Sophie Scholl: The Final Days handler om motstandsgruppen Den hvite rose, en liten gruppe ungdommer som for sin samvittighets skyld ville redde Tyskland. Tiden er slutten av 42/43, da Stalingrad faller. Et vendepunkt, som nok mange tyskere registrerte.

Scholl, whose story has been told in at least two earlier German films (Michael Verhoeven’s «White Rose» and Percy Adlon’s «Five Last Days»), is regarded today in Germany as a national heroine. Much of the movie, an Oscar nominee this year for best foreign-language film, is based on documents and court transcripts hidden in East German archives until 1990.

The movie follows the last six days of Sophie’s life, after she and her brother Hans (Fabian Hinrichs) are arrested at Munich University in February 1943 for printing and distributing anti-Nazi leaflets. Their arrest takes place in a political climate of panic and denial after Germany’s defeat at Stalingrad. News of the rout has begun to circulate, but the powers-that-be dig in their heels.
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«Sophie Scholl: The Final Days» pointedly steers away from unnecessary melodrama and sentimentality to deliver a crisp chronology of events told entirely from Sophie’s perspective, with minimal back story.

The Quiet Resolve of a German Anti-Nazi Martyr