''Sophie Scholl – The Final Days'' () is a 2005 German

historical drama film A historical drama (also period drama, period piece or just period) is a dramatic work set in the past, usually used in the context of film and television, which presents historical events and characters with varying degrees of fiction such as c ...

directed by Marc Rothemund and written by Fred Breinersdorfer. It is about the last days in the life of

Sophie Scholl Sophia Magdalena Scholl (9 May 1921 – 22 February 1943) was a German student and anti-Nazi political activist, active in the White Rose non-violent German resistance to Nazism, resistance group in Nazi Germany. Raised in a politically engag ...

, a 21-year-old member of the anti-

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

non-violent Nonviolence is the personal practice of not causing harm to others under any condition. It may come from the belief that hurting people, animals and/or the environment is unnecessary to achieve an outcome and it may refer to a general philosoph ...

student resistance group the

White Rose The White Rose (, ) was a Nonviolence, non-violent, intellectual German resistance to Nazism, resistance group in Nazi Germany which was led by five students and one professor at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, University of Munich ...

, part of the German Resistance movement. She was found guilty of high treason by the People's Court and executed the same day, 22 February 1943. The film was presented at the 55th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2005 and won Silver Bear awards for Best Director and Best Actress (

Julia Jentsch Julia Jentsch (; born 20 February 1978) is a German actress. She has received awards including the Silver Bear, European Film Award, and Deutscher Filmpreis, Lola. She is best known for ''Sophie Scholl – The Final Days'', ''The Edukators'' and ...

). It was nominated for an

Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film The Academy Award for Best International Feature Film (known as Best Foreign Language Film prior to 2020) is one of the Academy Awards handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to a ...

Plot

In wartime

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

, Sophie Scholl joins members of the

student organization, including Sophie's brother Hans, who are preparing a leaflet. They have more copies than they can distribute by mail. Hans proposes distributing the extras at university; Sophie volunteers to assist. It is 18 February 1943. At

Munich University The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich, LMU or LMU Munich; ) is a public university, public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of Ingolstadt in 1472 by Duke ...

while classes are in session, Hans and Sophie put stacks of leaflets near the lecture rooms. With only minutes left, Sophie runs to the top floor, where she pushes a stack of leaflets over the balustrade. Jakob Schmid, a janitor who sees Sophie, detains the pair until the

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

arrive. They are taken to the Wittelsbacher Palais - headquarters of Gestapo in Munich. Sophie is interrogated by Gestapo investigator Robert Mohr. She says that she and her brother had nothing to do with the leaflets; She noticed them in the hall and pushed a stack off the railing as a prank, and she had an empty suitcase because she was going to visit her parents in Ulm, planning to bring back clothes. She is dismissed, but as her release form is about to be approved, the order comes not to let her go, as the Gestapo has found incontrovertible evidence that Sophie and Hans were responsible for the distribution of anti-Nazi leaflets. She is placed in a cell with dissident Else Gebel, a Communist sympathizer. Sophie then admits 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 Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The rights, right to freedom of expression has been r ...

and denounces atrocities committed by the Nazis. Mohr dismisses some of her accusations, such as the extermination of the Jews, as wartime propaganda, but tacitly approves of others, such as the euthanasia program. Sophie and Hans, as well as a friend with three young children, Christoph Probst, are charged with

treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state (polity), state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to Coup d'état, overthrow its government, spy ...

, troop demoralization and aiding the enemy. It is 22 February 1943, four days after their arrest. In their

show trial A show trial is a public trial in which the guilt (law), guilt or innocence of the defendant has already been determined. The purpose of holding a show trial is to present both accusation and verdict to the public, serving as an example and a d ...

, Probst is the first to be examined by President of the People's Court Roland Freisler, whose prosecutorial 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 highlights German war crimes on the Eastern Front as immoral and proclaims that the defeat of the Nazi state by the

Allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not an explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are calle ...

is all but certain. Sophie dismisses the suggestion that she was led by her brother, and declares that many people agree with her group but dare not express it. Freisler pronounces the defendants guilty and calls on each to make a final statement. Sophie warns that "where we stand today, you

reisler Hanna Reisler (née Bregman, ) is an Israeli-American Professor of Chemistry at the University of Southern California. She is interested in the reaction dynamics of molecules and free radicals, as well as the photodissociation in the gas phase. ...

will stand soon." All three are sentenced to death and brought to

Stadelheim Prison Stadelheim Prison (), in Munich's Giesing district, is one of the largest Prisons in Germany, prisons in Germany. Founded in 1894, it was the site of many executions, particularly by guillotine during the Nazi period. Notable inmates *Ludwig Thom ...

