Sophie Scholl was tried by the People’s Court and executed by guillotine at Stadelheim Prison the same day.
On 22 February 1943, Sophie Scholl, Hans Scholl, and Christoph Probst were tried by the Nazi People’s Court in Munich and sentenced to death for treason and for defaming Adolf Hitler. The proceedings were conducted under the notorious judge Roland Freisler, whose courtroom was an instrument of political terror rather than justice.
The same day, Scholl was executed by guillotine at Stadelheim Prison. This event is historically significant not because it represented lawful punishment, but because it revealed the brutality of the Nazi judicial system and the regime’s determination to destroy even small acts of dissent. Scholl was only 21 years old, yet her trial and execution turned her into an international emblem of youthful moral resistance.
Her death also exposed the fragility of state power in the face of conscience. The White Rose had no weapons and no army; its tools were words, leaflets, and ethical appeal. In a dictatorship that criminalized opposition, Scholl’s execution became a lasting reminder of the price of speaking truth under totalitarian rule and the legacy of non-violent resistance in the 20th century.