The construction of American exceptionalism would have us believe that America has always taken the moral high ground, and that it has always acted flawlessly in its pursuit of liberty. I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being. But what makes us exceptional is not our ability to flout international norms and the rule of law. It is our willingness to affirm them through our actions. The ideals of American greatness and superiority require us to believe in
an America that is good, just, and benevolent. That America is unique in that it's built differently. I, an American, have seen the myths of exceptionalism unraveled by the realities of American injustices, America's similarities to other countries, American hypocrisy, and American distortions of history. Slavery happened in the United States. Eugenics programs in the United States inspired ones in Nazi Germany.
Concentration and interment camps have been sites of persecution for Indigenous people, black people, Japanese people, immigrants, and dissidents in US history. The exaltation of America's values, status, and rarity does it not change the truth of the history and present of the United States. America's redeeming qualities cannot paper over the crimes and moral failings the country has been complicit in. The U S is very good at leaving
misdeeds unacknowledged. It's perfected the art of saying we're not as bad as them or better, yet saying what we did was justified and we're still above everyone else. A lot of Americans have no problem saying that the past stays in the past and we can only get better by looking forward completely ignoring causality, denialism, and revisionism keeps folks in states of ignorance or comfort. America is so often unexceptional. There have been many instances where people have
had to pressure America into being exceptional. There will never be a time when the US or whatever country you live in, will be perfect or above making poor decisions. There will always be a need for dissenters, for protesters and rebels who hold a mirror up to society and remind us that we are capable of choosing differently. I'm each deaf coote and this is unpopular A show about people who didn't let the threat of persecution keep them
from speaking truth to power. Germany was under the oppressive rule of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party from nineteen thirty three to nineteen forty five. During this period, called Nazi Germany or the Third Reich, the country was subject to totalitarianism, propaganda, militant and racist foreign policy, suppression of rights and opposition, and genocide. Millions of people died in the Holocaust and many more were persecuted, displaced, and traumatized.
The scale and reach that the Holocaust had was huge. The Nazis doled out terror and depravity in so many different ways, but anti Nazi resistance was strong too, and it came from many different angles. People protested and fought the Nazi regime on spiritual, economic, political, or moral basis. Some helped Jewish people hide from the Nazis and took risks to rescue Jewish people. Some focused on raising awareness about the vileness and cruelty of the regime. Others planned
to assassinate Hitler. Resistance forts were active inside Germany and beyond.
The totalitarian state was powerful, fearsome, and brutal, and survival alone was hard enough for the many people being persecuted in Europe at the time, but organized and disorganized action against the Nazis did happen, from the efforts of individuals like Otto and Alisa Hampel, who left postcards denouncing the regime in public places, to the resistance of White Rose, a non violent anti Nazi resistance group that formed in nineteen forty two. This is where today's resistors Hans and
his younger sister's official come in. The brother and sister duo, along with Christoph Props, Billy Groth, and Alexander Schmarrill, founded the so called White Rose movement. The group disseminated leaflets that denounced the Nazis and attempted to renew the quote severely wounded German spirit. The some groups did aspire to overthrow Hitler's regime, many others were not as revolutionary, and we're sure only military might could topple the current order.
The Shoals have become disillusioned with the regime and recognized the necessity of opposing it. So they did just that, and they called on other people to do the same. Here's how their awareness turned into action. Zophie and Hans were born to Robert and Magdalena Shoal. Robert was a mayor at the time of Zophie's birth, though he later
lost that position. Both he and Magdalena opposed Hitler, who put the propaganda machine to work and was able to get a bunch of people behind him and his image by drawing division, taking advantage of people's vulnerabilities and prejudices, and making people believe that he was putting Germany first
and that they could win World War Two. Beyond all the enthusiastic support he received from adults, Hitler also strove to indoctrinate young Germans with allegiance to National Socialism a k a. Nazism, So, despite their parents encouragement of critical thinking and opposition to the regime, Hans ended up joining the Hitler Youth, the Nazi Party's youth organization designed to brainwash boys and young men with Nazi ideology and send them to war, and Sophie joined the League of German Girls,
the equivalent indoctrinating body for girls and young women. They were part of the Nazi bandwagon, believing that Hitler and his ideology would advance the nation. Hans even became a squad leader of his young Vaulk Unit something to keep in mind. Hitler was at this time espousing the idea of a master race, its superiority and its entitlement to expand into more territories. But their involvement in the Nazi
Party did not last long. They had grown distrustful of the Nazis and frustrated with the forced discipline and conformity. A book by hans favorite author Stefan Zwag was banned by the Nazis. Hans even broke off from the Nazi youth organization Informed, one of his own, which was later banned because its activities were considered subversive. His discontent was growing. Also, Zophie was unhappy with school curriculum, which was centered around
promoting Nazi ideology. She once wrote, sometimes school seems like a film to me. I look on, but for all
intents and purposes, I'm excluded from performing. Zophie, Hans, and their siblings Inga and Verner were all either questioned, arrested, or jailed for taking actions that were forbidden by the Nazis, like freely exchanging opinions, and the siblings father Robert, continued to push back against Nazi policy through small acts of resistance, like listening to outlawed radio stations that gave war reports
that nationalized stations did not. Sophie was required to serve six months in the Reich National Labor Service, and in nineteen forty one she began working as an attendant in a kindergarten attached to a munitions factory. While there, she had to go to ideological training sessions. Hans was also losing faith in the regime's commitment to bettering Germany. He built roade for the Autobahn under the National Labor Service, and he went on to join the army in study medicine.
