The Temptation to Dismiss Humanity: Sophie Scholl Wrestles with Despair

As an individual with an extraordinary level of dedication and commitment to a just cause, Sophie Scholl observed with great disappointment how easily and how frequently many people failed to be compassionate or loyal to their fellow human beings, and how they succumbed to the temptation to undertake unethical actions which benefitted themselves even if at the cost of others.

Sophie was understandably tempted at times to dismiss as hopeless the entire human race.

Fritz Hartnagel was Sophie’s fiance. She wrote to him in a letter dated May 29, 1940:

Ich könnte heulen, wie gemein die Menschen auch in der großen Politik sind, wie sie ihren Bruder verraten um eines Vorteils willen vielleicht. Könnte einem da nicht manchmal der Mut vergehen? Oft wünsche ich mir nichts, als auf einer Robinson-Crusoe-Insel zu leben.

Hartnagel was an officer in the army, and passionate supporter of the same resistance movement that Sophie served. He used his position as an insider in the military to aid the resistance secretly. He and Sophie shared their thoughts deeply and frequently, speaking in person, and writing when apart.

He’d joined the army in 1936, and remained in the army until the war’s end, surrendering in April 1945, more than two years after Sophie’s execution at the hands of the National Socialists.

Sophie points out that it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to live in society and not be affected by the exploitation which people habitually inflict on one another. She sees that much of the time, many people regard everyone and everything primarily as potential instruments for their own advancement. People are seen as instruments.

This objectification — some might use the word ‘othering’ — of people is a primary evil, from which secondary evils can arise.

The ‘othering’ here is not based on a variable about the person being made into an instrument — i.e., is not based on the usual socio-demographic variables of skin color, ethnicity, etc. — This is a different type, a more elemental type of othering, based purely on the fact that the other can be used to one’s advantage. In this type of othering, the other might be quite similar to the self, across all those variables, and yet be objectified; while someone quite different by those same metrics might be left in peace.

So ubiquitous is this tendency to see others as mere instruments that Sophie ponders the possibility that one would need to be “bad in order to remain alive,” that this evil corrupts all who live in society — hence to previous musing about living alone on a desert island.

Manchmal bin ich versucht, die Menschheit als eine Hautkrankheit der Erde zu betrachten. Aber nur manchmal, wenn ich sehr müde bin, und die Menschen so groß vor mir stehen, die schlimmer als Tiere sind. Aber im Grunde kommt es ja nur darauf an, ob wir bestehen, ob wir uns halten können in der Masse, die nach nichts anderem als nach Nutzen trachtet. Denen, um ihr Ziel zu erreichen, jedes Mittel recht ist. Diese Masse ist so überwältigend, und man muß schon schlecht sein, um überhaupt am Leben zu bleiben. Wahrscheinlich hat es bisher nur ein Mensch fertig gebracht, ganz gerade den Weg zu Gott zu gehen. Aber wer sucht den heute noch?

Yet Sophie sees that her view of humanity is so negative especially when she is especially tired, and especially when she is surrounded by the very worst of people.

Presumably — she does not quite explicitly state it — at other times, she is able to have a more merciful view of humanity: not ignoring or excusing its evil, but rather to note that each person’s mission is to be “on the way to God,” and that people make indirect routes with detours.

The challenge for Sophie, and for all people, is to have no illusions about the grave evil which is afoot in the world, and yet at the same time not to give up on the human race: not to dismiss humanity as hopelessly corrupt. One meets this challenge by being “on the way to God” in one’s own imperfect manner.

Sophie Scholl Blends Theory and Practice: Grappling with Eternity

A little more than a month prior to her death — prior to her brutal execution at the hands of the National Socialist government — Sophie Scholl already understood well the risks and dangers in her life. She faced them directly in her thinking.

As an active member of a resistance movement, Sophie could not engage in spiritual thoughts either as a purely intellectual exercise or as simply maintaining a familial or cultural tradition. In her environment, good and evil were concrete and specific factors in daily decisions; the intersection of life and death was never far away.

So it was that she, in journal entries probably intended only for her own eyes, could choose not to be drawn into long threads of speculative thought. Her extensive education made her well aware of historical debates about topics like ‘predestination’ and ‘foreknowledge’ and their complexities.

Sophie Scholl chose, however, to avoid the debate, and for the sake of practical action, to embrace the mystery. ‘Mystery’ and ‘practical’ may seem like odd partners. Yet accepting mystery frees the agent from complex argumentation — frees the human to act with full agency.

So it was that, on January 12, 1943, she wrote:

Die Prädestination und der freie Wille, diese beiden anscheinend nicht vereinbaren Gegensätze — jetzt machen sie mir eigentlich nicht mehr viele Schmerzen, obwohl ich sie so wenig erklären kann wie vorher. Daß Gott allwissend ist, daran glaube ich, und die notwendige Folgerung daraus ist, daß er auch von jedem einzelnen weiß, was nach seiner Zeit mit ihm ist, und von uns allen weiß, was nach der Zeit ist. Dies verlangt auch seine Eigenschaft als unendlicher Gott. Meinen freien Willen fühle ich, wer kann ihn mir beweisen! Doch was ich nicht verstehe, ist die Hölle, der Lazarus im Schoße Abrahams, der dem Reichen in der Hölle den Tropfen kühlenden Wassers aus seiner unendlichen Fülle verweigert.

Yet she was also willing to wrestle momentarily with the metaphysical concept of time. Too easily and too frequently people can forget, or forget to account for, what it might mean to be outside of time.

Concepts like predestination and foreknowledge are intrinsically temporal, and for this reason must be grasped in different ways, depending on whether they are being applied inside time or outside time.

Ich glaube, es ist schon ein Unterschied zwischen Vorbestimmen und Vorauswissen. Vorbestimmung läßt sich für mich viel schwerer, fast gar nicht eigentlich, mit dem freien Willen vereinbaren. Vorherwissen viel eher, obwohl es noch unbegreifliches Geheimnis bleibt. Übrigens ist »Vorherwissen« menschlich gesprochen, da Gott ja nicht an unsre Zeit gebunden ist, man müßte die Vorsilbe »Vorher« streichen und nur Wissen sagen.

Sophie Scholl knew well the probability that her actions would end with her own death. Only weeks prior to that death, her journal entries reveal how clear-eyed she saw that finality. She did not deny or avoid the thought of her destiny. She also did not get lost in an intellectual maze debates about the concepts of predestination and foreknowledge.

Instead she drew strength from meditations like these — strength which empowered her to continue her resistance work until the very end, despite all dangers.