The group of friends experiments with other ways of expressing their opposition as well: Hans Scholl, Alexander Schmorell and Willi Graf paint slogans of freedom on walls across Munich during three nights in February 1943. Alexander Schmorell has fabricated a stencil (25 x 15 cm) for the purpose and the slogans are painted with black tar coal. They write “Freedom” and “Down with Hitler” in large letters on the entrance to the university several times on 04 and 09 February 1943. The slogan “Mass murderer Hitler” and crossed-out swastikas appear on buildings around the central areas of Marienplatz and Viktualienmarkt on 16 February. The slogans are applied to about 30 different facades. The Gestapo has them removed immediately, but not always entirely successfully.
Alexander Schmorell stated after his arrest that these activities were meant to “address the masses mainly”, something that was not as easily possible in distributing printed leaflets.
The leaflets remain the central activity that the resistance of the White Rose is famous and remembered for.
(Image: wall inscription reading “Down with Hitler” on the facade of Munich’s university library on Ludwigstraße, probably taken by the Gestapo, February 1943, photographer unknown, digitally reworked.)