“Sophie Scholl: The Final Days,” like “Night and Fog,” also raises profound issues of morality and responsibility. Virtually all viewers agree that Sophie Scholl and her brother Hans Scholl epitomized the highest ideals of personal morality and resistance to evil. And virtually all viewers agree that the Judge in their trial, Roland Freissler, was guilty of monstrous human rights violations in condemning the Scholls to death.
Other characters in the film are arguably more complex. An example is the chief interrogator, Robert Mohr. Obviously, he was a committed Nazi and he was clearly dedicated to getting Sophie Scholl to admit to distributing the anti-Nazi leaflets at the University. He effectively used standard police tactics to force her confession and to bring her to trial. At the same time, he appeared to reveal some human sympathy for Sophie and apparently tried to offer her a “deal” that could at least have spared her life.
This question asks you to formulate and offer a sustained judgment about Robert Mohr. What is your response to him? In actual historical fact, he was arrested by French occupation authorities in 1947, briefly held, and released in 1948. He was never charged with any crime related to his period as a Gestapo officer and he retained his pension rights. Imagine this following hypothetical scenario: He lived peacefully and broke no laws and even contributed to several charities, in Europe and even in Israel. By all accounts, he was a good husband, a good father, and a loving grandparent to his four grandchildren. But in 1970 one of his victims, who was herself interrogated by Mohr, happened to identify him during a visit to Munich. She informed the authorities and Robert Mohr was arrested again, this time by German authorities, and placed on trial along for crimes against humanity.
After he was found guilty, the Court had to decide what to do with Mr. Mohr. Should he be sentenced to prison? If so, for what term should he be imprisoned? Or even sentenced to the death penalty like many Nazi war criminals? (The death penalty has been abolished in Germany, but disregard that for the purposes of this prompt). Or should he have been placed on probation and allowed to resume his middle-class life as a senior citizen in the new democratic Germany? What, in short, do you think should happen to Robert Mohr in 1970? In formulating your answer, use the details of the film as extensively as you can. Use these details to offer your own judgment about Mohr and why he should be sentenced to death, prison, or alternatively to resume his life in a postwar democratic Germany (or anything else). Your answer can go in any direction you see fit; feel free to use whatever arguments make sense to you. You must articulate and defend your position.
