Timeline: February 18, 1943
8 am: Sophie Scholl skips Professor Gerlach’s physics class.
8:30-9:00 am: Hans and Sophie Scholl arise and eat breakfast. Unlike most mornings, Wilhelm Geyer does not join them.
9:30 am: Mail is delivered to the garden house of Franz-Joseph-Strasse 13, where the Scholl siblings have two rooms.
10 am: Gisela Schertling, Traute Lafrenz, and Willi Graf attend Professor Kurt Huber’s lecture.
10:30 am: Hans and Sophie Scholl leave for the university, carrying between 1500-1800 leaflets in a suitcase and briefcase. They stop at the Siegestor [Arch of Triumph] to bid Alexander Schmorell good-bye. He plans to leave for Russia after the scattering operation is complete.
Also around 10:30 am: Wilhelm Geyer meets with a painter and potential customer who is interested in purchasing one of his banned paintings. The meeting is in Stuttgart. The painting is entitled The Guardian Angel.
Between 10:45 and 11:30 am:
Willi Graf and Traute Lafrenz leave Professor Huber’s class about 15 minutes before the lecture ends. They must travel across town to get to Professor Bumke’s class in the Nervenklinik. They run into Hans and Sophie Scholl.
Willi Graf asks Hans Scholl if he would be joining them at Professor Bumke’s lecture. Hans Scholl says no. The four friends make plans to meet up later that afternoon.
Sophie Scholl sees a friend from Ulm. Hans Scholl sees several uniformed medical students he knows.
While Alexander Schmorell stands watch outside the university building, Hans and Sophie Scholl distribute most of the leaflets by stacking them in front of classrooms. They even place stacks of leaflets at the rear entrance to the university on Amalienstrasse, but then re-enter the university building. [The original plan had been to exit through the Amalienstrasse doors before lectures ended.]
Hans and Sophie Scholl go downstairs to place more leaflets. Then, although students are beginning to leave classes and the Lichthof is hardly empty, they head back up to the top floor to throw leaflets down from the balustrade.
In the streetcar on the way to Professor Bumke’s class, Traute Lafrenz and Willi Graf express their discomfort at the encounter with Hans and Sophie Scholl. They fear the worst.
Shortly before 11 am, Jakob Schmid (janitor) sees the Scholls throwing the leaflets over the balustrade and starts up the stairs after them.
Hans and Sophie Scholl see Jakob Schmid approaching. Sophie Scholl quickly hides the key to Manfred Eickemeyer’s studio in an ottoman in Room 238 - likely the women’s restroom. Hans Scholl does not dispose of the incriminating evidence in his pocket: Christoph Probst’s leaflet draft; several folded copies of the leaflets they had distributed that morning; and, cigarette coupons directly traceable to Wilhelm Geyer and his family. Hans and Sophie Scholl make no attempt to escape through the back entrance, but rather stand and wait for Jakob Schmid to reach them.
Jakob Schmid takes Hans and Sophie Scholl to Häfner’s office, and the Gestapo is called. Häfner was a trustee of the university. Apparently initial steps to lock down the university are put in place by Häfner, but not fully implemented until Gestapo agent Robert Mohr arrived a few minutes later.
Hans Scholl tries to destroy Christoph Probst’s leaflet by tearing it up into little pieces and throwing it on the floor. Jakob Schmid observes Hans Scholl’s action, calls this to the attention of the agent who is frisking Hans Scholl, and the pieces are collected as evidence.
Otl Aicher goes to the Scholls’ apartment as arranged to meet them for lunch. He finds it locked up, so leaves.
Leo Samberger is in an upper-level law course and hears the commotion. He learns that - to him as yet unknown - students had done something with leaflets. Police presence everywhere. He suspects these are the same students who had mailed him seditious leaflets only two days earlier.
Professor Huber witnesses the turmoil. He makes eye contact with his sister-in-law, a student at the university. Later he tells her that he had been afraid that Hans Scholl’s recklessness and drug use would result in something like this. He too is trapped by the lockdown.
Katharina Schüddekopf is working in a Neo-Latin Romance seminar when someone whispers to the class about the arrests. They mistakenly state that two males and one female had been taken into custody, and Katharina knows exactly who those friends are.
Anneliese Graf, Willi Graf’s sister, sees the leaflets and recalls statements her brother had made about “the necessity of risking a visible protest.” In a flash of clarity, she knows who authored the leaflets and who was behind the operation.
Traute Lafrenz and Willi Graf can hardly concentrate on Professor Bumke’s lecture. She tells someone that Willi usually sleeps through Bumke’s class, but that day he is restless.
11:30 am: Gestapo agent Robert Mohr arrives at the university. Initial, undocumented interrogation begins. The university is locked down.
Shortly after 11:30 am: The Gestapo begins its search of the Scholls’ apartment. Otl Aicher returns to the apartment and is immediately taken into custody. He remains at the apartment during the Gestapo’s search.
12 noon: Alexander Schmorell shows up at Lilo Ramdohr’s apartment and tells her what happened. She had known in advance what the Scholls and Alexander were planning and had counseled Alexander against participating in the scheme.
Shortly after noon: Professor Richard Harder’s extraordinarily accurate psychological profile of the White Rose writers arrives at Gestapo headquarters.
Also shortly after noon: Hans and Sophie Scholl are led away from the university. Hans sees Gisela Schertling and calls out to her. The Gestapo mistakenly thinks he is addressing a student named Count Karl von Metternich and arrests him on the spot.
