History and Love in the Last Days

Tia 2022-02-28 08:02:04

On February 22, 2012, exactly 69 years after Sophie Sauer was executed, I visited the University of Munich for the film. The six leaflets of the Sauer brothers and sisters and White Rose are now engraved on a block of marble on the entrance floor of the main university building. The school has designed a small but delicate memorial for White Rose under the stairs of the main building. Looking up, it is exactly where Sophie Sauer dropped the flyer.

To understand the film, one has to understand what Sophie Sauer meant to the Germans. When it comes to the history of World War II, Germans are willing to say that they have a very "sense of history" (geschichtsbewusst), which is evident from a series of reparations and related attitudes after the war. Yet when it comes to why their predecessors were so loyal to Nazism, Germans often have no reasonable explanation. In this way, the Germans would say: not every German at the time was like this! Stauffenberg (for interest, see Tom Hanks' film: Action Target Hitler) and Sophie Sauer became one of the few examples of actively fighting for freedom and resisting dictatorship during the Nazi era. In Berlin, the Germans set up a memorial for such people (where Stauffenberg was executed); under the brilliance of Berlin's many "monuments", this memorial is rarely visited. Indeed, for foreigners, the post-war attitude of the Germans has indeed explained everything. Everyone only knows Chancellor Brandt, who knelt in Warsaw, and does not know Stauffenberg who planted a bomb under Hitler's desk. However, these wartime rebels still have a very special meaning to the Germans. They want to tell their descendants that the pursuit of conscience, freedom, and democracy has run through Germany's modern and modern history, and has not been affected by that dark history. interrupt.

After this, we should also understand the background and motivation of the Nazis represented by Mohr (Ermittlung: Mohr) in the film. In today's society, it is difficult to do justice to what Nazi rule really meant for Germany: people like Dr. Goebbels (see the movie: The Destruction of the Empire) love Nazism as much, if not more, than Our admiration for freedom or democracy or the rule of law today. The appearance of Hitler accelerated the pace of Germany's departure from the Treaty of Versailles for decades. As Mr. Moore said in the film, he became a policeman in a French-occupied area and under the control of the French. In this sense, I believe the film to some extent glorified Moore and, later, the Nazi officers who sat in the courtroom: apparently, a few 22-year-olds were incapable of touching their allegiance to Nazism. As for the motivation for doing this, I think it also has roughly the same meaning as Sophie Sauer mentioned in the previous paragraph.

Going back to the film itself, I can't say much. A lot of German films tend to have a light feeling that they start like this and end like this, just like the last line of the film eavesdropping storm "No, this is for me" (das ist fuer mich). This "Sophie Sauer: The Last Days" is the same, there is no suspense and overly exciting scenes, just a straightforward play of "The Last Days". The film does not tell too much about a series of resistance actions before "White Rose", and most of the content can be concentrated on the three rival scenes between Sophie Sauer and Moore. The young female student was obviously too immature in front of Moore, the national policeman, but in the second rival scene, Moore was furious. Sauer's heroic image is thus established: the protection of comrades in interrogation, the yearning for freedom in prison, the debate in court, although some scenes and plots are too deliberate. Upon learning that the death penalty will be executed immediately after the trial, the director finally restored Sophie to an ordinary and immature young female student, crying helplessly alone.

Others: Hans Sauer, as an older brother, believes that he has done more in the White Rose rebel group, but his significance is obviously overshadowed by his younger sister who is younger and female. The film attempts to deepen the appeal of Sophie Sauer's spirit, so Moore finally hopes to "protect" Sophie to a certain extent, finally "affectionately" looked at each other, and the Nazi officers were silent in the courtroom. But obviously, such a thing is really difficult to happen in the real scene of the year, as explained above.

There are several forces that support Sophie Sauer: yearning for freedom, faith in God, and love for her fiancé Fritz. Fritz is a non-frontal character in the film, which makes me more interested in him. Sophie Sauer described him with simple and powerful words like "strong soul, soft heart" (harter Geist, weiches Herz); in the final suicide note, she also wrote her name at the top. This also reflects the director's efforts to restore Sophie to "people" in the end: the power of people does not come from noble words such as "freedom", but may only come from pure love between people.

A Sophie Sauer figure is hard to come by today, unless what he rebels against is democratic freedom and ultimately succeeds. And what she means to us foreigners, maybe it should be: a 22-year-old person who does what he loves and loves the person he loves.

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Extended Reading

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days quotes

  • Magdalena Scholl: Don't forget, Sophie. Jesus

    Sophie Magdalena Scholl: Yes, mother, but you neither.

  • Pfarrer Dr. Alt: [giving Sophie a last blessing] May God the Father bless you, who created you in His image. May God the Son bless you, whose suffering and death redeems you. May God the Holy Spirit bless you, who leads you to his temple and hallows you. May the Trinity judge you with mercy, and grant you eternal life. Amen.

    [the guard arrives for Sophie. Sophie stands up]

    Pfarrer Dr. Alt: No one loves more than one who dies for friends.