Timeline as of 2013-10-13 (PDF file!): Here is the timeline used in the creation of this “blog”, based on the Microsoft Access database that served as foundation for Ruth Hanna Sachs’s White Rose History, Volume I (January 31, 1933 – April 30, 1942) and White Rose History, Volume 2 (May 1, 1942 – October 12, 1943).

THIS TIMELINE IS COPYRIGHTED BY RUTH HANNA SACHS AND EXCLAMATION! PUBLISHERS. IT MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT PRIOR WRITTEN CONSENT OF RUTH HANNA SACHS OR EXCLAMATION! PUBLISHERS.

If you use this timeline as basis for your own research, please be sure to cite properly.

A few notes about the timeline:

1. Placeholder dates: These serve multiple purposes. Sometimes a placeholder date is necessary if e.g. Willi Graf wrote in his diary, “In mid-January…” That is, no exact date is available. In other cases, we needed a single date to collect entries of a certain type. The most prominent of these: The May 31, 1942 “reasons” placeholder date – the reasons that the White Rose friends decided to use leaflets as their form of informed dissent.
2. Time stamps: Occasionally time stamps are 100% accurate. For example, most of the time stamps for February 22, 1943 (first White Rose trial) are real. We know from the documents exactly when Sophie Scholl was told that she would not be pardoned, and exactly when she was executed.
3. Time stamps (other): Most often, our timeline “time stamp” is used to keep same-day events separate by individual or other criteria. See November 28, 1942, a day spent fundraising for their cause. There is no way to know exactly when they did each thing, but the time stamps serve to keep the online database organized.
4. Handling blatant falsehoods in the interrogations: Again, the November 28 fundraising day serves as a good example. Since even their lies to cover for friends contained elements of truth (and since in 1994 when we started this project, we did not know what was truth and what was falsehood), we needed to keep everything together. So initially, we put everything related to e.g. fundraising in the same time slot. Once we figured out what was not true, we assigned it to a separate time slot, same day, so the information is collected in one place.
5. Evaluating the Gestapo interrogation transcripts (what is reliable, what isn’t, and why): We will post information on this topic later.

You may also notice that some entries appear to be in the “blog” twice. For example, you will see Sophie Scholl’s second interrogation (February 18, 1943, 8 p.m.). But then you will see information from that interrogation separately. We dissect each interrogation (or letter, or diary entry) – it goes into the database in its entirety on the date it occurred, so you have full context for what was said when, and by whom.

Then we take it apart, and put the information contained in the interrogation (or letter, or diary entry) in chronological order. For in-depth information about our research process, click here.