Sophie Scholl: Die Letzten Tage

In 1943, Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans and Christoph Probst were convicted of treason by the Nazi regime for their involvement in the White Rose—a resistance movement that opposed the Nazi party’s ideologies. It was not then fully realized by the German public that the Nazis were planning mass extermination of Jews. Thus, this film avoids revisiting a subject that has been approached, superbly, by several American directors and instead gives us insight into one of several other angles by which the support for the Nazis began to disintegrate from within. This is a story reserved for Germany to tell.

Also note that the film is based on transcripts of the interrogations and trial during the last six days of Scholl’s life. Julia Jentsch plays the 21-year old Scholl. Sophie, Hans (Fabian Hinrichs) and Christoph (Florian Stetter) publish papers of dissent from a small press in Hans’ basement. Their leaflets discuss the many soldiers dying as a result of the foolishly miscalculated invasion of Russia. On February 18th, Hans and Sophie proceed to distribute the leaflets at the University campus. They’re caught by a teacher and turned over to the Geheime Staats Polizei (Gestapo).

The core of the film takes place at the prison in a series of interrogations conducted by Robert Mohr (Gerald Alexander Held). Sophie is placed in a cell with Else Gebel (Johanna Gastdorf), a self-avowed communist who shares some of Sophie’s ideals but lacks her confidence. Sophie’s religious beliefs are a strong component of her faith. She prays unsanctimoniously to god to have peace in her heart, and catches glimpses of the sun poking out through the clouds at every possible opportunity during her incarceration. One recognizes that her hope for a better future is just short of selfless, as it’s unlikely even in her eyes that she will be spared. The freedom from tyranny for which she prays is for Germany, and not merely herself.

Being questioned by Mohr, Scholl is unrepentant. She argues that her conscience is clear because she knows she has done right for the citizens of Germany. Unlike so many films of lesser intellect, Mohr does not react explosively to her display of utmost conviction. Scholl counters his inquiry, “You’ve accused me of high treason and now you want me to betray others to save my own skin?”

Mohr is a human being, and there are ways, Scholl knows, to reach his conscience. But it’s not carried out in any kind of cathartic manner in which we find Mohr awash in guilt or succumbing to last-minute revelations. Instead, the dialogues continue to challenge Scholl to demonstrate the merits of her dissent on the prevalence and pre-eminence of the facts alone.

In her youth, Scholl, like most German youth, joined the Bunde Deutscher Madel (BDM), the German Girls League (a Nazi youth organization). However, her father, Robert Scholl (Franz Staber), once mayor of her hometown of Forchtenberg am Kocher, was later arrested for criticizing Hitler. This fact, and a history of involvement with artists and political progressives of the time prompt further investigation into White Rose. The Nazis attempted to connect her upbringing with her philosophical and political position, which could have resulted from nothing more than an application of common sense. But then, they seem perturbed by the idea that any pure German could “betray” the state. Therefore, it seems that the Nazi investigators are operating under the presupposition that Scholl’s cause was motivated by genetic predispositions. The inner fear motivating this investigation is perhaps this: Any other explanation for Scholl’s acts would have undermined the Nazi party’s eugenic ideology and revealed it for the sophistry it was.

Watch carefully when Scholl tells Mohr of the stories going around about the exterminations. Again, at this point in history, most Germans were unaware of the camps at Auschwitz/Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen, and so on. As she relates the stories of how children were taken away, one of Mohr’s hands trembles ever so slightly.

The “People’s Court” proceedings are, naturally, a show trial, designed to rouse the public into further support when the Scholls and Probst are put on display as traitors to the state. The irony is that the state was itself overthrown in a putsch staged in Munich, led not by a German, but an Austrian exile.

There’s something to be learned here about the difference between allegiance to a state, or a leader, and allegiance to an ideal. Another film I recently saw, Deepa Mehta’s “Water” (opening in Minneapolis on April 28), also deals with the conflict between dogma and conscience—though in a different fashion. Both films are decidedly neorealist in their execution; neither is bogged down by theatrics.

This film is, in many ways, a companion piece to “Downfall,” in which Bruno Ganz portrays Hitler in his last days at his bunker, Wolfsschanze (Wolf’s Lair). That was one of the first movies produced in Germany, entirely filmed in the German language with German actors, to openly approach the subject of Adolf Hitler. The controversy of “Downfall” is that Hitler is portrayed not as a monster, but as a human being capable of committing monstrous acts. Indeed, it’s frightening to conceive living in a world where an ordinary human being is capable of such atrocities. But the film does not justify them, it merely shows the layers of isolation between the German high command, the citizens and the war. Only in that context can one begin to comprehend how such atrocities became possible, and it is ever critical that we do not forget.

There are two shots that run parallel in my mind between “Sophie Scholl” and “Downfall.” While an air raid siren goes off, Scholl shuffles to the window of her cell to watch. She peers through the small opening, unafraid of the Allied bombing raid because it symbolizes liberation. By contrast, during a similar air raid scene in “Downfall,” several senior officers outside Hitler’s bunker, looking fearsome and powerful in their dress uniforms are at once reduced in stature, cowering as bombs explode nearby.

Some will undoubtedly draw parallels between the opposition to the invasion of Russia by Germany and the present opposition to the invasion of Iraq by America. The film doesn’t attempt to make any such comparisons. Therefore, such observations only underscore the doubt that exists deep in the minds of those who would have us believe that they are patriots for their unflinching allegiance to one administration’s abuse of our infrastructure.

Sophie Scholl’s final words before the Magistrate Friesler (Andre Hennicke) chill the court and the audience, “You will soon be standing where we are now.” In a recent interview with Deepa Mehta, regarding her film “Water,” we talked about India’s paranoia of public perception. Censorship of film in India is used to control the global perception of the nation. In a related way, Germany has been relatively silent when it comes to the subject of the Nazi party and the Holocaust. What does a nation say to the world about this? How does it atone for a national disgrace unparalleled by any other events in recent history?

I don’t know that these questions will ever be answered to the satisfaction of the German people, but it’s clear that an effort is being made, dialogues are occurring, and we are listening. Some may feel that this movie contains stretches of dialogue too great in length, but to shorten the discussions between Mohr and Scholl would have been to miss the point. She makes her lasting impression on Mohr, and us, not by violence, or cacophony, but by the persistence, patience and persuasiveness of her intellectual discourse in pursuit of truth.

Sophie Scholl: Die Letzten Tage • Dolby® Digital surround sound in select theatres • Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 • Running Time: 117 minutes • MPAA Rating: Not Rated. • Distributed by Zeitgeist Films