"What the White Rose emphasized was not the protest of isolated individuals but rather the protest of persons whose relationship with God and sacred community is always prior to their relationship with the state. It is this that provides a transcendent basis for judging the demands of the state. For individualism, without such a grounding in a higher relationship, can just as easily be the basis of a criminal’s resistance to a lawful regime as it can be the basis of the resistance of a moral hero to a criminal regime. The first White Rose leaflet established the roots of individual opposition in communal grounds: “Therefore, every individual, conscious of his responsibility as a member of Christian and Western civilization, must defend himself as best he can at this late hour, he must work against the scourges of mankind . . . forestall the spread of this atheistic war machine before it is too late . . .”"