Sophie Scholl

Sophia Magdalena Scholl (9 May 1921 – 22 February 1943) was a German student, active within the White Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany. She was convicted of high treason after having been found distributing anti-war leaflets at the University of Munich with her brother Hans and were executed by guillotine.

Sophie was born in 1921. She had 3 sisters and 2 brothers. She entered junior/grade school at the age of seven. After her six months in the National Labor Service, in May 1942, she enrolled at the University of Munich as a student of biology and philosophy.

In early summer 1942, Sophie Scholl, Hans Scholl, Willi Graf and Christoph Probst co-authored six anti-Nazi political resistance leaflets. Calling themselves The White Rose, they instructed Germans to passively resist the Nazis. She and the rest of the White Rose were arrested for distributing the sixth leaflet at the University of Munich on 18 February 1943. On 22 February 1943, Scholl, her brother Hans and their friend Christoph Probst were found guilty of treason and condemned to death. They were all beheaded in Munich's Stadelheim Prison only a few hours later.

Since the 1970s, Scholl has been celebrated as one of the great German heroes who actively opposed the Third Reich during the Second World War.

In Downfall Universe
Sophie does not appear physically in Downfall, and she's only mentioned at the end of the film by Traudl Junge, the real one (actually the scene is from “Im toten Winkel - Hitlers Sekretärin”/”Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary”), where she says that after passing one day in front of a commemorative plaque for Sophie, on Franz-Joseph Street, she realised that being young was not an excuse for what she gotten herself into.

She has yet to appear in parodies.

Trivia

 * Sophie was played by Julia Jentsch, who played Hanna Potrowski in Downfall, in the 2005 film Sophie Scholl – Die letzten Tage (Sophie Scholl – The Final Days), that also starred Gerald Alexander Held, André Hennicke, Christian Hoening and Norbert Heckner.
 * Traudl claims that Sophie was executed in the same year she became Hitler's secretary. This is not quite accurate, as she became secretary in November 1942, whereas Sophie died in February 1943.
 * However, since November and February are only 2 months apart, she was most likely refering it as in the same year period.