The White Rose (Ludwig Maximilian University)

From June 1942 to February 1943, a group of anti-Nazi students and professors calling themselves "The White Rose" spoke out against the Nazi regime in anonymous pamphlets. Although based at Munich's Ludwig Maximilian University, their literature was distributed throughout Germany and even smuggled abroad. This was one of the few recorded acts of active resistance by ordinary Germans against the Third Reich, but it came to an end with the bloody executions of those involved. Among the members of The White Rose guillotined by the Nazis were brother and sister Hans and Sophie Scholl, for whom the university's main plaza was renamed (Geschwester-Scholl-Platz, "Scholl Siblings Square").

The activists are today memorialized in several sites around the university's main building. Near the entrance on Geschwester-Scholl-Platz, you will see what appears to be typewritten papers strewn across the cobblestone. A closer look reveals the "papers" to be ceramic reproductions of the White Rose pamphlets, embedded in the ground. Inside the main building, in its impressive atrium, is a single white rose on the wall, to symbolize the movement. A memorial hall in the basement contains a history of the movement (only in German).

Geschwester-Scholl-Platz and the university's main building are nice to visit in and of themselves, and of course are free to enter. The plaza sits just off of Ludwigstrasse, a street with many other interesting monuments and cultural sites. Anyone visiting Munich should take the time to learn the story of The White Rose and visit the place where brave students and teachers dared to speak out against the Nazis.