While a soldier on the Eastern Front, he witnessed Nazi terrorism of Jewish people and heard of the massive deportations to concentration camps. On top of this, in nineteen forty two, his father was sentenced to four months in prison for professing to a colleague his hatred of the Nazi regime. By the time Hans returned from war, his disillusionment, dislike of Nazi ideology, and consciousness of the horrors of concentration camps all piled on one another to inspire his anti
Nazi resistance. The Grand Facade of Hitler's better Germany and better world had dissolved for Zophie too. When we get back from the break, we'll get into Hans and Zophie's risky resistance efforts. Tons of Germans supported Hitler and wrote the Nazi wave right into the Holocaust. Those were not just extremists and power hungry politicians, but your regular townsfolk
to shop owners, doctors, teachers. Hitler gained support through indoctrination, terror, propaganda, coercion, ideological pandering, personality, cult building, and exploiting and dismantling systems. People who are already vulnerable, impressionable, polarized, or disillusioned can
be easily influenced into taking a morally questionable stance. The status quo can change in an instant, even if it's taken years to get to a point, say one where gay marriage is legal or children are being forcefully separated from their parents by the state. Major changes will happen during our lifetime and will be presented with an opportunity
to either embrace the change or not. Hans and Zophie at first joined the masses who were receptive of Nazism and supported Hitler's vision as they dove deeper into the ideology and were exposed to the horrible, brutal reality of its extremity. They realized that it did not align with their worldview, and they chose to rejected. And then they went beyond rejecting the new status quo of fascism, racism and extreme nationalism to raise others awareness and push them
toward resistance. The degeneration of Germany under Nazism is a serious and drastic shift in society. It's the type of change that seems impossible before it's happening, and then you're in the middle of figuring out how to deal with it. But as history has proven, these kinds of unfathomable changes do happen. They happen all over the world. There is no place that is above reproach. In early twentieth century Germany,
the status quo quickly became genocide and oppression. There were those who welcomed or condoned the new normal, and then there were those who chose to challenge and disrupt it. Hans was studying medicine at the University of Munich. There he linked up with other people who questioned Nazi ideology, including Christoph Popes Alexander Schmorell and Billy Groth Court Ubert, a professor at the university, inserted veiled criticism of the Nazis and his lectures and his classes also became a
point of congregation for students who opposed the regime. The group of students that held anti Nazi discussions and meetings became known as the White Rose. For reasons that remain unclear, Hans emerged as a leader of the group Tauta. The Friends, Lela Ramdar and Jesula Schertling also soon became involved in
the White Rose group. But facilitating political and intellectual discussion groups was not enough in the face of Nazi persecution and execution of Jewish people, Pish people, gay people, people with disabilities, and others deemed unfit or inferior to the so called Master race. The Nazis were also executing communists
and people who resisted the regime. Though the group was at first about the Friends shared interests in things like art, music, literature, and philosophy, the oppression, crimes and atrocities perpetrated by the government were unavoidable. The Friends could not ignore the deterioration of society under Nazi rule. In favor of remaining loyal
to Germany. In n years after World War Two and the end of the White Rose, Jurgen Wittenstein said that it was not good enough to keep to oneself one's beliefs and ethical standards, but that the time had come to act. The group got ahold of a secondhand duplicating machine, a typewriter, printing paper, and stencils. In June of nineteen forty two, they began producing leaflets called Leaves of the White Rose that called out the regime for brutality and
encourage people to resist. Here's a translation of part of
the first leaflet. If the German people are already so corrupted and spiritually crushed that they do not raise a hand frivolously trusting in a questionable faith in lawful order of history, If they surrender man's highest principle, that which raises him above all other God's creatures, his free will, If they abandoned the will to take decisive action and turn the wheel of history, and thus subjected to their own rational decision, If they are so devoid of all individuality,
have already gone so far along the road towards turning into a spiritless and cowardly mass, then yes, they deserve their downfall. The leaflet also urged people to offer passive resistance to quote forestall the spread of this atheistic war machine before it is too late. There were literary and historical allusions in the text. They wanted people to recognize the catastrophe that was Nazism, to reject indifference in silence,
and take action against Nazi ideology and warfare. And the text asked people to make copies of the leaflet and distribute them. After Zophie enrolled at the University of Munich in mid nineteen forty two, she found out about the leaflets and White Rose and decided to join the effort. The first four leaflets were written in June and July of nineteen forty two. The White Rose mailed the leaflets to people in Germany, put them in telephone boxes, and
