The 30th of January 1933. Adolf Hitler is  appointed chancellor of Germany bringing an end to German democracy. Guided by racist and  authoritarian ideas, the Nazis abolish basic freedoms and seek to create a community which  would unite all social classes and regions of Germany behind one Führer.

 The Third Reich quickly  becomes a police state, where individuals are subject to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment.  The Nazis effectively use propaganda to win the support of millions of Germans to facilitate  persecution, war, and ultimately genocide. There is, however, some German opposition to the  Nazi state but critics of the Nazi regime would often pay the ultimate price for their defiance  of the Führer. One of them is Alexander Schmorell.

Alexander Schmorell was born on the  16th of September 1917 in Orenburg, then the Russian Empire. His paternal grandfather  was a Prussian trader Karl-August Schmorell who had lived in the Ural city of Orenburg  since 1855. He held positions in the city administration and owned industrial companies such  as breweries and factories for surgical materials.

Alexander’s father Hugo was a physician, and  his mother Natalia was a daughter of a Russian Orthodox priest. She had Alexander baptized in the  Russian Orthodox Church but died of typhus during the Russian Civil War when Alexander was only two  years old. In 1920, his widowed father married Elisabeth Hoffman, a German woman, who, like him,  was raised in Russia.

 In 1921, when Alexander was 4 years old, the family fled from Russia and  moved to Munich. The Russian nanny, who moved to Germany with them, took his late mother’s place  in Alexander’s upbringing. Since she hardly spoke German, Alexander Schmorell grew up bilingually  speaking both German and Russian natively. From 1928 to 1937, Schmorell attended Gymnasium in Munich where he had to repeat his second  year because of a deficiency in Latin.

After he finished Gymnasium, Schmorell started  with the Reich Labour Service. This organization helped mitigate the effects of unemployment on  the German economy, militarise the workforce and indoctrinate it with Nazi ideology.  It was the official state labour service, divided into separate sections for men and women.

 From June 1935 onward, men aged between 18 and 25 may have served six months  before their military service. In November 1937 Alexander Schmorell  voluntarily joined the Wehrmacht – the German armed forces – as a member of the  7th Artillery in Munich. He was trained as a gunner for one year, and then spent half  a year in army medical service training.

After In 1939 Schmorell announced his intentions  to become a doctor, he was discharged as a noncommissioned officer and began studies in  medicine in Hamburg. After studying there for 1 semester, he returned to Munich to continue his  education at the Ludwig Maximilian University. The Second World War began on the 1st of September  1939 when Germany invaded Poland.

 The German invasion of France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and  the Netherlands started on the 10th of May 1940 and became known as the Battle of France. These countries, along with France, where Schmorell served as a medical noncommissioned  officer, were conquered within 6 weeks. In September 1940, Schmorell returned to Munich to  continue his studies.

 There in June 1941 he came to know Hans Scholl, whom he met through Christoph  Probst, his life-long friend. In the summer of the next year he met Willi Graf, another university  student. Together they discussed what Graf had experienced in Serbia and Poland where he had  worked as a medic. In Poland Willi Graf had also seen the Warsaw Ghetto which was the largest of  all Jewish ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II.

 An average daily food ration in 1941  for Jews in Warsaw was limited to 184 calories, compared 2,613 calories for the Germans. An  official German order stated that “the basic provisioning of the Jewish Residential District  must be less than the minimum necessary for preserving life, regardless of the consequences.” The hunger in the ghetto was so great, that dying people were laying on the streets  and small children were seen begging.

Over 80,000 Jews died as a result of the  appalling conditions, overcrowding and starvation. On Sunday, the 22nd of June 1941  started Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union. The 3,000 personnel of four Einsatzgruppen  were sent to the Eastern Front to kill the Jews and Gypsies, as well as Soviet political  commissars.

 Willi Graf was sent to Russia where he saw unspeakable atrocities committed  by the Nazi Party’s own SS forces and the Wehrmacht. These experiences traumatized him. When Graf was relieved of duty temporarily and sent back to the University of Munich to  continue his studies in April 1942, he shared these experiences with Alexander Schmorell  as well as Hans Scholl and Christoph Probst.

