THE PURE IN HEART
SIR,—There must be a great many people who have read Six Against 7'yrantty (by Inge Scholl) who have felt that we in this country ought to pay some tribute to those very valiant young people who were beheaded in 1943 for trying to rescue Germany. Perhaps a fund might be raised in our universities to found a memorial scholarship.
The suggestion I want to make is that the sacrifice made by those young 'eccentrics' is unique in all history, and that it may have been a turning point which we are in danger of missing. They must have known that the odds were ten million to one against them, but they took the risk deliberately—perhaps they were looking ten or twenty years ahead. They were certainly not fools — the leaflets they wrote showed very high intelligence—and there was no sign at all of hysteria. There was no religious ecstasy, no impulsiveness, and the sacrifice was not the same as that made when a man lays down his life for his friend. Their resistance was not against an invader, so there was no patriotic fervour. They were not highly placed, or in authority with troops behind them; there was no great rising to support them, no surging spirit of revolt to carry them forward. It is quite clear, therefore, that the courage of these five men and Sophie Scholl was of a very high order indeed, and perhaps unique. And it seems certain that the source of their courage was pure love of freedom. If that is so, it is possible that these students lighted a candle in Munich which will burn as long as the one lighted in Oxford just 400 years ago. It might even prevent another war. If that seems doubtful and too much to hope for, this much is certain : that in all 'the white radiance of Eternity' there can be no brighter flame.--
Wetherby, Yorkshire
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