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Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (Sophie Scholl - Die letzten Tage)

In wartime Munich in February 1943, Sophie Scholl joins her brother Hans in the White Rose student organization. They have prepared an anti-government leaflet and have more copies than they can distribute by mail. Hans proposes distributing the extras at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and Sophie volunteers to assist. Hans and Sophie put stacks of leaflets near the lecture rooms while classes are in session. When Sophie pushes a stack of leaflets over a balustrade she is spotted by Jakob Schmid, a janitor, and the pair are detained for the Gestapo.

They are taken to the Wittelsbacher Palais headquarters where Sophie is interrogated by Gestapo investigator Robert Mohr. She denies that she and her brother had left the leaflets and claims to have pushed the stack off the railing as a prank. She explains the empty suitcase in her possession was for bringing back clothes from a visit to her parents in Ulm. She is remanded when the Gestapo announce they have incontrovertible evidence that Sophie and Hans were responsible for the distribution of the leaflets. She is placed in a cell with dissident Else Gebel, a Communist sympathizer.

Sophie confesses her part, contradicting her brother's claim he acted alone. Determined to protect the others, she steadfastly maintains that the distribution of thousands of leaflets throughout the region was the work of the siblings. Mohr, having learned that their father was an imprisoned dissident, urges her to support laws that preserve a society which has funded her welfare and education. Scholl counters that before 1933 the laws protected freedom of speech and denounces atrocities committed by the Nazis. Mohr dismisses some of her accusations, such as the extermination of the Jews, as wartime propaganda, but acknowledges others like the euthanasia program.

Sophie and Hans, as well as a friend with three young children, Christoph Probst, are charged with treason, troop demoralization and aiding the enemy. Four days after their arrest they are put on a show trial. Probst is examined first by President of the People's Court Roland Freisler, whose zeal makes the prosecutor and defense attorneys superfluous. Freisler contemptuously dismisses Probst's appeals to spare his life so that his children can have a father. Hans maintains his composure in the face of Freisler's impatient questioning. Declining to answer only what he is asked, he denounces German war crimes on the Eastern Front as immoral and proclaims that the defeat of the Nazi state by the Allies is all but certain. Sophie denies she was led by her brother, and declares that many people are scared to admit they agree with her group. Freisler pronounces the defendants guilty and calls on each to make a final statement. Sophie warns that "where we stand today, you will stand soon." All three are sentenced to death and transported to Stadelheim Prison.

Sophie, assuming a normal 99-day delay between conviction and execution, learns she is to be executed the same day. She breaks down briefly, but regains composure, writes a final statement and receives a blessing from the prison chaplain, who offers his support for her silence. After a visit by her parents, who also express approval of what she has done, Mohr arrives and sadly watches Sophie taken away. She is led into a cell with Christoph and Hans, and they share a final cigarette. Sophie is led into a courtyard and remarks "The sun is still shining". An appeal for clemency is declined by the Reich Ministry of Justice, and she is beheaded by guillotine. Hans screams "Let freedom live!" before the blade goes down, and Christoph is executed last. A caption lists dozens of adherents of the White Rose executed in the following months, while others suffered imprisonment.

In the final shot, thousands of leaflets fall from the sky over Munich. A narration explains that the sixth leaflet of the White Rose were smuggled through Scandinavia to the United Kingdom by Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, where the Allies then printed millions of copies of the "Manifesto of the Students of Munich" to drop over Germany.