They felt compelled to take action and began  the Nazi Resistance Movement “The White Rose”. From the end of June until mid-July 1942, they  wrote the first four leaflets. Each leaflet was more critical of Hitler and the German people than  the last. They encouraged citizens to resist the Nazi regime, denounce the murder of hundreds of  thousands of Poles and demanded an end to the war.

A passage written by Schmorell in the  second leaflet, issued in June 1942, contains the only known public protest by any  German resistance group specifically against the Holocaust. “We wish to cite the fact that, since  the conquest of Poland, 300,000 Jews have been murdered in that country in a bestial manner.

  Here we see the most terrible crime committed against the dignity of man, a crime that has  no counterpart in human history. No crime of this dimension has ever been perpetrated against  human beings.” The text blames the German people, in their apathy, for allowing such crimes to  be committed by “these criminal fascists.” They appealed to what they considered the  German intelligentsia, believing that these people would be easily convinced by the  same arguments that also motivated them.

These leaflets were left in telephone  books in public phone booths, mailed to professors and students, and taken by  courier to other universities for distribution. In the summer of 1942, male students  at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich were required to deploy to the  Eastern Front.

 Among them were Alexander Schmorell as well as Hans Scholl and Willi Graf. From the 23rd of July 1942, the young men served as medics in Russia where they saw with their  own eyes how German soldiers treated prisoners and Jews in the occupied territories.  They observed the horrors of war and saw beatings and other mistreatment of Jews by the  Germans.

 In a letter to his sister Anneliese, Willi Graf wrote: “I wish I had been spared  the view of all this which I had to witness.” Because Alexander Schmorell understood  Russian, he could speak to the locals and translate everything they said to  him, to his friends from the White Rose. During this time, White Rose activities  ceased, and were not continued until the medics came home from the deployment.

 What the young man had experienced on the Eastern Front strengthened their  determination to fight against Nazism. Sometimes in the fall 1942, Sophie Scholl,  Hans’ sister, learned about her brother’s activities and immediately joined the movement. The last one to join was Kurt Huber, a university professor at Ludwig Maximilian University of  Munich, where the rest of the movement studied.

During his teaching, he was known for teaching  classes that did not push Nazi ideology, which made him a favorite with the University students.  Huber joined the movement in December 1942. In January 1943, the fifth leaflet, “Appeal to  all Germans! was produced in 6,000–9,000 copies, using a hand-operated duplicating machine.

These leaflets, some simply folded, some placed in  envelopes, were carried to other German Cities by the members and supporters of the group and then  mailed from there. Copies appeared in many cities including Hamburg and Berlin. Schmorell himself  distributed the leaflet in Austrian cities. He took the fast train from Munich to Salzburg at  the end of January 1943 carrying several hundred letters.

 He arrived at the train station, passed  through the ticketing area headed for the city and posted the letters destined for Salzburg in two  different mailboxes next to the train station. The same day, he caught the next train to Linz  where he mailed approximately the same number of leaflets under the same conditions.  Still the same day, late in the evening, Schmorell took a fast train to Vienna, so he  could mail the remainder of the leaflets.

 He then rented a hotel room and the next day  he began mailing their letters in various mailboxes. This would have been around 100 – 200  letters. In Vienna, he also mailed around 50 to 100 leaflets “Call to All Germans!” in letter  format; these were destined for Frankfurt. This leaflet also mentioned: “ Germans! Do  you and your children want to suffer the same fate that befell the Jews? Are we to be  forever a nation which is hated and rejected by all mankind? No. Dissociate yourselves  from National Socialist gangsterism. Hitler

says “I will fight to the last man,”. But in  the meantime the war has already been lost. It has become a mathematical certainty that  Hitler is leading the German people into the abyss. Hitler cannot win the war; he can  only prolong it. The guilt of Hitler and his minions goes beyond all measure.  Retribution comes closer and closer.

