“…like fire and fusion, government is a dangerous servant and a terrible master. You now have freedom — if you can keep it. But do remember that you can lose this freedom more quickly to yourselves than to any other tyrant.”
—Robert A. Heinlein,
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
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The White Rose dissidents have lessons for you and me, even today.
Click on over to Townhall, for Paul’s latest discussion of the White Rose students and their sacrifices. Then come back here to learn more. And get involved in making the world a better, freer place.
On Feb. 22, 1943, brother and sister Hans and Sophie Scholl, and their colleague in the White Rose resistance organization, Christoph Probst, stood trial before the Volksgericht — the People’s Court that tried political offenses against the Nazi German state. Found guilty of treason by Roland Freisler, head judge of the court, the three were executed that same day. The method of capital punishment was guillotine.
[W]e dread nothing but slavery. Death is the creature of a poltroon’s brains; ’tis immortality to sacrifice ourselves for the salvation of our country. We fear not death. That gloomy night, that palefaced moon, and the affrighted starts that hurried through the sky, can witness that we fear not death.
If you have been following the “Today in Freedom” and new visual meme features here at Common Sense, you are aware of The White Rose, the group of German dissidents who in 1942 and 1943 produced pamphlets against the Nazi regime.
There have been several good books and movies produced about these young and now long-gone heroes. One of them is available free on YouTube. It focuses on young Sophie Scholls, and her final days — that is, her and her brother’s direct encounter with the Gestapo and the totalitarian Nazi state. Well worth watching, though prepare yourself — it is not a light, comic romp; anything but:
See the Townhall column of these events, now published on this site.
You owe it to yourself to read the six pamphlets of the White Rose, now available here.
On Feb. 21, 1848, The Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx with help from Friedrich Engels, was published in London by a group of German-born revolutionary socialists known as the Communist League.
On Feb. 21, 1916, the Battle of Verdun began with German bombardment of the city of Verdun, France. For ten months, the longest single engagement of World War II, German forces attacked the French along a 20-kilometer front crossing the Meuse River. When the battle ended, with no change in the strategic position of either army, the combined death toll was over 300,000 (out of over 700,000 casualties).
On Feb. 21, 1965, Malcolm X was gunned down by rival Black Muslims while addressing his Organization of Afro-American Unity in New York City.
For something a tad more upbeat, on this date in 1952 the British government, under Winston Churchill, abolished identity cards in the UK to “set the people free.”