Free Republic

The past offers us many lessons. And cause for alarm. And inspiration, too. Seventy-two years ago today, three young Germans — 21-year-old Sophie Scholl, her older brother by three years, Hans, and their friend 24-year-old Christoph Probst — were put to death by the Nazis. They were decapitated — guillotined — within hours of being found guilty in a sham trial conducted by “Raving Roland,” a typical Nazi lunatic. Their crime? Standing up against the most evil crime imaginable. The charge was treason — treason committed courageously against the Third Reich. The Scholls had a history of standing up to...

The Russian-Orthodox Church canonised one of the founders of the anti-fascist group the "White Rose," Alexander Schmorell, over the weekend in Munich, nearly 70 years after his execution by the Nazis. Schmorell, who was born in Russia, was celebrated as a new martyr in the church during a special service in the Cathedral of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia in Munich on Saturday. He was 25 at the time of his death. The White Rose, or Weiße Rose, was founded by a group of Munich students and their philosophy professor Kurt Huber, all of whom actively voiced...

Sophie Scholl was executed by guillotine by Third Reich for her Hitler resistance activities. She was found guilty of distributing leaflets at college and for this she was killed. This is a dramatization of that event, it is a movie that will not leave you and will have you thinking about it for days after viewing. I highly recommend this film.

As is often the case, most of the Academy Award nominees for Best Foreign Language Film were largely unknown to American audiences at the time of the ceremony. What's especially sad about this is that the most inspiring, gripping, and surprising film nominated that evening—among both the winners and losers—was one of these little-seen gems. Germany's entry, Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, deserves a place next to A Man for All Seasons, Chariots of Fire, and others of the most profound portrayals of faith on film. Although currently only playing in select cities (with a wider release expected), this import...

The female St. John Becket of modern timesAlejandro BermudezFebruary 25th, 2006 The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty is strongly encouraging the general audience to watch the movie “Sophie Scholl: The Final Days.”According to Jared N. Leland, spokesman for The Becket Fund, “this is a riveting, gripping, a must-see movie about the Becket of the 20th Century. Sophie Scholl: The Final Days depicts Scholl as one committed to her conscience and religious ideals regardless of the fatal consequences. Like Becket, she refused to surrender her religious and moral convictions to that which she could not tolerate in good conscience. Put...