” Soon after on the 2nd of February 1943, after  months of fierce fighting and heavy casualties, the surviving German forces—only about 91,000  soldiers—surrendered Stalingrad on the Volga. The Battle of Stalingrad ended with the capitulation  and near-total loss of the Wehrmacht’s Sixth Army. While Hans Scholl was very depressed about  the events in Stalingrad, Alexander Schmorell, as someone who cared about Russia,  was downright happy about the newly created strategic situation for the Russians.

On the 3rd, 8th, and 15th of February,  Alexander Schmorell, Hans Scholl, and Willi Graf graffitied public buildings with  slogans such as “Hitler the Mass murderer!”, “Down with Hitler” and “Freedom” on the walls  of the university and other buildings in Munich. But the hopes of the White Rose members that  the defeat at Stalingrad would incite German opposition against the Nazi regime and the  war effort did not come true.

 On the contrary, Nazi propaganda used the defeat to call on  the German people to embrace “Total War”. The group also produced their sixth  pamphlet which was to be their last. On the 18th of February 1943, while  Hans and Sophie were distributing leaflets at the Ludwig Maximilian University, Sophie flung the last remaining leaflets from  the top floor down into the atrium.

 However, she was seen by Jakob Schmid, the university  maintenance man and avowed Nazi, who reported it to the official secret police of Nazi Germany  – the Gestapo. Hans and Sophie were arrested. Christoph Probst was arrested two days after  the Scholl siblings when he went to pick up his paycheck before travelling to see his wife  Herta and his newly born daughter, Katja.

Along with Christoph Probst, the two siblings were  tried for treason before the Nazi “People’s Court” which was infamous for its unfair political  trials. The head judge of the court, Roland Freisler, was known as the “Hanging judge” as  about 90% of his trials ended in death sentences. Judge Roland Freisler told the court: “The  accused have by means of leaflets in a time of war called for the sabotage of the  war effort and armaments and for the overthrow of the National Socialist way of life  of our people, have propagated defeatist ideas,

and have most vulgarly defamed the Führer,  thereby giving aid to the enemy of the Reich and weakening the armed security of the  nation. On this account they are to be punished by death. Their honour and rights  as citizens are forfeited for all time.” On the 22nd of February 1943, after a half  day trial, they were found guilty of treason and sentenced to death.

 Shortly after they were  brought to Munich’s Stadelheim Prison where they learned that they would be executed the same day. Even though they were originally scheduled to be executed by public hanging, there were fears  that they would be raised to martyrdom status if they were publicly killed, so it was decided to  kill them by Guillotine in the execution chamber. While Sophie and Christoph were silent as  they died, Hans yelled ” long live freedom”.

Unfortunately, they were not the last to  die. Although the three took all blame for the White Rose’s actions, their attempts to  save their friends from persecution failed. After the arrest of Christoph Probst and  the Scholl siblings, with the support of various acquaintances and with a forged passport  Schmorell tried to flee to Switzerland.

 However, fierce weather forced him back and he returned  to Munich on the 24th of February 1943, the day his executed friends from the White  Rose were buried. When at around 10 PM, the air raid alarm sounded and Schmorell  attempted to enter the air raid shelter, he was recognized, denounced and arrested.

 He had  previously been placed under public manhunt and a reward of 1,000 Reichsmarks was offered for his  capture. Willi Graf had already been arrested on the 18th of February 1943 and Kurt Huber was  taken into custody on the 26th of February. During the time between his capture and his  trial, Schmorell was interrogated multiple times.

 He also said: “I cannot identify myself as  a National Socialist, because I am more interested in Russia. I readily acknowledge my love for  Russia. In contrast, I reject Bolshevism. My mother was Russian, I was born there, and  I cannot help but care about this country. During my service on the Eastern Front  in the summer of 1942, I was never put into a situation where my attitude toward  Russia could have possibly been detrimental to Germany’s interests.

