Sophie Scholl: The Final Days
German Historical Drama about Student Resistance to Hitler
Mar 6, 2009
Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (in German: Sophie Scholl: die letzten Tage) is more than just a historical drama, more than an exceptional-quality movie from a country with a strong film industry. It is about life and death, what goes through a young woman's mind and the emotions she experiences when she knows she is about to die.
Backstory and Plot of Sophie Scholl
Sophie Scholl: The Final Days is a heart-wrenching but inspirational story of a brother and sister and their friends who had the courage to take a stand against the horrors and injustices the Nazi regime was committing.
The film begins at the point when the activities of the White Rose, an anti-Nazi student group in Munich, reached their peak. The students published pamphlets denouncing the regime, and painted anti-Hitler graffiti in the city. Ultimately, the students, Sophie Scholl included, were arrested by the Gestapo. Sophie Scholl was among those sentenced to death.
Historical Accuracy of Sophie Scholl: The Final Days
As a result of the painstaking historical research on the part of the filmmakers, the film's accuracy is unlike that achieved in previous films about the Scholl siblings and the White Rose. Much of the research was centered on previously unavailable sources, information that was only accessible after the fall of the Berlin Wall, as it had been archived in East Germany after the Second World War.
Superior Performance in the Film
Julia Jentsch (The Edukators) stars as Sophie Scholl. It is clear Jentsch spent a significant amount of time researching her character, as the portrayal is striking, in particular to viewers who are familiar with the story and have read the diaries and letters of Hans and Sophie Scholl.
Her performance is both believable and heart-wrenching, particularly for those who know at the beginning of the film what is going to happen to optimistic, bright-eyed Sophie Scholl. And even then, due to some of the new research conducted for the film, there are some surprises as to her treatment during the final days of her life, which she spent in prison.
Additional Information About the White Rose and the German Resistance
The Diaries and Letters of Hans and Sophie Scholl are a must-read for anyone hoping to learn more about the siblings and their friends, including Christoph Probst, who was executed the same day as the Scholl siblings.
The 1982 film Die Weisse Rose (The White Rose) starring Lena Stolze as Sophie Scholl, also details the group's background and puts quite a bit of the story's focus on Sophie Scholl. Stolze's portrayal of Scholl is, like Jentsch's, moving and well done.
Inge Scholl, sister of Hans and Sophie Scholl, has written several volumes about the White Rose and related topics, among them a work entitled Students Against Tyranny.
Other resources worth mentioning are works having to do with the German resistance in general, from the July 20, 1944 bomb and coup plot against Hitler and the Nazi regime, to left-wing resistance that existed in Germany since the 1930s.
The groups who had the courage to resist the tyranny of the Nazis and take a stand for what they believed was a better course of action in Germany, be it through a left-wing government or simply a government that did not resort to scare tactics and persecution, are worth researching, as their story is one of which many outside of Germany are unaware.