Before 1 pm: The university rector (Wüst) appears to the students waiting inside the locked-down university and tells them what has happened. His announcement of the arrest of these “criminals” is met with applause.
1 pm - 1:30 pm:
Professor Bumke’s lecture ends. Willi Graf returns to the barracks instead of to his private room. Traute Lafrenz heads to the Scholls’ apartment. She does not go inside.
The first batch of students are released from lock-down. Among them is Gisela Schertling. She goes to the Scholls’ apartment and is immediately taken into custody, and from there to Gestapo headquarters. Otl Aicher is still “in custody”, but remains inside the apartment.
Jakob Schmid gives his statement to Gestapo agent Schmauβ.
The first interrogations of Hans and Sophie Scholl, as well as of Gisela Schertling, begin.
Eugen Grimminger’s secretary Tilly Hahn shows up at the Scholls’ apartment, bearing a new duplicating machine for their use in producing leaflets. She is warned not to go inside by a female student (Traute Lafrenz?).
The Gestapo in Ulm goes to the Scholls’ residence. At this time, they only collect correspondence and do not perform a thorough search. They do not tell the parents or Inge Scholl about the arrests.
2 pm: Alexander Schmorell calls Josef Söhngen to warn him about Hans Scholl’s arrest.
2:15 - 3:15 pm:
Alexander Schmorell visits his Bulgarian friend Nikolay Daniel Nikolaeff-Hamazaspian. Alexander is wearing a gray coat and carrying a briefcase.
Alexander Schmorell leaves Nikolay’s room, determined to find Hans Scholl. He goes to the Scholls’ apartment. While he is still in the passageway between the main house and the “garden house” where the Scholl siblings live, a stranger warns him about Gestapo agents who are searching the Scholls’ apartment.
Alexander Schmorell returns to Nikolay’s room. They discuss possible escape routes, including Bulgarian connections in Berlin. Nikolay goes grocery shopping and gives Alexander his passport, a jacket, and supplies for his escape.
Alexander Schmorell then goes to Lilo Ramdohr’s apartment. Lilo calls on her neighbor Miele Roters to insert Alexander’s photograph in Nikolay’s passport and to forge a seal so the passport appears genuine.
Gestapo agent Robert Mohr nearly releases Hans and Sophie Scholl. Reichstudentenführer tells Gestapo agent Robert Mohr about his conversation with Sophie Scholl and warns Mohr against doing anything to harm a German student. [That is, he advocates on Sophie Scholl’s behalf.]
3:15 pm: Alexander Schmorell calls Willi Graf and asks to meet up with him.
3:45 pm: Alexander Schmorell and Willi Graf meet. Together they try to call Hans Scholl.
4 pm: University lock-down is lifted.
Shortly after 4 pm: Willi Graf travels to the Munich suburb of Pasing to have dinner with his cousins, the Luible family.
4 pm - 5 pm:
The Gestapo starts bringing evidence from the Scholls’ apartment back to headquarters. Most notably, they have the typewriters.
Gestapo completes the search of the Scholls’ apartment. They bring the remaining evidence back to headquarters.
Otl Aicher is also transported to Gestapo headquarters. Otl has no idea what has transpired.
When Otl Aicher is led into the Wittelsbacher Palais (Gestapo headquarters in Munich), he briefly sees Hans Scholl.
Gestapo agent Eduard Geith, who had overseen the search of the Scholls’ apartment, advises Gestapo agent Robert Mohr about the damning evidence they had uncovered.
6 pm: There is a break for supper, and interrogations are paused. Hans and Sophie Scholl are also provided a meal.
After 6 pm: Sophie Scholl meets Else Gebel for the first time. [Else Gebel was likely a Gestapo mole, as she shows up in prison cells of the more “dangerous” female prisoners.]
6:30 pm: Count Karl von Metternich is released, after having sufficiently proved his impeccable NSDAP credentials.
6:30 pm - 10:00 pm:
Gerhard Feuerle is arrested under suspicion of having created the tin templates used in the White Rose graffiti campaigns.
The Gestapo shows up at Wilhelm Geyer’s house in Ulm to take him into custody. He is still in Stuttgart
Willi Graf eats supper with the Luible family. He asks them about new contacts who may be amenable to ideas of resistance.
10:00 pm - 11:45 pm:
The Gestapo searches Willi Graf’s private room at Maria Lösch’s home.
Gestapo agents piece together the torn fragments from Christoph Probst’s unpublished leaflet.
Shortly before midnight, Inge Scholl appears at the Geyers’ door. She asks Clara Geyer to request that her husband take the first train to Munich the next morning to deliver a message to Hans and Sophie Scholl. This message was Hans Hirzel’s “warning” about a mutual friend who was double agent for Gestapo. Wilhelm Geyer was to tell Sophie Scholl, Machtstaat und Utopie [Dictatorship and Utopia]. Hans Hirzel had made this urgent request of Inge Scholl the day before, on February 17. Inge does not know what the message means, but she assumes it is related to the Gestapo’s search of their home in Ulm.
Wilhelm Geyer arrives home.
Anneliese Graf is arrested and held by Gestapo agents Grimm and Müller until her brother returns.
Midnight: Willi Graf comes home. He and his sister Anneliese Graf are transported to Wittelsbacher Palais for the start of their Gestapo interrogations. Their friend and landlady Maria Lösch must watch as they are loaded into the police transport.