On the 22nd February 1943, three young German students are executed by way of guillotine. The crime they have been accused of and executed for is ‘treason to the Reich‘. In the days to follow several of their friends and collaborators were also arrested. Described by the local media as ‘scum and outcast‘. Today they are thought of as true heroes of their time. Some of the few, under the Nazi regime, that dared stand by their beliefs and stand up against what they believed to be a threat to the nation and people of both Germany and the rest of the world.

The movement went by the name The White Rose Movement, a group of students and a teacher from Munich university. The main members: Hans Scholl, Inge Scholl, Sophie Scholl, siblings, and Alexander Schmorell, Willi Graff, Christoph Probst, Juergen Wittgenstein and Kurt Huber. The group was far from the traditional subversive revolutionaries on the lookout for fire and trouble in the streets. On the contrary, the group consists of top medical students and a philosophy professor in the case of Kurt Huber.

It was the atrocities carried out by the SS on the war front, as witnessed by Hans Scholl, that led to the formation of the group. The friends believe that if only the truth of what is happening could be made available to the public, then the people would turn against the Nazi regime and their despicable conduct. As such, they begin to write pamphlets and flyer's to be distributed in the night across German society. The pamphlets called for the German people to ‘stand up for what is right and decent, and pot a stop to the crimes committed'.

Since open voicing of disagreement was seen as dissent in Germany and was not tolerated, the group were forced to distribute their flyer's any way they could under the cover of darkness. Putting them in mailboxes, in public places and anywhere where they thought they could get word of mouth to spread the message and grab people's attention.

In 1943 the group was arrested and tried before a court. A janitor, coincidently a Nazi party member, had seen Hans Scholl throw flyer's onto the ground in a school and reported him to the authorities. Within days, the Gestapo had infiltrated and arrested the rest of the group, their fate already decided. Only Wittgenstein managed to survive.

However, the pamphlets are smuggled out of Germany into Scandinavia where they find their way to England. During the bombing raids, the English threw out copies of the pamphlets and flyers by air, as part of their effort to make the German people rebel against the Nazi regime.

The story of the White Rose Movement is a fascinating history of courage and ingenuity and a testament to the power of the flyer medium. Flyer printing services have helped people get ‘the word' onto the street for whoever had anything to share or voice to the public and fellow citizens and continues to be an effective form of publicity.