and tariffs. Ideologically, it brought feelings of discontent towards Britain. Boycotts during the war opened the eyes of the colonist. It showed them they had the ability to make a change and proved that they could unite together. The colonist no longer viewed Great Britain as the great mother country, but as a tyrant who looked to feed on the American colonies new sense of life.
“Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils. The unhappy man who has been treated as a brute animal, too frequently sinks beneath the common standard of the human species. The galling chains, that bind his body, do also fetter his intellectual faculties, and impair the social affections of his heart… To instruct, to advise, to qualify those, who have been restored to freedom, for the exercise and enjoyment of civil liberty… and to procure for their children an education calculated for their future situation in life; these are the great outlines of the annexed plan, which we have adopted.” - Benjamin Franklin. When Benjamin Franklin said this, he was speaking in 1789 promoting the abolition of slavery so long before the civil war. He was one of the many abolitionists that had been fighting for freedom years before the main events of the abolition movement during the abolition movement. Dred Scott was served wrongly by slave owning judges. The Abolition Movement and The Dred Scott decision are about people standing up for others being treated wrongly.
Michael F. Holt, in his article The Political Divisions That Contributed to Civil War, argued the American Civil War was caused by the breakdown of the two-party political system, which generated a local loss of faith in the entire political system, justifying the creation of a new political system in the South. It was the agency of individuals attempting to solve their political grievances. While Bruce Levine, in his article The Economic Divisions That Contributed to Civil War, maintained unresolvable economic divisions between North and South made the Civil War inevitable, as the two different economies could not indefinitely coexist. While the conflicting economies of the North and the South played a major role in fashioning the war,
...o everyday use, such as Mama and Maggie have rightly done. Both of these short stories express the importance of standing up for what is right, regardless that one’s action may go unnoticed or that one may be faced with the difficult decision of choosing one daughter over the other. A person’s integrity and character develops every time a person stands up for what he or she believes in. Standing up for what is right is a good deed, and people should always stand firm for what is right because despite the possible losses, there is much more to be gained. .
What stuck me most about the story of the White Rose, was that even when facing in death they had no regrets and faced their execution head on. Although, Hans and Sophie Scholl, along with Christoph Probst were all sentenced to death and later beheaded, they showed to sign of faulting from their ideology nor remorse for their actions. They never regretted being members of the "White Rose" movement, and belonging to a group of students and others who opposed Hitler's dictatorship and openly protested the regime by distributing anti-Nazi literature on their college campus. Even When Hans was warned the Gastapo were on his track and that he must count on being arrested soon, he never lost sight of his mission. In fact, in the days that followed
The White Rose and the Swastika is a play written by Adrian Flynn, it is based on the true story of a brother and sister and how their initial enthusiasm for Hitler and the Nazi regime turned to brave resistance. In Munich, Hans, Sophie and their friends form "The White Rose", producing leaflets which fiercely attack Hitler's Government. If the Gestapo find out who is responsible, they will undoubtedly be killed. As the leaflets appear far and wide, dissent begins to spread among students. The White Rose work tirelessly, determined to oppose Hitler at all costs, but at the end, all hope and love are lost by the children of Robert and Magdalene as they are driven into the shadows of death.
Strong, brave, and powerful are usually the words that come to mind when you think of a traditional war hero. In Tim O’Brien’s novel he uses war heroes that aren’t what people usually imagine when they think of a war hero. They are straight out of high school, and most of the soldiers in his novel are cowards. They are scared of going into the war and even when they have a chance to save one of their friends they just let them die. Not using traditional war heroes allowed Tim O’Brien to show that not all heroes are heroic and courageous, and that they were just normal people going into a war they didn’t understand.
"The core of a soldier is moral discipline. It is intertwined with the discipline of physical and mental achievement. Total discipline overcomes adversity, and physical stamina draws on an inner strength that says drive on." - Former Sergeant Major of the Army William G. Bainbridge