Sophie and Hans Scholl were arrested by the Gestapo after being caught distributing White Rose leaflets at the University of Munich.
On the morning of February 18, 1943, Sophie Scholl and her brother Hans went to the University of Munich carrying a suitcase filled with copies of the sixth White Rose leaflet, titled "Fellow Fighters in the Resistance!" This leaflet was written in direct response to the catastrophic German defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad and called on German students to rise up against Hitler's tyranny.
After distributing leaflets throughout the building, Sophie impulsively dropped a stack from the top floor into the atrium below, an act witnessed by a university custodian and Nazi Party member, Jakob Schmid, who detained the siblings and alerted the Gestapo. Sophie and Hans were arrested on the spot.
This moment marked the end of the White Rose's underground leafleting campaign but became the beginning of its most powerful legacy. Sophie's calm demeanor and refusal to betray her comrades during subsequent interrogations, even under intense pressure from the Gestapo, exemplified extraordinary courage and conviction. The arrest set into motion the infamous show trial before the Nazi People's Court just four days later, which would ultimately seal her fate and transform her into one of the most celebrated symbols of German resistance to Nazism.