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The White Rose
Introduction
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'It is my firm belief that no one raised in the
United States can fully comprehend what it is
like to live under an absolute dictatorship. For
it is quite different from what we generally
associate with this term as it relates, for
example, to the typical Latin American
situation. Never before has there been such
absolute control, except for Soviet Russia,
which Hitler actually emulated to a large
degree. The government - or rather, the party -
controlled everything: the news media, arms,
police, the armed forces, the judiciary system,
communications, travel, all levels of education
from kindergarten to universities, all cultural
and religious institutions. Political
indoctrination started at a very early age, and
continued by means of the Hitler Youth with the
ultimate goal of complete mind control. Children
were exhorted in school to denounce even their
own parents for derogatory remarks about Hitler
or Nazi ideology. My own teenage cousin, for
instance, threatened to denounce his father; and
I was barely able to deter him by pointing out
to him that he himself might end up destitute,
if his father were arrested and incarcerated'
The 20st century saw different totalitarian states. For example communist Russia (1917-1989) and - after the Second World War - a lot East-European states who were under the influence of the Soviet Union as Russia was called when it was communist. China, which turned communist in 1949, was (and more or less still is) a totalitarian state.
Adolf Hitler's National-Socialist Third Reich - which would, supposedly, last for a thousand years, but in actuality lasted only twelve - also was a totalitarian state.
The White Rose, the subject of this task, was a
German student resistance movement. Using excerpts from
the book The White Rose by Inge Scholl (sister of two
members of this group, Hans and Sophie Scholl) you are
going to study characteristics of a totalitarian state and what it means
to live in a totalitarian state.
The White Rose
Sophie Scholl
Copyright: Albert van der Kaap, 2010