took them via train two cities outside of Munich. Many of the leaflets were turned over to the Gestapo or the secret State police, who were becoming more concerned about the effect the content have on Germans. The people in the White Roads were also using graffiti to express their opposition to the regime, Painting graffiti on buildings in Munich that said things like freedom and down with Hitler. Students in Berlin, Friburg, Hamburg and Vienna heated the call to
protest the regime and helped spread the resistance. After the break, Hans and Sophie, like many others in the Nazi resistance, are caught. The last two leaflets were labeled as leaflets of the Resistance Movement of Germany and written in early nine By this point, the Gestapo considered the leaflet a huge problem and we're investigating involvement in the White Rose. But at the University of Munich there was an apparent
spirit of rebellion. So on February eighth, nineteen, Hans and Sophie took a big risk in deciding to distribute leaflets throughout the university. They put stacks of the sixth leaflet in the school's hallways and through the leftover leaflets off the top of a staircase and into the entrance hall. Thousands of copies of White Rose leaflets had been passed out by this point, but this action was the one
that would get Hans and Sophie captured. Jacob Smid, a janitor at the university spotted them distributing the leaflets, and they were turned into the Gestapo. Christoph Props was also arrested when a draft of a leaflet he wrote was found in Hans's pocket. Hans, Sophie, and Christoph stood trial at Munich's Palace of Justice on February, just four days after they passed out the leaflets at the university. They were all found guilty of high treason. Judge Holland Freisler
sat the following. The accused have, by means of leaflets, in a time of war, called for the sabotage of the war effort and armaments, and for the overthrow of the national socialist way of life of our people, have propagated defeatist ideas, and have most vulgarly to fame the for thereby giving aid to the enemy of the Reich and weakening the armed security of the nation. On this account they are to be punished by death. Their honor
and rights as citizens are forfeited for all time. The two show siblings and Christoph were executed by guillotine hours after they were sentenced to death. Other people involved in the White Rose for Existance were arrested and executed, including court uber Billy Groff and Alexander Schmorell. After the sixth White Rose Leaflet was smuggled out of Germany, Allied forces
intercepted them and dropped copies over Germany. Germany didn't surrender in World War Two until May of nineteen Hans Zophie and the White Rose Leaflets were a small part of the larger resistance to Nazi domination. Their denouncement of the regime and exposure of its atrocities helped create a network of agitators who refused to stay silent while Germany descended into depravity. The White Roses sixth leaflet proclaimed a day
of reckoning. It said this freedom and honor. For ten long years, Hitler and his coadjutor have manhandled, squeezed, twisted, and debased these two splendid German words to the point of nausea, as only dilettants can casting the highest values of a nation before swine. They have sufficiently demonstrated in the ten years of destruction of all material and intellectual freedom, of all moral substance among the German people what they
understand by freedom and honor. The frightful bloodbath has opened the eyes of even the stupidest German. It is a slaughter which they arranged in the name of freedom and honor of the German nation throughout Europe, in which they daily start anew. The name of Germany is dishonored for all time. If German youth does not finally rise, take revenge and a tone, smash its tormentors and set up
a new Europe of the spirit. Students, the German people look to us, as in eighteen thirteen the people expected us to shake off the Napoleonic yoke, so in nineteen forty three they look to us to break the national socialist terror through the power of the spirit. Berezina and staling Grod are burning in the east. The dead of Stalin Grod implore us to take action. Up up by people,
Let smoke and flame be our sign. It is clear that beyond being motivated by the restriction of their personal freedoms, Hans and Zophie felt responsible to help in the horror of Nazi rule for the sake of people's futures. Society had reached a tipping point, and they were compelled to act and call others to action. Zophie and Hans risked
their lives to dissent and sadly died young. Though their lives were cut short before their activism could incite widespread and active opposition against the regime, they left behind a legacy of resisting despite odds, and a model for encouraging collective action. Hans Zophie and White rose you direct action tactics to affect change from where they stood. The message find a way to contribute to the resistance rather than sit back and find out what the world will become
if you do nothing at all. Our producer is Andrew Howard. Holly Fry and Christopher Hasiotis are our executive producers, and you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, the I Heart Radio app, or wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be back next week with another episode of Unpopular