Personal letters and diaries provide an intimate view into the hearts and minds of a brother and sister who became martyrs in the anti-Nazi resistance during World War II. Idealistic, serious, and sensible, Hans and Sophie Scholl joined the Hitler Youth with youthful and romantic enthusiasm. But as Hitler's grip throttled Germany and Nazi atrocities mounted, Hans and Sophie emerged from their adolescence with the conviction that at all costs they must raise their voices against the murderous Nazi regime. In May of 1942, with Germany still winning the war, an improbable little band of students at Munich University began distributing the leaflets of the White Rose. In the very city where the Nazis got their start, they demanded resistance to Germany's war efforts and confronted their readers with what they had learned of Hitler's "final solution": "Here we see the most terrible crime committed against the dignity of humankind, a crime that has no counterpart in human history." These broadsides were secretly drafted and printed in a Munich basement by Hans Scholl, by now a young medical student and military conscript, and a handful of young co-conspirators that included his twenty-one-year-old sister Sophie. The leaflets placed the Scholls and their friends in mortal danger, and it wasn't long before they were captured and executed. As their letters and diaries reveal, the Scholls were not primarily motivated by political beliefs, but rather came to their convictions through personal spiritual search that eventually led them to sacrifice their lives for what they believed was right. Interwoven with commentary on the progress of Hitler's campaign, the letters and diary entries range from veiled messages about the course of a war they wanted their country to lose, to descriptions of hikes and skiing trips and meditations on Goethe, Dostoyevsky, Rilke, and Verlaine; from entreaties to their parents for books and sweets hard to get in wartime, to deeply humbled and troubled entreaties to God for an understanding of the presence of such great evil in the world. There are alarms when Hans is taken into military custody, when their father is jailed, and when their friends are wounded on the eastern front. But throughout-even to the end, when the Scholls' sense of peril is most oppressive-there appear in their writings spontaneous outbursts of joy and gratitude for the gifts of nature, music, poetry, and art. In the midst of evil and degradation, theirs is a celebration of the spiritual and the humane. Illustrated with photographs of Hans and Sophie Scholl and their friends and co-conspirators.

Wie kann man ehrlicherweise heute Christ sein und es im Dialog mit anderen Religionen und dem Atheismus vertreten? Es bedarf (trotz Karl Barth) einer philosophischen (metaphysischen) Ergrundung des Fur und Widers des Gottesglaubens sowie eines auch psychologischen, ethischen und politischen Verstandnisses von Christusglauben und Kirche. In einer Art phanomenologischer "Wesensschau" und stets korrigierbar wird hier nach der Idee gefahndet, aus der das Christentum in seiner gesamten Geschichte bis heute lebt, und eine entsprechende Erfassung des Wesens der Alternativen gewagt. Man gewinnt fur die Auseinandersetzung eine Basis, die Probleme differenzierter zu sehen.

Hat die Reformation ausgedient? Hat der reformierte Zweig der Reformation noch eine Funktion, eine Botschaft?. In den hier vereinigten sechs Studien zur reformierten Reformation, ihren Anfangen und ihren praktischen Entscheidungen legt der Verfasser seine Uberzeugung dar, dass die reformatorische Freiheit stets verbunden war mit einem Engagement fur das Humanum, und sie bis heute eine Sensibilitat dafur in aller Offentlichkeit an den Tag legt. Sie setzt dabei nicht zuletzt die antik-mittelalterliche Sorge um den Gemeinen Nutzen gegenuber allem Eigennutz und aller sozialen Rucksichtslosigkeit der sie je umgebenden Gesellschaft fort. Dass auch die reformierte Theologie nie ausgelernt hat, mochte die grosse Studie zum Vorwort der Olivetanbibel 1535 an die Juden illustrieren: Eine Darstellung, eine Analyse und ein Deutungsversuch des Textes samt einer ersten deutschen Ubersetzung dieses von der Geschichte straflich missachteten Votums schliessen den Band. Hans Scholl, Jahrgang 1931, war bis 1979 Pfarrer im Bernischen Seeland, danach Professor fur Kirchengeschichte an der Kirchlichen Hochschule Wuppertal.