Sophie's Voice

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days

directed by Marc Rothemunde

Although it didn’t win gold at the Oscars for best foreign film, Sophie Scholl: The Final Days has already earned its place as one of the great anti-Nazi films.

Based on Nazi interrogation records and other documents, the film is about the martyred leader of The White Rose, an anti-Nazi student group that ran resistance in Munich during World War II. It shows how Sophie, a latter-day Joan of Arc, ultimately chooses to die rather than betray her ideals and colleagues.

Although the story has been told before, according to director Marc Rothemunde, Sophie’s compelling story is a revelation to most Americans.

“About 95 percent of American audiences are shocked—most of them think all Germans were Nazis and murderers. That’s one reason it was important to make the film,” says Rothemunde. “This is a true story based on such intense research that almost all the dialogue was actually said. All the action is true. It was challenging to treat this real history as a compelling drama, without losing accuracy.”

MERIN: When did Sophie’s story become known in Germany?

ROTHEMUNDE: During the ’60s. They began teaching it in schools.

Why did it take 20 years for the story to be introduced into the curriculum?

It took time for the German people to rebuild Germany. The country was totally destroyed. People were very poor. There was the Marshall Plan and the Cold War between East and West. It took one or two generations—20 to 30 years—to rebuild Germany. In the ’60s, there was a wonderful economy. The past wasn’t considered so important. The first real movies about the Nazi years weren’t made until the ’80s, when The White Rose, the Oscar-winning Black Trumpet and some other films were made. This was the first generation of movies—of directors—to deal with Nazi history.

Sophie Scholl is one of several recent German films—The Downfall, The Ninth Day and Before the Fall, among others—that challenge our impressions of Germans’ behavior during the Nazi regime. Why are these films being made now? Is this a trend in German cinema?

In Germany, we make 100 movies per year. There have been five or six historical films like those you mention in the last three years. That’s not a trend. But fortunately those that are made get a lot of recognition in Germany and abroad. 

In my generation of film directors, we’re curious about our history—we want to know what our grandparents experienced. Our grandparents don’t talk about it, so we’re exploring. We’ve reached a maturity and level of experience where people trust us, so we can get financing for our films. Now that Germany is rebuilt and reunified, we don’t focus so much about those issues. But those in our grandparents’ generation are the last eyewitnesses to the Nazi regime, and we must question them to find out what happened. It involves all of us.

And what involves all of us, too, is that there’re still Nazis, not only in Germany, but around the world. That’s terrible and, as long as there are Nazis, you have to try to open their eyes—and remind the others to keep an eye on them.

How does the film address social and political issues of today’s Germany?

For example, recently in Germany there was a Nazi demonstration against unemployment—they’re blaming Turkish workers for unemployment. But, 8,000 young people who saw Sophie Scholl demonstrated against the Nazis.

Are there many Nazis in Germany?

In Berlin, it‘s 1.5 percent—that‘s about 40,000 people. Just in Berlin. Mostly they’re in the East, where Communism ruined the economy and poor people who lived under Communism are now very vulnerable to the influence of the other extremist system of the far right. 

You have to keep what happened fresh in people‘s minds, so it won’t happen again. It‘s a responsibility—without feeling guilty—to know the past and be aware of Nazis nowadays.

Scholl’s message is civil courage: See what‘s happening; don‘t look away; say something; do something.

Civil courage isn’t always political action, not always a life or death matter. In classrooms, there’s one little fat boy who’s tortured. In workplaces, someone gets hurt and others look away.

Leaflets distributed by Sophie Scholl weren‘t very political. They call for passive resistance to Hitler. It’s a call for human rights. Audiences have been so touched by Sophie—especially Americans. They’ve said they hope American young people will see the film—not to learn about German history, but to see a character like Sophie who stands up.

Around the world, it’s mostly students who rise up against military dictatorships. In Korea, in South America—in Argentina, for example—it’s students who got tortured and killed. There are resistance fighters in all countries. Sometimes, they’re too few—like in Nazi Germany. German people were guilty. But saying all were guilty is too simple. You don’t learn anything that way.

What do you see as the essence of Nazism?

For me, it’s hate and blaming other people for what happens to you. Something bad happens, and you blame another group of people and hate and persecute them.

An essential question we should all ask is: Why does one baby—a perfectly normal baby—grow up to be a Sophie Scholl, and another grow up to be a Hitler?