Sophie Scholl

We think we know everything about Sophie Scholl. Scenes from the film have imprinted themselves in our memory: how she was sentenced to death and executed by the infamous »Volksgerichtshof« (People’s Court) in Munich in February 1943, because she, her brother, and a group of like-minded people had distributed leaflets criticizing Adolf Hitler’s criminal regime. But in fact the handful of books on Sophie Scholl, most of them aimed at younger readers, are based on just a small number of assorted documents. It was not until 2005 that the Munich Institute for Contemporary History made the collected letters of Sophie’s sister, Inge Aicher-Scholl, accessible to the public. Barbara Beuys was the first to analyse this extra-ordinary historical legacy with a focus on Sophie Scholl.

Sophie Scholl’s path from dedicated leader in the Hitler Youth movement to courageous opponent of the Nazi regime was far longer, and more conflict-ridden and circuitous than previously assumed. Framed by colourful descriptions of everyday life at the time of Nazi rule, Barbara Beuys tells the story of an adolescent growing up – caught between a love of life and personal crises, on the radical quest for a merciful God, comforted by the power of music, and defined by the aspiration to always put thought above emotion.