#Biography - Germany
Christoph Probst
Christoph Probst came from an unconventional family and was the only one of the White Rose students who had children. He was sentenced to death for writing an unpublished leaflet in which he called for resistance against the Nazi regime: “Decide! (…) And once you´ve decided, take action!”.
Christoph Probst was born in Murnau, Bavaria, as the second child of the private scholar Hermann Probst and his wife Katharina, who was a teacher. His parents separated in 1921. Because his father’s second wife Elise Rosenthal was Jewish, Christoph soon experienced the Nazi regime as a concrete threat. After his father’s suicide in 1936, his close relationship with his stepmother remained.
Probst joined the Hitler Youth in 1934 at the age of fifteen. His personal freedom meant a lot to him, and he soon found the structures in the Hitler Youth too constricting. In 1935 he met Alexander Schmorell and the two formed a deep and lasting friendship. After compulsory Reichsarbeitsdienst (Reich Labour Service) and two years of military service in the air force, Probst began studying medicine in Munich in the summer 1939. At the age of 21 he married Herta Dohrn, who came from a family critical of the Nazi regime. Together they had three children.
Being a soldier in the air force, Christoph Probst was transferred from Munich to Strasbourg, then to Innsbruck. He met Hans Scholl in spring 1941 through his friend Alexander Schmorell. Probst took part in the meetings of the White Rose group during occasional visits to Munich. Since he already had a family, he did not involve himself in the dangerous resistance activities.
At the end of January 1943, Probst wrote a draft leaflet, mainly inspired by the devastating German defeat at Stalingrad. He denounced the murdering of Jewish population and the criminal warfare in Poland and the Soviet Union and stated: “Hitler and his regime must fall in order for Germany to survive”. When Hans Scholl was arrested at Munich University on 18 February, the handwritten draft was in his pocket. He tried in vain to tear it up and hide it. Two days later Probst was arrested in Innsbruck. The Volksgerichtshof (People’s Court) sentenced him to death along with Hans and Sophie Scholl on 22 February 1943. He was accused of drafting an unpublished leaflet and listening to English radio stations. Christoph Probst was executed in the Munich-Stadelheim prison.