On February 18, 1943, Hans and Sophie Scholl carried a suitcase of illegal leaflets into the main building of the University of Munich, stacked them outside lecture halls, and flung the last of them from a top-floor railing into the atrium. Four days later they were executed by guillotine. This episode is a biographical exploration of the White Rose, the nonviolent intellectual resistance group whose core members, the Scholl siblings, Willi Graf, Alexander Schmorell, and Christoph Probst, began as enthusiastic members of state youth organizations before a Gestapo arrest, banned youth movements, theology, philosophy, and mentors like Carl Muth turned them against the regime.

Drawing on interrogation transcripts and biographical records, the episode explains how service as medical students on the Eastern Front in 1942, where the Russian-born Schmorell could speak directly with local people, shattered any remaining illusions about the war and the murder of Jews. It details the logistics of resistance in a police state, from rationed paper and a smuggled duplicating machine to stamps bought in tiny quantities across many post offices and six-hour train rides with treasonous luggage, and traces the leaflets’ evolution after Stalingrad, the arrest, Sophie’s decision to take full responsibility, the show trial before Roland Freisler, and how the sixth leaflet reached Winston Churchill and was dropped by the millions over Germany.

• Why state youth organizations appealed to teenagers and how the Scholls’ enthusiasm fractured
• The group’s diverse spiritual roots, from Catholic and Orthodox faith to Buddhism and anthroposophy
• How Hans tried to swallow a draft seventh leaflet and why that doomed Christoph Probst
• Four days from arrest to execution: what the regime’s speed reveals about its fear
• The White Rose legacy in modern Germany and the unrelated 2021 group that borrowed its name