. Sophie, having been told of the normal 99-day delay between conviction and execution, learns that 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 the first to be beheaded by guillotine, the blade falling as the picture goes black. Hans', screaming "Let freedom live!" before the blade goes down, and Christoph's executions follow. 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.

Cast

as Sophia Magdalena 'Sophie' Scholl * Fabian Hinrichs as Hans Fritz Scholl *

Alexander Held Gerald Alexander Held (born 19 October 1958) is a German actor. He is internationally best known for his historical depictions, as Walther Hewel in the 2004 film '' Der Untergang'', Robert Mohr in the 2005 film '' Sophie Scholl - Die letzten Ta ...

as Robert Mohr * Johanna Gastdorf as Else Gebel * André Hennicke as Dr. Roland Freisler * Florian Stetter as Christoph Hermann Probst * Maximilian Brückner as

Willi Graf Wilhelm "Willi" Graf (2 January 1918 – 12 October 1943) was a German member of the White Rose resistance group in Nazi Germany. The Catholic Church in Germany included Graf in their list of martyrs of the 20th century. In 2017, his cause for ...

* as Alexander Schmorell * Lilli Jung as Gisela Schertling * as Magdalena Scholl * Jörg Hube as Robert Scholl * Franz Staber as Werner Scholl

Reception

Critical response

''Sophie Scholl – The Final Days'' has an approval rating of 87% on

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, based on 95 reviews, and an average rating of 7.27/10. The website's critical consensus states: "A film that begs the audience to reflect upon their own courage and strength of character in light of this young heroine's daring story".

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

assigned the film a weighted average score of 76 out of 100, based on 30 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Awards and recognition

* 55th Berlin International Film Festival, 2005 ** Nominated for

Golden Bear The Golden Bear () is the highest prize awarded for the best film at the Berlin International Film Festival and is, along with the Palme d'Or and the Golden Lion, the most important international film festival award. The bear is the heraldic an ...

** Silver Bear: Best Director – Marc Rothemund ** Silver Bear: Best Actress –

European Film Awards The European Film Awards (or European Film Academy Awards) have been presented annually since 1988 by the European Film Academy to recognize excellence in European cinematic achievements. The awards are given in 19 categories, of which the mos ...

, 2005 ** Best European Actress – Julia Jentsch ** Audience Award * Bernhard-Wicki-Filmpreis, 2005 * German Film Awards ( Lolas) ** Audience Award ** Best Film, Silver Prize ** Best acting performance (female main role) – Julia Jentsch *

78th Academy Awards The 78th Academy Awards, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), took place on March 5, 2006, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, Hollywood, Los Angeles beginning at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time Zone, P ...

, 2006 ** Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film

Home media

''Sophie Scholl – The Final Days'' was released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

in 2006 and

Blu-ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...

in 2008. The DVD and Blu-Ray releases include as Extra Features interviews with Sophie's older sister Elisabeth Hartnagel, surviving White Rose member Franz Josef Müller, Willi Mohr, son of the Scholl's Gestapo interrogator Robert Mohr, and Walter Gebel, nephew of Sophie Scholl's cellmate Else Gebel.

References

External links

''Sophie Scholl – The Final Days'' film website (in English)

''Sophie Scholl – Die letzten Tage'' film website (in German)
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Sophie Scholl - The Final Days
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YouTube
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sophie Scholl - The Final Days 2005 films 2005 biographical drama films German biographical drama films Films about capital punishment Films about the German Resistance Films about Nazi Germany Films set in 1943 Films set in Germany Films set in Munich 2000s German-language films White Rose World War II films based on actual events European Film Awards winners (films) Films scored by Reinhold Heil Films scored by Johnny Klimek Cultural depictions of Hans and Sophie Scholl German independent films 2005 drama films 2000s German films