Not in Vain

It was not much that the students did. Most of them were reared under Hitler's National Socialism, drilled in its rituals, supposedly imbued with its doctrines. But something went wrong. In once-famed, once-liberal University of Munich there was unrest in the corridors and ugly whisperings in the nearby beer halls. When a high Nazi official addressed the students they stamped their feet in a chorus of disapproval. As last they shouted "gemig" (enough), walked out en masse.

Munich's Gauleiter, Herr Giesler, put his spies to work and arrested three "ringleaders," Hans and Maria Scholl and Adrian Probst. They were described as typische Einzelganger (typical individual cranks), tried before a Nazi People's Court, found guilty of spreading defeatism and "encouraging sabotage in our armaments by means of leaflets. . . ."

All that the outside world knew on Feb. 22 was that Hans and Maria Scholl and Adrian Probst had been beheaded. Since then other Munich citizens have laid their heads on the block before a white-gloved axman: Kurt Huber, a professor of psychology for 17 years; a lad who exchanged a leg at Stalingrad for the Iron Cross, First Class; at least nine other students. By last week it was apparent that the Nazis were worried. There were more arrests at Munich and a close watch on students at the schools. No one outside Germany could tell for certain how far the opposition had spread. But Hans and Maria Scholl and Adrian Probst had not died in vain. London got hold of the text of the leaflet which cost them their lives and broadcast it over BBC:

"The eyes of even the most stupid Germans, these eyes have been opened by the terrible blood bath in which Hitler and his confederates are trying to drown all Europe in the name of the freedom of the German nation. Germany's name will remain forever dishonored if German youth does not at last rise up, avenge and destroy its tormentors and help in the building of a new spirit in Europe.

"Girl students and men students, the nation looks to us. It expects from us in 1943 the breaking of the National Socialist terror . . . even as in 1814 the Napoleonic terror was broken.

"The dead of Stalingrad exhort us. Arise, ye people, the time has come."

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