She was executed for her non-violent activities by the National Socialist regime during the Second World War.
While the later film Sophie Scholl – Die letzten Tage (2005) deals with the last days of Sophie Scholl from her own perspective, Percy Adlon looked at her last five days from the perspective of Else Gebel, a Christian socialist imprisoned with her.
The film is focused on the women's situation, exhaustion and relationship, and not on the Gestapo interrogations and the court process.
The Lexikon des internationalen Films [de] noted: "Strict, reserved and detached, a character study in the style of a psychological chamber play that does without narrative embellishment and spectacular dramatisation."
")[1] The journal Cinema [de] described the film as a "brittle chamber play in pale colours" ("... sprödes Kammerspiel in bleichen Farben").