 If as a soldier I had  had to take up arms against the Bolshevists, before carrying out such an order, I would have  had to advise my military C.O. that I could not do so. In my position as a medical officer, I was  spared such an order. When I occasionally heard this and that through German propaganda about  Russian subhumans, I was never convinced by it.” On the 19th of April 1943, Freisler  was flown back again to stand as judge over the second trial of the White Rose  members including Alexander Schmorell.

Freisler yelled at the accused right at the  opening saying: “ National Socialism does not need a criminal code against such “traitors”  as you are. I will make this process with you short”. When an assessor handed him the penal code  without a word Freisler immediately threw it in the direction of the dock, where the accused  had to duck to avoid being hit in the head.

Schmorell admitted his anti-Nazi  beliefs also in front of Freisler who histerically screamed at  him calling him a ‘traitor’. Out of the thirteen defendants, one was  unexpectedly acquitted, nine were given prison sentences and three – Schmorell,  Graf and Huber – were sentenced to death. Unlike the first trial, where the death sentences  had been carried out on the same day as the verdict, Alexander’s execution was delayed as his  family petitioned for clemency.

 During this time Alexander Schmorell wrote to his father and  stepmother from prison: “ There is one thing, however, that I want to tell you, so that your  pain may be a little bit easier to bear. Should a pardon be rejected, please believe that ‘death’  does not mean the end of every life, but in fact, the opposite – birth, a transition to  a new life, one which is wonderful and will last forever. Death is really nothing  terrible. The separation is quite hard.

 But it will be less so if you think of it this  way, that we won’t be separated forever, but just for a time – like for a trip – in order  for us to meet again forever and in all eternity in a life that is infinitely more beautiful than  the present one, and that there will be no end to us being together. Believe this, and then the  burden will undoubtedly become easier for you.

’ After about two months of deliberation,  a letter came to the prison that said: “I reject all petitions for mercy.”  It was signed by Adolf Hitler. On the 13th of July 1943, Alexander  Schmorell and Kurt Huber were alerted that their execution would happen later that day. Schmorell was deeply inspired by his Orthodox  Christian faith and was willing to sacrifice himself as a testimony to his faith in God  that had taught him to love beauty and freedom, both of which the Nazis sought to destroy. After receiving communion from an Orthodox priest,

Schmorell was allowed to write his last  letter to his parents in which he wrote: “I am going with the awareness that  I followed my deepest convictions and the truth. This allows me to meet my  hour of death with a conscience at peace. Think of the millions of young men who have  lost their lives out on the field-their fate is the same as mine.

 In a few hours I  will be in a better life, with my mother, and I will not forget you. I will ask God to  grant you solace and peace. Yours, Shurik.” The guards came for Alexander a little after 5 pm.  He was led out of his cell and into the courtyard, walking to his death with his head  held high, he said to his lawyer, “I’m convinced that my life has  to end now, early as it may seem, for I have fulfilled my life’s mission. I wouldn’t  know what else I have to do on this earth.

” In the execution chamber, the state attorney  asked if his name was Alexander Schmorell, to which he replied, “yes”. Then the blade fell  and Alexander Schmorell died. He was 25 years old. After the first White Rose trial, a copy of  the sixth leaflet had been smuggled out of Germany to England.

 In July 1943, the same  month when Alexander Schmorell was executed, the Royal Air Force dropped millions  of propaganda copies over Germany. This leaflet was retitled “The  Manifesto of the Students of Munich”. Alexander’s bravery is honored in Germany  to this day. He and other members of the White Rose personify the importance of  acting according with one’s beliefs even in the face of the greatest sacrifice  of their own lives.

 Their actions made them enduring symbols of the struggle  for the freedom of the human spirit. Completing the act of canonization, Schmorell  was glorified as a saint and passion bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia  in Munich on the 5th of February 2012. Today, schools, squares and roads all  bear the name of Alexander and other members of the White Rose movement and it will  forever remain a testament to their bravery.

There were many tears shed  for Alexander Schmorell. Thanks for watching the World History  Channel be sure to like And subscribe and click the Bell notification  icon so you don’t miss our next episodes we thank you and we’ll  see you next time on the channel.